Experiential Professional Development: Improving World Language Pedagogy inside Spanish Classrooms

Experiential professional development (EPD), influenced by Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound design, was integrated in the classrooms of secondary Spanish teachers to create opportunities for them to learn to use communicative language teaching (CLT) through experience. Teachers collaborated with colleagues, students, and a researcher-consultant to design, teach, and reflect on communicative activities. This study asked: 1) how EPD affected the teachers' understandings of CLT and 2) how EPD affected the teachers' instruction. Qualitative analysis of multiple data provides evidence that, after participating in EPD, teachers were more willing to integrate communicative activities into their lessons while still using traditional classroom instruction.