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Joliene Adams is a combined EFL, movement, outdoor, art, and cooking instructor at The English Academy, Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile). She holds an MA in Linguistics with a Language Teaching Specialization and an MA in Comparative Literature. She has taught and/or interned in: EFL, ESL, Spanish as a Foreign Language, and Pacific Northwest language Ichishkíin-Sahaptin classrooms and conversation groups as well as having instructed: yoga, rock climbing, soccer, gymnastics, aerobics to the elderly in Cuba, and served as recreation leader to at-risk youth in El Alto, Bolivia. 

March 2018 I accept a job on the most remote inhabited island of the world. April 2018 I ask myself: buy a camera or a surf-board? May 2018 I say sorry and my best approximation of “dang nabbit” in Spanish to a half dozen people in the Santiago, Chile airport, sporting a 8” surf board across my 5’1/4” frame. How did I arrive to my clumsy conclusion? This realization: a camera will put something between others and me. A surf board will put us alongside. Shortly put: community.

Active in movement/mindfulness activities wherever I go, it’s a method to engage and find community in new places. This fosters language engagement opportunities and opens friendship portals. The language teacher in me eventually asked if I could invite the same spirit, benefits, and community of yoga, mindfulness, and movement (YMM) practices into classrooms. Research shows I am not alone. Language programs implementing movement, meditation, yoga and sports, plus academic articles on the topic, can be found below.

Yoga, Language Learning, Community
I currently teach 90-minute yoga sessions in English to Spanish and Rapa Nui speakers plus 20-30 minute sessions either at the beginning or end of normal 90-minute class sessions. Forget whether or not you can touch your toes. There are many small ways to integrate YMM. A little bit goes a long way. A short list of benefits and applications of YMM in language classrooms follows.

Benefits:

1) Fosters community:
Sharing in healthy, revitalizing practices with others typically cultivates positive feelings and bonds with others. YMM also reduces anxiety, cultivates groundedness, and supports levity. These qualities promote a presence of mind and effervescence of spirit that create an ideal learning climate.

2) Healthy competition:
In language learning, comparing one’s abilities to another’s is counter-productive. You can tell students this. Yoga and meditation, however, set students up to internalize rather than intellectualize the irrelevance of such comparisons. This lesson readily translates off the mat.

3) Visualization:
Many renowned professional athletes practice visualization and meditation (Ratey and Hagerman, 2013, p. 8). This is a skill I do not often hear mentioned as a language learning tool. Yoga and meditation provide natural opportunities to encourage such a practice, as well as the frame of mind from which to visualize language encounters.

4) Experience and Reflection:
We learn somewhat by experience but far more by reflecting on experience. YMM relates twofold: 1) the actual practice promotes a contemplative state of mind; 2) extension activities, such as written reflections on or oral discussions on the practice, can follow.

Applications:

1) Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening:
Bringing YMM into a class fosters listening. Providing vocabulary and commands before-hand and during (oral and written) scaffolds the oncoming listening portion for students. Please see #4 above for more on this topic.

2) Vocabulary, Grammar:
Body vocabulary, prepositions, phrasal verbs, commands, following instructions are all readily available through YMM instruction. Pre-teaching vocabulary and recycling it across lessons also allows one to build more complex grammatical structures across sessions.

3) Culture:
One can also creatively adapt poses and sequences to fit unit themes or the surrounding environment. Living in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as I do, I often describe the breath as ebb and flow of the ocean, spinal movements as a wave, and “warrior pose” becomes “surfer pose.” This relates to the student’s environment, provides tools to articulate their world, and can be adapted to other place-based contexts.

4) Differentiation, Personalization:
YMM promotes individual self-expression. In some classes, for example, I ask students who their favorite superhero is before class. They then create a representative pose. With two words: “superhero pose,” students self-express.

5) Storytelling:
YMM naturally lends itself towards Total Physical Response (TPR) relevant principles. Instead of commands such as “shut the door” associated with movements, commands can relate to asanas (poses) and pranayama (breath). It can also, by extension, invite TPR related storytelling (Morgan, 2011, p. 4). For example, the surfer is on the board and paddles (stomach down on mat, “paddling”), now the pop up (cobra to up-dog pose) into surfer pose (warrior pose), but “oh no! a shark is coming!” (back to stomach on ground but with arms over head in a fin shape).

Closing:

To turn it back to you: a healthy, happy classroom behooves a healthy, happy teacher. The same goes for students. Even if yoga and meditation do not take place in your classroom, consider trying a 10-20 minute practice at home. Google “Yoga for Teachers” and you’ll find more than one result. Please see the Activity of the Week for a guided at-home practice to try this all out. Morgan (2011) mentions one small practice you can immediately integrate that takes no time: ring a gong or bell before class to signal the transition into focused time, or use it to help students refocus. If space is an issue, you can also search for chair-based yoga practices to suit your classroom.

Final note:
One should allow students the opportunity to opt out, or for alternative exercises. One should also always ask if students have any health problems or injuries before beginning.

Annotated Resources:

Decolonizing Yoga: http://www.decolonizingyoga.com/decolonize-yoga-practice/. Decolonizing Yoga is a website about exactly what it sounds and is an important project. Please visit here to engage in socially responsible yoga.

Breathe for Change: https://www.breatheforchange.com. Breathe for Change is a yoga program specifically aimed at training educators in yoga. They train educators how to self-care and extend that into the classroom. 

ESLYoga: http://eslyoga.com. ESL Yoga is a website with a free starter kit for teachers new to but curious about implementing yoga in their classrooms. The website is also conscientious about culturally appropriate language and yoga instruction. She also has two books full of ESL Yoga activities available for purchase.

ESLLanguages: https://www.esl-languages.com/en/. ESLLanguages is a Switzerland-based company providing study abroad language opportunities for adults. They offer programs that include yoga, sports, and beyond (film and cooking for example)!

• Language PLUS Yoga: https://www.esl-languages.com/en/study-abroad/language-plus/language-plus-yoga/index.htm
• Language PLUS Sport: https://www.esl-languages.com/en/study-abroad/language-plus/language-plus-sport/index.htm

Liu, F., Sulpuzio, S., Kornpetpanee, S., & Job, R. (2017). It takes biking to learn: Physical activity improves learning a second language. PLoS ONE,12(5). doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177624. Chinese speaker ELLs with a basic knowledge of English benefitted both in vocabulary retention and in their understanding of sentences from 20-minutes aerobic exercise prior to learning a set of new words and 15 minutes of continued exercise during instruction.

Machado, A. “This Latina just started the first even Spanish-language yoga teacher training in the States.” Matador Network. May 30, 2016. https://matadornetwork.com/pulse/latina-just-started-first-spanish-language-yoga-teacher-training-states/. This piece introduces Rina Jakubowicz, born in Venezuela as daughter of a Cuban father and Argentinian mother, and now in the USA making waves. While she does not teach second languages through yoga, her accomplishments as the first Spanish language yoga training program instructor at a major yoga school in the USA are inspiring and reinforce the growing interconnections between yoga, languages, empowerment, and community.  

Mishler, A. (n.d.). Home [Yoga With Adrien]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene. This is my favorite go-to resource for online yoga. She has yoga for everything, including for teachers and students. She is accessible, approachable, and a top-notch place to start. She also has a plentitude of videos for beginners! Check out the comments below any of her videos and her positive impact is clear.

Morgan, L. (2011). Harmonious language learning: Yoga in the English language classroom. English Teaching Forum,49(4), 2-13. Retrieved July 14, 2018, from ERIC. This article promotes the idea of a “harmonious language learning classroom”—an emotionally, mentally, and physically healthy place to learn where teachers and students are concentrated yet relaxed. The teacher writes on her experiences and expertise gained from a simultaneous internship teaching in a traditional language learning classroom and one teaching ESL with Yoga to Latina mothers new to the USA at a Quaker Meeting Center.

Ratey, J. J., & Hagerman, E. (2013). Spark: The revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain. New York: Little, Brown. This text covers groundbreaking research into the science of academic performance and fitness. It focuses on an important distinction from Physical Education classes of long ago Rather than focus on sports and competition amongst students, it focuses on fitness and personal improvement/benchmarks.

Reynolds, Gretchen. “How Exercise Can Improve Learning a Language.” The New York Times. August 16, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/well/move/how-exercise-could-help-you-learn-a-new-language.html. This article covers and reflects on the research covered in the above “It takes biking to learn: Physical activity improves learning a second language” article.