I will quote the website, then make a comment about each principle from the ESOL perspective.


Learning is an expedition into the unknown. Expeditions draw together personal experience and intellectual growth to promote self-discovery and the construction of knowledge. We believe that adults should guide students along this journey with care, compassion, and respect for their diverse learning styles, backgrounds, and needs. Addressing individual differences profoundly increases the potential for learning and creativity of each student.
COMMENT:  My theme song is Annie Little's song:  "you're my favorite one-man show, a million different ways to go."

Given fundamental levels of health, safety and love, all people can and want to learn. We believe Expeditionary Learning harnesses the natural passion to learn and is a powerful method for developing the curiosity, skills, knowledge and courage needed to imagine a better world and work toward realizing it.

COMMENT:  In 1997 I worked for a language School which was founded on the idea of creating a community of learning...  where every student is a teacher as well as a participant.   This is the over-arching idea.


1. The Primacy of Self-Discovery Learning happens best with emotion, challenge and the requisite support. People discover their abilities, values, "grand passions," and responsibilities in situations that offer adventure and the unexpected. They must have tasks that require perseverance, fitness, craftsmanship, imagination, self-discipline and significant achievement. A primary job of the educator is to help students overcome their fear and discover they have more in them than they think.

COMMENT:  I ask my students to read this sentence:  "I am an independent student."   it all grows from there.

2. The Having of Wonderful Ideas

Teach so as to build on children's curiosity about the world by creating learning situations that provide matter to think about, time to experiment, and time to make sense of what is observed. Foster a community where students' and adults' ideas are respected.

COMMENT:  See the Annie Little song

3. Responsibility   Learning is both a personal, individually specific process of discovery and a social activity. Each of us learns within and for ourselves and as a part of a group. Every aspect of a school must encourage children, young people, and adults to become increasingly responsible for directing their own personal and collective learning.

COMMENT:  I ask my students to read this sentence:  "I am an independent student"

4. Empathy and Caring.   Learning is fostered best in small groups where there is trust, sustained caring and mutual respect among all members of the learning community. Keep schools and learning groups small. Be sure there is a caring adult looking after the progress of each child. Arrange for the older students to mentor the younger ones.

Comment;  I ASK MY STUDENTS to find a local project and get involved.    A great way to increase vocabulary and fluency.

5.  success and failure...  All students must be assured a fair measure of success in learning in order to nurture the confidence and capacity to take risks and rise to increasingly difficult challenges. But it is also important to experience failure, to overcome negative inclinations, to prevail against adversity and to learn to turn disabilities into opportunities.

COMMENT:  Fail faster.   I am looking for your gaps.   this is Swiss cheese English

6.  collaboration     Teach so as to join individual and group development so that the value of friendship, trust, and group endeavor is made manifest. Encourage students to compete, not against each other, but with their own personal best and with rigorous standards of excellence

COMMENT:   work with your partner.  You are my assistant.  When Keiko makes a mistake, say "LA LA LA honolULU" and "RRRRRRRRRRRRRR turn Right"

7. Diversity    Diversity and inclusion in all groups dramatically increases richness of ideas, creative power, problem-solving ability, and acceptance of others. Encourage students to investigate, value and draw upon their own different histories, talents and resources together with those of other communities and cultures. Keep the schools and learning groups heterogeneous.  

COMMENT:  we are building a book of differences and cultural curiosities.   Let's celebrate what makes us different and similar.

8.  Natural World   A direct and respectful relationship with the natural world refreshes the human spirit and reveals the important lessons of recurring cycles and cause and effect. Students learn to become stewards of the earth and of the generations to come.

COMMENT:  FIELD TRIPS

9.  solitude, reflection, and silence replenish our energies and open our minds. Be sure students have time alone to explore their own thoughts, make their own connections and create their own ideas. Then give them opportunity to exchange their reflections with each other and with adults.

COMMENT:  let's take time to write ... you don't have to tell the teacher or the other students what you are thinking.   Change facebook and orkut to ENGLISH settings.

10.  Service

We are crew, not passengers, and are strengthened by acts of consequential service to others. One of a school's primary functions is to prepare its students with the attitudes and skills to learn from and be of service to others.

COMMENT volunteer and your vocabulary will grow.


We can learn from the Outward Bound system...   we can design the classroom to be ANYTHING we want...  so let's try these principles.

GO HERE!   Expeditionary Learning