The school day does not have to begin only when the school bell calls. It could actually start already when pupils leave their homes, as their way to school could be used to promote language learning as well as physical health. In this paper, we present the development of quests aimed to support teachers in working with EFL learning in an active school transportation intervention. Active school transportation (AST), such as biking or walking to school, is a programme developed to promote more daily physical activity (Lindqvist & Rutberg, 2018), as it has been shown that a majority of Swedish children do not meet the WHO recommendations of 60 minutes of daily physical activity. The idea behind AST is that pupils are given quests to perform on their way to school, to gamify the transportation route and enhance motivation. In the English quests, current EFL research and the curriculum were used to form activities that would facilitate learning and empower pupils by using their experiencesas a starting point for working with, for example, grammar or vocabulary. We present tasks developed to support physical activity and language learning and reflect on how learning English can be a motivational tool in health promotion. By integrating learning activities to the quests on the way to school and using the quests as a starting point for teaching, the intervention can be a way to facilitate pupils’ learning, both in and outside of the classroom.  

Reference:

Lindqvist, A. K., & Rutberg, S. (2018). One step forward: Development of a program promoting active school transportation. JMIR Research Protocols, 7(5), e123. https://doi.org/10.2196/resprot.9505