Experiential Learning In EFLT

Traditional language teaching has always been teacher-centered rather than learner-centered. From a historical perspective, a teacher was one who transmit moral teaching and imparts professional knowledge, with the hope that the learners might acquire wisdom and general knowledge, in a sense neglected cultivating learners'ability to express themselves accurately, fluently and appropriately in real-world communication. To solve such problem, English teaching should shift from tradition, to explore how to encourage the development of the learners'language skills and overall cognitive and affective qualities through their active engagement of task or project-based learning activities. Therefore, it has become necessary for EFLT to focus on the learners'participation in learning process as well as their learning experience.Experiential learning (EL hereinafter), a new approach to teaching and learning, has been widely recognized as an effective approach in education and training in the last two decades. It emphasized learning from direct experience, that is, learning through sense experiences. In this research, David Kolb's experiential learning cycle is introduced in detail as the basic model of experiential learning. Beginning from concrete experience, to observation and reflection, then to the formation of abstract concepts and generalizations, to testing implications of new concepts in new situations, the learning cycle has become the most influential of its kind and many others have accepted this model as the basic model for experiential learning.Besides, today vocational education has played an important role in the promotion of the social and economic development in China. With the development of science and technology, people with vocational skills and the ability to use English in real situations are urgently needed in the frequent international exchange. The application of EL can also meet the requirement of the English teaching in secondary vocational education, which aims at basic proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, writing and stresses the importance of communicative competence in real world.It starts with the background of EL both abroad and at home with the purpose of providing reference for further exploration of this research, and at the same time presenting the existing problems with English teaching in current situations in China. Supported by the literature review and related theories to EL, an applied research of EL was carried out in two English classes of Grade Three in secondary vocational school in order to identify the effect of the EL in English classes. During the process, learners in the experimental class are fully exposed to and use the language through sensual experiences by means of visual, audio or other media and various classroom activities. Based on EL theory which involves studying in four phases connected with doing, sensing, observing, reflecting, thinking and planning, a six-stage EL cycle is proposed to enhance the teaching efficiency. Two questionnaires were used to investigate the current situation of students'attitude, learning style, language proficiency and leaning effects, communicative competence, etc. It is found from the data analysis that most of the students have realized the importance of learning process, benefited from it and have a more clear understanding of the significance of learning. The data of pre-test and post-test are processed statistically by using SPSS for windows.The positive result of the research shows that EL is feasible and effective in English teaching in secondary vocational schools. It not only focuses on the learning process, including their affective experience, but also motivates the learners'interest in English and improves the English ability as well as their learning autonomy and cooperative awareness. This research bears some pedagogical implications for EFLT with the hope that more teachers and scholars should make theoretical researches together and improve the implementation of EL in English classes of secondary schools.