Experiential Learning
Yet another lens through which we could view the concept of integrated skills is the notion of experiential language learning. Experiential learning includes activities that engage both left- and right-brain processing, that contextualize language, that integrate skills, and that point toward authentic, real-world purposes. Experiential learning offers a dimension that may not necessarily be implied in the three concepts (content-based, task-based, themebased) already discussed. What experiential learning highlights for us is giving students
concrete experiences through which they "discover" language principles (even if subconsciously) by trial and error, by processing feedback, by building hypotheses about language, and by revising these assumptions in order to become fluent (Eyring, 1991, p.347). That is, teachers do not simply tell students about how language works; instead, they give students opportunities to use language as they grapple with the problem-solving complexities of a variety of concrete experiences.
Experiential learning implies a direct encounter with the subject matter or topic being studied rather than simply reading or talking about it. Usually there is some physical involvement in the phenomenon as well. Experiential learning is not so much a novel concept as it is an emphasis on the marriage of two substantive principles of effective learning, principles espoused by the famous American educator John Dewey:
a. one learns best by "doing," by active experimentation, and
b. inductive learning by discovery activates strategies that enable students to "take charge" of their own learning progress.
As such it is an especially useful concept for teaching children, whose abstract intellectual processing abilities are not yet mature.
Experiential learning techniques tend to be learner-centered by nature. Examples of learner-centered experiential techniques include:
• hands-on projects (such as nature projects)
• computer activities (especially in small groups)
• research projects
• cross-cultural experiences (camps, dinner groups, etc.)
• field trips and other "on-site" visits (such as to a grocery store)
• role plays and simulations
But some teacher-controlled techniques may be considered experiential:
• using props, realia, visuals, show-and-tell sessions
• playing games (which often involve strategy) and singing
• utilizing media (television, radio, and movies)
Experiential learning tends to put an emphasis on the psychomotor aspects of language learning by involving learners in physical actions in which language is subsumed and reinforced. Through action, students are drawn into a utilization of multiple skills.
One specialized form of experiential learning that has been quite popular in elementary school teaching for several decades is the Language Experience Approach (LEA) (Van Alien & Alien, 1967), an integrated-skills approach initially used in teaching native language reading skills, but more recently adapted to second language learning contexts. With widely varying adaptations, students' personal experiences (a trip to the zoo, a television story, a picture, etc.) are used as the basis for discussion, and then the teacher writes down the
"experience." Students can then recopy, edit, and/or illustrate the story, which is preserved in the form of a "book." A number of activities can then follow, including word study, spelling focus, semantic discussions, inference, prediction, etc. The benefit of the LEA is in the intrinsic involvement of students in creating their own stories rather than being given other people's stories. As in other experiential techniques, students are directly involved in the creative process of fashioning their own products, and all four skills are readily implied in carrying out a project.
The Episode Hypothesis
Well over a century ago, Francois Gouin, if you will recall from Chapter 2, designed a method of language teaching called the Series Method. One of the keys to the success of the method lay in the presentation of language in an easily followed storyline. You may remember the sequence of sentences about opening a door. In another lesson, Gouin teaches a number of verbs, verb forms, and other vocabulary in a little story about a girl chopping wood:
The girl goes and seeks a piece of wood.
She takes a hatchet.
She draws near to the block.
She places the wood on this block.
She raises the hatchet.
She brings down the hatchet.
The blade strikes against the wood.
etc.
In easily visualized steps, the students are led through the process of chopping and gathering wood, all at a very elementary level of the language.
In some ways, Gouin was utilizing a psychological device that, a hundred years later John Oiler called the episode hypothesis. According to Oiler (1983b,p. 12), "text (i.e., discourse in any form) will be easier to reproduce, understand, and recall, to the extent that it is structured episodically." By this he meant that the presentation of language is enhanced if students receive interconnected sentences in an interest-provoking episode rather than in a disconnected series of sentences.
The episode hypothesis goes well beyond simple "meaningful" learning. Look at this dialogue:
Jack: Hi, Tony. What do you usually do on weekends?
Tony: Oh, I usually study, but sometimes I go to a movie.
Jack: Uh-huh. Well, I often go to movies, but I seldom study.
Tony: Well, I don't study as much as Greg. He always studies on the weekends. He never goes out.
You can see that this conversation, while easily understood, clearly presented, and perhaps quite relevant to students learning English, lacks a sense of drama—of "what's going to happen next?" Most of our communicative textbooks have many "Jack and Tony" types of presentation. They may illustrate certain grammatical or discourse features, but they don't grip the learner with suspense.
Now consider another conversation (Brinton & Neuman, 1982, p. 33) and notice how it differs from Jack and Tony's.
Darlene: I think I'll call Bettina's mother. It's almost five and Chrissy isn't home yet.
Meg : I thought Bettina had the chicken pox.
Darlene: Oh, that's right. I forgot. Chrissy didn't go to Bettina's today. Where is she?
Meg : She's probably -with Gary. He has Little League practice until five.
Darlene: I hear the front door. Maybe that's Gary and Chrissy.
Gary : Hi.
Darlene: Where's Chrissy? Isn't she with you?
Gary : With me? Why with me? I saw her at two after school, but then I went to
Little League practice. I think she left with her friend.
Darlene: Which one?
Gary : The one next door ... the one she walks to school with every day.
Darlene: Oh, you mean Timmy. She's probably with him.
Gary : Yeah, she probably is.
Darlene: I'm going next door to check.
This conversation uses a familiar setting and ordinary characters to whet the curiosity of the reader. Because the outcome is not clear, learners are motivated to continue reading and to become more involved in the content than in the language, therefore increasing its episodic flavor. Oiler notes that the interaction of cognition and language enables learners to form "expectancies" as they encounter either logically or episodically linked sentences.
Moreover, "stories" are universal, and therefore students from many different cultures can understand their organizational structure and identify with the characters.
You may be wondering how the episode hypothesis contributes or relates to integrated-skills teaching. Here are some possible ways:
• Stories or episodes challenge the teacher and textbook writer to present interesting, natural language, whether the language is viewed as written discourse or oral discourse.
• Episodes can be presented in either written or spoken form, thus requiring reading and/or writing skills on the students' part.
• Episodes can provide the stimulus for spoken or written questions that students respond to, in turn, by speaking or writing.
• Students can be encouraged to write their own episodes, or to complete an episode whose resolution or climax is not presented (such as the above conversation).
• Those written episodes might then be dramatized in the classroom by the students.
Now, it must be noted that the reality of the language classroom is such that not every aspect of language can be embedded in gripping dramatic episodes that have students yearning for the next day's events, as they might with a favorite soap opera! Linguistic samples like the conversation between Jack and Tony are quite respectable and pedagogically useful. Drills, writing practice, grammar explanations, essays on the world
economy, and many other nonepisodic activities have a viable place in the classroom. But to the extent that a curriculum allows it, episodic teaching and testing may offer a rewarding alternative to sprinkle into your daily diet of teaching techniques.
C. AN INTEGRATED LESSON
We've considered five different ways to approach the integration of the four skills.
The principal idea here is for you not to assume that all your techniques should be identified with just one of the four, but rather that most successful interactive techniques will include several skill areas. It may also be helpful to frame your lessons and lesson plans in terms of one or more of the five concepts discussed in this chapter. To illustrate just how such integration might work, consider the following lesson outline—with skills coded for each segment.
Context: English Language School in Korea
Level: High Intermediate
Course focus: Multiple skills, emphasis on oral skills
Students: Twelve young adults, wishing to improve English skills
Lesson: Unit 7 (out of 10), Lesson 2 (out of 3) New Vistas, Book 3 (Brown,2000a)
Class hour: 60 minutes
Focus: [situational] Occupations, work, employment opportunities [functional] Expressing likes and dislikes [formal] ing gerunds; vocabulary for types of workers
Warm-up (5 min.) (L)
T asks Ss to name careers, jobs, and occupations and writes them on the board
T briefly tells about a job she had as a waitress in a restaurant—how she found the job, the interview, and what the job was like (5 min.)
A. Presentation (10 min.) (L, R, S)
T directs Ss to the opening page of Lesson 2, a full-page advertisement for summer employment at a "water park" in Clear Lake,Texas
T tells Ss to skim the page individually and decide if they would like to work at Clear Lake Water Park (3 min.)
T asks Ss to pair up and tell their partner what they like or don't like, and why they feel that way (4 min.)
T engages the whole class in a brief whole-class discussion of what Ss liked and didn't like, and puts a few key phrases on the board (good pay, benefits, discounts on rides in the park, flexible hours, etc.) (3 min.)
B. Listening focus (10 min.) (L, R,W, S)
T directs Ss to the second page, and plays a CD recording of a conversation in which a man named Jacques describes why he doesn't like his job. T plays the conversation once for general listening ... (3 min.) ... and a second time for Ss to look at and complete the written exercise in the book that requires using the ing form of verbs like work, write, apply, etc. (4 min.)
T asks Ss to compare their responses with their partner and make any corrections (3 min.)
C. Grammar focus (15 min.) (L, R,W, S)
In the next exercise, Ss are asked to "make one list of job-related activities you like and another list of those you dislike" (5 min.)
T then calls attention to the expressions in the book: / can't stand/I don't mind/1 enjoy/I hate/I like/I prefer + gerund [ing form of verb] (2 min.)
T puts Ss into groups of four and directs them to share their likes and dislikes, using the expressions + gerund. T offers some suggestions as prompts (8 min.)
D. Focus on types of workers (15 min.) (R, S, L,W)
On the next page, six types of workers are described and pictured: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional
T directs Ss to the page and calls on six Ss to each read aloud one of the short descriptions;
T makes a few pronunciation corrections (5 min.)
T then directs Ss to reread the descriptions and write a short paragraph describing themselves. Ss can use the gerunds used in the descriptions (10 min.)
Wind-down (5 min.) (L, S)
T asks Ss to look over their paragraph descriptions, and to revise them if they want to for homework.
T calls on selected Ss and asks them about what type of worker they are, and if they like or dislike a job they have had You can easily see in this typical lesson that all four skills are comfortably integrated into the sequence of activities. Some of the models of integration discussed in this chapter applied, but not all. Segments A, B, and C were examples of the tasks of expressing likes and dislikes. The whole lesson was on the theme of occupations and jobs. And there was to some extent a bit of an episode involved in the narrative that Jacques told. A follow-up to the next lesson in this same unit involved students in finding employment advertisements in an English newspaper and bringing them to class and reporting on the ones they liked or
disliked, which incorporated an experiential flavor into the unit.
In the next four chapters, we will look separately at the four skills, but not with a view to programming your language teaching into compartments. The four chapters are simply a convenient way to target the goals, problems, issues, and trends that relate to each of the four modes of communication. In so doing, we will not in any way neglect the paramount importance of the interconnection between and among the performance skills.
D. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION, RESEARCH, AND ACTION
[Note: (I) Individual work; (G) group or pair work; (C) whole-class discussion.]
1. (I) Review the reasons for not integrating skills in ESL courses. Can you add others? If you know of certain courses that are not integrated, can these three—or any other—justifications be advanced for keeping them nonintegrated?
2. (G) Direct pairs to look at the seven observations in support of integrated-skills classes. Pairs will discuss whether or not they apply to contexts they are familiar with. Would one be able to add anymore justification for integrating the skills?
3. (G/C) Ask pairs to collaborate in writing brief definitions of each of the five types of integrated-skills instruction discussed in this chapter: content-based, task-based, theme-based, experiential, and the episode hypothesis. Then, direct the whole class to make a list of various institutions that teach ESL and discuss the extent to which each model does or does not fit the institution.
4. (G) Ask pairs to consider the following: Suppose you are asked to employ a teacher for a content-centered curriculum. What qualifications would you draw up for such a teacher?
5. (G/C) Once again, the term "task-based" is presented in this chapter. Ask the class to define it again without referring to this chapter or to Chapter 3. Then have partners design a task that involves several techniques, share their task with the rest of the class, and give a rationale for the design.
6. (G) Direct groups each to consider a different audience and context, then to design a theme-based lesson or module on environmental action and awareness. As they plan the techniques, they should discuss any "political" implications of what they might ask students to do. Groups will then share their lessons with the rest of the class.
7. (I/O Look in a library or resource center for books that could be classified as theme based. Select one to evaluate, perhaps with a partner. Are both language and content goals fulfilled? Are the four skills well integrated? Will students be intrinsically motivated to study the book? Share your thoughts with the rest of the class.
8. (G/C) Ask pairs to design an episodic activity and share the activity with the rest of the class.
9. (C) In the integrated lesson that was outlined at the end of the chapter, is there anything that could be altered to create better integration of skills?
E. FOR YOUR FURTHER READING
Hinkel, E. (2006). Current perspectives on teaching the four skills. TESOL Quarterly. 40, 109-131.
This article by Eli Hinkel appeared in the TESOL Quarterly's 40th anniversary issue, which was devoted to survey articles in a number of fields, as experts capsulized the state of the an in their specialties. The article is an excellent summary not only of why skills are integrated, but also of where we stand with respect to each of the four skills.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching (2nd ed.).Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Richards, J., & Rodgers.T. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching(2nd ed.).Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
These two books were recommended earlier (Chapter 2) since they so aptly summarize a number of methods and approaches. It would be useful, in relation to the topic of this chapter, to look at their chapters on content-based, task-based, and participatory approaches, and on cooperative learning, as well as chapters on Multiple Intelligences, learner strategy training (Larsen-Freeman only), and the Lexical Approach (Richards &
Rodgers only). View their descriptions with an eye for how each approach incorporates integration of skills.
Sarosy, P., & Sherak, K. (2006). Lecture ready: Strategies for academic listening, notetaking,
and discussion. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Peg Sarosy and Kathy Sherak's textbook series is a superb example of skills integration.
All four skills are interwoven in a book whose primary focus is on academic listening.
Taken from:
Modul Bahasa Inggris
Pendidikan & Latihan Profesi Guru Rayon 24
Universitas Negeri Makassar
Modul Bahasa Inggris
Pendidikan & Latihan Profesi Guru Rayon 24
Universitas Negeri Makassar
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