1. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute OBJECTIVES You will understand: 1. The theoretical background of experiential learning. 2. The application of experiential learning in the adult English language classroom. You will be able to: 1. Use experiential learning activities effectively in the adult language classroom.

2. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute WHAT IS EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING? Experiential learning is a learning activity that has three main characteristics:  1. It is based around an experience, activity or action  2. It is inductive, in that learners are not told directly what to learn. Instead, learners learn whatever they can and want to from the activity  3. It is learner-centered; it is about what the learners want and need, not about what the teacher wants or needs *While much of education and learning is about product (a test, a presentation, a report), experiential learning is about process.

3. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute There are five phases to the process of experiential learning, each of which must happen in order for the activity to be considered experiential learning. Visually, the process looks like this:

4. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute THE HISTORY OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING Experiential learning comes from the work of David A. Kolb, as published in his seminal book Experiential Learning (1984). Kolb’s central theory was that people learn through discovery and experience, rather than teacher-centred lectures and textbook exercises. This idea about learning was quite revolutionary at the time:  It placed responsibility for learning more on the student than on the teacher.  It made learning an active, action-oriented process, rather than a passive, sedentary process.  Finally, it made educators realize that every individual learns differently, based upon how they process their experiences.

5. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute FURTHER BACKGROUND AND HISTORY Kolb also explored the idea of how individuals learn from and process their experiences differently. He realized that different individuals like different stages of the experiential learning process (given above). Some learners like the concrete experience; some like the reflection and observation; some like the creation of abstract ideas; and others like the application of the ideas to new situations. While Kolb held that all stages of the experiential learning process must be completed in order for learning to occur, he held that individuals may be more comfortable with certain phases. Based upon this realization, Kolb designed a way to categorize the different ways individuals prefer to learn in the experiential learning process along two continuums: a continuum from concrete to abstract and a continuum from active to reflective.

6. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute Kolb assigned different names to the four possible quadrants that are created when these two continuums intersect, as shown below:

7. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING IN ADULT EDUCATION Experiential learning, and an understanding of the two continuums of learning experiences, is now an integral part of the learning experience at many public and private educational institutions and across age groups. Experiential learning is particularly important for adult education because it allows adults to tap into their extensive life experience and prior learning in order to further develop themselves. As a final point on the history of experiential learning, even though Kolb ‘came up with’ the theory of experiential learning in the early 1980’s, this particular approach to learning is not new. It is a classic example of a basic premise about learning being recycled and renamed. This goes at least all the way back to the ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius, for the first version of experiential learning: “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand."

8. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING VERSUS EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION It is important to distinguish between experiential learning and experiential education:  Experiential learning is the five step process we have describe above that a learner takes part in.  Experiential education, on the other hand, is the planned, systematic use of experiential learning by a teacher or an educational institution to allow students to learn experientially.  The teacher can control experiential education but not experiential learning. Some learners are more suited to experiential learning than others; some learners therefore benefit more from experiential education than others.

9. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute The following are some characteristics that allow a learner to make the most of the experiential education designed by the teacher:

10. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute EXPERIENTIAL MIS-LEARNING As previously pointed out, in experiential learning, each learner learns different things from a given experiential learning process. Interestingly, what a learner learns from a particular experience can be either positive or negative. For example, an English language teacher may set up an experiential learning experience around the concrete experience of ordering food in a restaurant. Some learners may learn the phrases needed to order food; others may learn the vocabulary for different kinds of food; still others may learn the behaviour of customers versus serving staff. These are all positive things. On the other hand, some learners may learn that they don’t like any kind of food except the food that goes with their native culture. Some learners may learn that the food they tried is weird or disgusting and they never want to eat that kind of food again. This is the risk of experiential learning; the learner is going to learn whatever they learn, positive or negative.

11. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute IMPLEMENTING EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING How do teachers of adult students implement experiential learning in classrooms? How do we design experiential education? The first step is to look at ourselves as teachers. Implementing experiential learning effectively means moving ourselves from a traditional ‘teacher’ role to a ‘facilitator’ role.

12. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute The following basic principles will help make the shift from teacher to facilitator:  1. EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING IS LEARNER-CENTRED  2. TEACHER FACILITATION IS PREFERABLE BUT NOT REQUIRED  3. THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR IS TO SET UP EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES  4. LEARNERS WILL LEARN DIFFERENT THINGS FROM THE SAME EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING ACTIVITY  5. LEARNING CAN HAPPEN AT A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT LEVELS  6. MAKING THE LEARNING “STICK” ON A DAY-TO-DAY BASIS IS CHALLENGING  7. A LEARNING ACTIVITY IS A MEANS TO AN END; IT IS NOT THE END IN ITSELF  8. AN EFFECTIVE EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING ACTIVITY IS FOCUSED, NOT ELABORATE  9. BUILD ALL STAGES OF THE EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PROCESS INTO YOUR LESSON  10. DON’T TELL YOUR STUDENTS WHAT THEY SHOULD LEARN  11. BELIEVE IN THE ABILITY OF YOUR STUDENTS TO LEARN  12. FORGET YOUR EGO

13. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING ACTIVITIES Here are some of the most commonly used experiential learning activities:  Field Trips: Students go to a zoo, museum, art gallery, park or conservation area.  Narratives: Students listen to/tell real life experiences.  Experiments: Students conduct experiments to figure out what happens when different substances are mixed together.  Simulations: Students take part in a fairly complex and lengthy scenario that changes as they go.  Games: Students take part in an activity with set rules and a set beginning and ending.  Storytelling: Students make up and tell stories based upon prompts.  Field observations: Students go out into ‘the real world’ and take notes about what they see.  Role-playing: Students take on different roles in situations that mimic real life situations.  Model building: Students construct things according to specific parameters or using specific materials.  Surveys: Students survey other students or non-students about a particular topic or issue. *See the full Experiential Learning Lesson sequence on p. 503 of this module’s lecture notes.

14. ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute Complete task journal question 2 and submit via email to jenrjones@rogers.com (preferred) or print and hand in.