The Application Of Experiential Teaching Approach In Oral English Teaching In Senior High School

With the process of globalization in the 21st Century, English as a world language plays an increasingly important role in people's daily life. Good spoken language makes it possible and successful for a learner in his communication with a foreigner, and similarly, it is of importance and necessity for a high-quality international talent to acquire a good English communication skill in the modern society. However, the situation of oral English in China is not satisfactory. On the one hand, oral English has not been tested in many English exams. On the other hand, most classroom teaching is teacher-centered and English teachers keep talking through the whole class. As a result, the teaching atmosphere appears to be inactive and silent and in this way the students learn English passively, which leads to the"dumb English"phenomenon among the Chinese students.In order to improve the students'oral English and motivate their enthusiasm to learn English, cultivate their autonomous and cooperative learning ability, increase their interest of western culture, the present research will adopt the action research method to carry out a research into the effectiveness of application of experiential teaching approach in oral English teaching in senior high school.This study conducts a survey and research in the application of experiential teaching approach to oral English teaching in senior high school by means of questionnaire, interview, the classroom observation and experimental methods. Different from the traditional teaching method, experiential teaching approach helps students to experience language and emotion through various class activities, and to acquire new language knowledge and skills actively. The one-semester experiment shows that the application of the experience teaching approach has aroused the students'interest in learning, initiative and enthusiasm to participate in classroom activities, and classroom atmosphere has been vibrant, which eventually improved the students'enthusiasm of practicing oral English and the students'level of spoken English.This study has conducted two questionnaires and two oral English tests respectively in the beginning and the end of the term. The experiential teaching approach has been applied to the class with poorer English, whereas the traditional teaching method is applied to the class with better English. On the basis of the comparison of the experimental results, the research illustrates the effectiveness of application of the experiential teaching approach in oral English teaching in senior high schools.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One is the introduction of the study, including the research background, research motivation and objectives, and the structure of the present research. Chapter Two is the literature review of this study, presenting the relevant theory, including the experiential teaching approach and its theoretical principles, and constructivist learning theory. Chapter Three is Research Design, including the research questions, research participants, the research methods and procedures and data collection. Chapter Four deals with the results and discussions of the research data. It includes the results and discussion of questionnaires, interviews, classroom observations and moreover, the results and discussion of the experimentation. The last chapter is concluding remarks, including the summary of the major findings, and pedagogical implications of this study. This chapter also presents the limitations of the present research and the prospects for further study.