An Empirical Study Of Experiential Teaching In College English Intensive Reading

CEIR is one of the basic compulsory courses in primary college education in China, which aims to gradually cultivate students’integrative English competence and their ability to use English. Students can accumulate English language knowledge through intensive reading course, which creates conditions for the consolidation and improvement of their English language proficiency. However, from the aspects of the changes of situations both at home and abroad as well as the strategies of training talents through higher education in this new century, it can be found that there are a lot of problems and shortcomings existing in the teaching and learning of CEIR course.For example, college students are so dependent on teachers and classroom teaching that they have not formed the habit of learning autonomously; the classroom atmosphere of intensive reading course is not active and lively enough so that students’ learning interest and initiative cannot be well enhanced; under the influence of utilitarian education, students pay too much attention to textbook knowledge and emphasize excessively the improvement of their abilities to take exams; some English teachers still use the traditional teaching mode, characterized by "teacher-centered" instruction in the CEIR course, resulting in the fact that students and teachers, both being the subjects in classroom teaching, are deprived of the opportunities to experience English learning contents in CEIR class; the teaching methods and means used by a few teachers in intensive reading class are unitary and backward, so that the experiential language learning law of "learning by doing" is neglected.Therefore, a new teaching method i.e. the experiential teaching is needed to solve those existing problems in the teaching and learning of CEIR course. The experiential teaching approach, proved to be a useful and valid way, has been widely applied to the teaching of fundamental English courses, such as English listening and speaking course, oral English course, etc. The intent of this study is to apply experiential teaching approach to the CEIR teaching, so as to find out whether the experiential teaching approach is useful and effective in the CEIR teaching and whether this teaching approach is beneficial for the improvement of the current teaching situation of CEIR and the enhancement of students’integrative English proficiency on the whole, by the use of three research methods, consisting of literature research, quantitative and qualitative study.This thesis is made up of five chapters:Chapter One is the introduction of this thesis, including the background and purpose of the study, research methods and the structure of the thesis.Chapter Two is the literature review, which elaborates the definitions of experience and experiential teaching, and summarizes researches and perspectives on experiential teaching both in China and abroad.Chapter Three discusses the theoretical bases of experiential teaching, including non-linguistic bases concerning progressive education philosophy and experiential philosophy, constructivism learning theory, and linguistic bases involving systemic functional linguistics, cognitive linguistics, second language acquisition theory, theories of communicative teaching and task-based teaching. Moreover, corresponding experiential teaching principles and strategies are summarized on the bases of those related theories.Chapter Four is an empirical study to test the efficiency and effect of the experiential teaching approach used in CEIR. A teaching experiment is carried out in Jianghan School of Arts and Sciences with two classes in Grade Two. The experiment consists of four steps. First of all, the pre-test is conducted before the experiment. Secondly, experiential teaching is used in the CEIR class during the experiment in the experimental class, while the traditional teaching method is used to teach CEIR to students in the controlled class. Thirdly, students are required to take the post-test after the experiment. Lastly, a questionnaire is given to all the students in the experimental class and a group interview is conducted with5students chosen at random from the experimental class to collect more detailed information about the experiential teaching used in the CEIR class. Experimental results are collected and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively.Chapter Five is the conclusion of the thesis, summarizing major findings, limitations of the study and giving some suggestions for further study.In this thesis, the experiential teaching is proved useful and effective when applied to the CEIR teaching. This teaching approach is beneficial for the enhancement of students’integrative English competence in general and the improvement of the current teaching situations of the CEIR course. On one hand, English language experience is based on students’dominant role in the learning process. Students like the experiential teaching approach and fond of learning English intensive reading through their own experience. They are also willing to spend much more time in learning intensive reading course. On the other hand, students are the subjects and participants in experiential teaching, their active participation makes the classroom atmosphere of CEIR course more lively and harmonious, which improves students’study effect of CEIR course and is helpful for them to master the language knowledge much better and enhance their integrative English proficiency and communicative competence.