ADULTS learn best when learning BY and FROM experience (part 2)

Personal reflections

As a tutor ESOL, personal experiences allow me to confirm that the theory of experiential learning is the most effective method of teaching adults vis-à-vis. Firstly, and as a student who is learning to teach adults a second languageI often confused by the range of learning and teaching of theories, approaches and strategies discussed and that I am forced to study. Sometimes, I felt it was not only necessary to learn to teach the language, but was obliged to study Psychology social and scientific aspects of the functioning of the adult brain and absorption capacity. While, on an objective level, I understand the value of knowing this stuff, but in the subjective, I found their absorption difficult, the interrelationship between the different theories elusive and their transfer to practical application, problematic. These difficulties were, however, indirectly resolved when I was in the classroom as a teacher. As I was teaching my students, I faced many obstacles. Simply stated, were adults with its own baggage of responsibilities and, on some level, resented the distraction of these classroom settings and the time it took away from their other priorities. To resolve this obstacle to learning, I found myself very naturally leaning towards an approach experientialism, interspersed with elements of cognitivism to engage my students adult learning and teaching process and transform them into active participants rather than passive recipients of knowledge. The point here is that while I found difficulty learning these pedagogical concepts in the abstract, very easily learned them when I brought my experiences as a teacher in the equation and use them to create new experiences. In other words, and as a student, I found that experiential learning approach was most effective.

At the second level and speaking from my experience as a teacher, I discovered that my students ESOL are more responsive when their personal experiences are brought into the equation and when they get involved in the practical application of what they have learned. For example, many of my students are native speakers of Asian and the Middle East and, as such, have enormous difficulty in understanding English grammatical structure and usage of the phrase, given the enormous differences between these two linguistic traditions. When I try to explain to them the appropriate structures, grammar, and sentence an entirely academic and language-based approach, often I lose them. However, when I ditched the lecture-style teaching mode in favor of a more interactive teaching method, the response was more positive. Students began to tell of their difficulty learning L2 and share their experiences on how they solved them. In other words, they began to bring in their experiences of L2 in the classroom and use these experiences as a guide to solving challenges. Added to that, assignments, I started giving out were more geared to implement their knowledge of the language, instead of solving exercises of the language. In other words, a learning and experience of teaching and learning method was implemented and students responded much more positive than earlier handmade.

Reflection declared above and speaking as a student and a teacher, I personally am convinced that adults learn best through experience.

Conclusion

Within the limits of that age group and the issue raised, argued the theory of experiential learning as the most effective. Its usefulness arises from the fact that it is based on proposals by various tools multitudinous theories of learning while at the same time, maintain this learning and through experience is the optimal strategy for the assimilation of new knowledge or the expansion and building on prior knowledge. Thus, and as this test has championed, experiential learning and teaching approach is more effective where the adult student is worried because her constructive use of past experiences and his recognition that applying what was learned, leading to the creation of new experiences, allows for more efficient absorption of knowledge.

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