Chapter 5
Experiential Learning

With the rapid development of the science and technology, the globalization of the world and the change of the situation in education, language teaching has a broader goal than promoting linguistic and communicative skills only. It contributes to the wider task of fostering the students’ personal growth and thus educates them for life in a changing society. It focuses on developing learner autonomy in language learning. Accordingly, language learning involves a broad range of complex thinking and learning skills, and emphasizes the importance of such qualities as self-direction, self-control, self-reflection and a capacity for responsible social interaction.

The development poses a number of challenging questions to foreign language educators.

•　How might foreign language education prepare students to face the complexities of living as responsible citizens in the changing world?

•　In what ways could teaching arrangements foster the learner’s capacity for self-directed, autonomous learning?

•　How could foreign language learning be designed so that it promotes the development of the learner’s holistic personal and intercultural competence?

•　How do the changes affect the teacher’s professional knowledge base, identity and role in the class and in the work place? What kind of new institutional cultures might schools develop in different cultural settings?

(Kohonen, 2001: 2)

Accordingly, Communicative Language Teaching, Content-Based and Theme-Based Instruction have sprung up one after another. Closely related and overlapping Content-Based and Theme-Based Instruction is the concept of Experiential Language Learning. Then what is Experiential Learning?