Abstract. The experiencing learning is essential to solve the problem of experience deficit of marginalized students in engineering colleges. This paper carries on the discussion to the ways to train experiencing learning of marginalized students and puts forward the concrete implementing method with the hope of promoting the improvement of engineering college students" English learning ability.
Key words: Marginalized Students; Experiential Learning; Experiencing Teaching; Teaching Approach
1.Current English Learning Situation in General Engineering Colleges
Engineering is the first largest discipline in China, and approximately 50% of the local engineering colleges all over the country have been the principal force of the regional economic and social developments for a very long time (Jing Zhu, 2002: page 6). However, English of the students in the general engineering colleges is in a relatively poor state, and their foundation in English learning is especially weak. In the mean time, in the process of interacting with English teachers, the students can"t effectively capture the valid teaching information, which is provided by the teachers. In addition, the aesthetic information, which is contained in the courses that they learn, is not comprehended well in the process of acquiring learning contents. The deficit of positive experience of students means that the consciousness of the learning subjects is weakened. Moreover, the learning consciousness and methods of this kind of students exert an effect on their self-development, and also will impose interference on the entire classroom learning atmosphere. Subsequently, the emotions of teachers are affected, and also the teaching effectiveness is difficult to be reflected.
2.Subjective Experience
Experiencing, often founded on the own experience of subjects, is a sublimation and transcendence over the experience of other people. In the experiencing process, the existing experience is activated by subjects mainly through the merging and impacting of the multiple mental activities such as imagination, empathy, profound thinking, and perception, and simultaneously new experience is generated.
In education, the experiencing process of the learning subjects should be regarded as one of the most fundamental form of the teaching activities, and also importance should be attached to the experience in learning and the perception after the experience. The theoretical sources of the experience-oriented learning are relatively extensive, touching upon pedagogies, psychology and cognitive science.
In the experiencing process, the reason why the students are bound to be the subjects is that experience is of directness. Generally speaking, the individuals often tend to perceive and experience, observe, and realize things in accordance with their own interests, appreciating and enjoying habits, life experiences and so on. Just as Marx pointed out, "people recognize themselves not only in the thinking and also in the object world with their all feelings (Marx, 1996:73).
3.Subjective Experience of Marginalized Students in Classroom
The essential characteristic of the experience-oriented English teaching is to keep consistent with the learning laws "spiral improvement and progressive deepening" of students in cognition. The "experiential learning model", which was proposed by Kolb (1984), is the model giving the most systemic expression to the experience-oriented learning (David Kolb: 1997), and includes four stages, which are concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation respectively.
An experience-oriented teaching model was explored and proposed by the research group of the author, including four stages: material preparation before class, scene experience at classroom, knowledge induction at classroom, language application at classroom and after class. According to the essential characteristics of the experiential learning of subjects, the preliminary concept of the subjective experiencing teaching of marginalized students in college English classroom is proposed by the author in this paper, namely the college English teaching approach, which is centered at students (2+2+n model or 1 +1 +1 model) and based on tasks, and allows students to "discover" the use principles of language through "concrete experience" and also apply them in the actual exchanges.
3.1.Subjective experiencing exploration model for marginalized students at intensive English reading class
Group activities were the basic organizational form of the "subjective experiencing of marginalized students". The members of the groups were the absolute subjects. There were eight groups totally in intensive reading class, and the composition of a group was the "2 +2 + N" model. The students were required by the author to carry out the words reading and writing checks by groups. Relevant mp3 listening materials were simultaneously provided by the teacher for the students to refer to in the reading of texts and words. The awarded marks were given to the groups, which achieved a progress in reading texts and spelling words. Each group was responsible for a unit of texts, and at classroom the members of each group were required to in turn express their own views with PPT regarding the comprehension of contents in texts. The strengths and weaknesses of the groups randomly inspected by the teacher were recorded, and also the evaluation was necessarily made by the teacher after the members of the groups finished their own presentations. With regard to some difficulties in the texts, the teacher encouraged the students to implement debates by groups. As a result, the students could change into the center of the classroom activities. Finally, the teacher was responsible for organizing and summarizing the language points of the texts, and attached importance to the key points once again.
In the whole process of learning the texts, the members in a group gave hands to each other, and the marginalized students knew how to prepare lessons before class: looking for information, confirming the pronunciation of a word, reciting words, clarifying the structure of a text, dealing with language points and knowledge points, exchanging the comprehension and cognition on text with members, and putting forward difficulty points and problems. This is the most preliminary stage of experiencing learning, namely experience. Subsequently, the marginalized students would make a reflective observation, and also learned how to study, exchange and perceive language with each other, introduce the strengths of other students, and examine their own shortcomings in learning. This is the second stage of subjective experience, namely abstract conceptualization. The subjective position of the marginalized students was reflected in this learning process.
Psychologists Deci and Ryan thought that the intrinsic motivation of students was generated if the curiosities and interests of them were excited and the enthusiasm of the students would become endless like spring if a more challenging, stimulating and independent learning atmosphere could be provided in the educational environment. (Deci & Ryan, 1985:12) students will generate a highly strong desire to practice on their own initiative if they can own a more effective learning way, and hence can become more positive to learn English in classroom and extracurricular activities. This is a benign cycle beyond all doubts.
3.2.Subjective experiencing exploration model for marginalized students at English listening and speaking classes
Compared with the intensive English reading course, English listening and speaking courses are more headachy for the students of China’s general engineering colleges. Generally, three students as a group participated in the subjective experiencing learning of English listening and speaking courses and the "1+1+1" model was applied, namely a group comprised of a student with excellent academic achievement, a student with a medium academic achievement, and a student with a poor academic achievement. With the purpose of mobilizing the interest of the students in learning, the "my favorite topic" was mainly used by the three-member group for discussion. The reason why such a topic is applied in discussion is that the same feelings can be easily aroused by it among the students. The three members were required to collect materials with joint efforts after class. The student with an excellent academic achievement was responsible for managing the usage of words in PPT Presentation; the student with a poor academic achievement was generally responsible for handling the part "my favorite English song"; the student with a good academic achievement was usually responsible for "learning approach". Such a method can make the marginalized students and even all other students in the class benefited. In the mean time, it was found that the students were more impassioned to raise questions and discuss topics with each other at English listening and speaking classes than at intensive English reading classes. In addition, the teacher was responsible for discovering more advantages and potentials of students and especially the marginalized students when students were making their presentations at classroom. The strengths of the students out of language should be enumerated by the teachers as well, allowing them to generate a joy of success and a kind of experience from "no pains, no gains".
3.3.Subjective experiencing exploration model for marginalized students in the designing of examination paper
The students were allowed to make a design on what they have learnt, for the purpose of making them proficient in language practices. This is an extra-curricular extension for classroom learning. Students were allocated into several groups according to the number of the texts (intensive reading+ listening + extracurricular extensive reading) they have learnt and also the "2+2+N" model was used, and each group was responsible for a unit. Before the examination questions were designed, the teachers guided the students to think deeply the methods, requirements and principles of designing the questions and make a work division first. Although there is a significant difference between students and teacher in the design of examination questions, the students could review the knowledge points they have learnt at classroom through the design of the questions, and hence could obtain a deeper understanding of what they have learnt. In addition, they could experience the feeling of the teacher in the design and correction of examination questions, thus making examination a project that they are willing to do.
The advantages of the above three subjective experiencing ways are (1) the students can participate in learning jointly, and share out the work and cooperate with one another: (2) the personal academic achievement has a close tie with the group academic achievement; (3) the mistakes that the teacher discover finally prove to be of representativeness and worth explaining to all students; (4) a sense of competition is generated from the comparison between groups. Undoubtedly, the marginalized students are the biggest beneficiaries in such a subjective experiencing teaching.
4.Conclusion
Through reform and teaching experiments, the achieved results are shown as follows: (1) the change in learning concept, namely the marginalized students blaze out their enthusiasm in learning, acquire a more effective way to learn, and come to realize the importance of English learning; (2) the change in learning methods, namely the sense of responsibility of students for learning is fostered in the experiencing teaching; (3) the change in evaluation methods, namely the pre-task preparation, classroom performance, extra-curricular applications and others of students are included as the items to evaluate the learning of students, making formative assessment and summative assessment integrated; (4) the change in learning effect, namely the ability of students has been significantly enhanced and their academic results have been significantly improved with good learning method and environment.
Also, experiencing teaching has its own shortcomings. For example, the situational experience will take up the time for teaching the students other knowledge.
If the subjective experience can be used to train English learning ability of students inside and outside the classroom, the ability and confidence of the marginalized students in English learning can be enhanced, and also the cultural and self-development qualities of all students in engineering colleges can be improved, helpful for training the competitiveness of these students.
5.Acknowledgment
Fund Project: This paper is a stage result of the Key Research Project of Postgraduate Education Reform of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission "Research on the Innovative System to Train the Comprehensive English Ability of Non-English Graduate Students in Engineering Colleges (No. yjg110228).
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