Abstract

Researchers have found it very beneficial and effective in making connections with students’ prior knowledge and experience with the new knowledge that they are about to be taught. There many ways that a teacher would attempt to use experiential learning with students. It can be used as a pre-reading activity in a discussion to explore what students already know about the topic to be taught. It can also be used during a reading activity when a student stumbles upon a difficult vocabulary word and the teacher decides that the best way to achieve clear understanding of the word is to apply it to the students’ prior experience. It could also be done as a post-reading or extended activity as a writing assignment whereby the students can be asked to explicitly relate prior experiences to the new knowledge which has just been taught to them. This extended activity aims at retaining the new knowledge in memory with clear understanding and the ability to recall it with ease when necessary.Teaching vocabulary through experiential learning has other significant benefits which is tied with enhancing all three aspects in the field of teaching and learning: cognitive, metacognitive and social affect. The name of the technique, "Quickwrite", is derived from the act of writing notes and jotting down information based on an explanation and understanding through prior experience. Thus, the new information clarified and understood through a prior experience will be personal and perhaps only understood by that student. "Quickwrite" refers to the study skill of jotting down those notes, scribbling as neatly as possible all over the pages of the literary text studied and explained in the classroom. The notes are in phrases, little drawings and could also be in the student's native language.