Pergamon

PII:

KNOWLEDGE,

SO346-251X(96)00041-3

EXPERIENCE
BRIAN

$mwz,
Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 449.460,
1996
Copyright 0 1996 Elwier
Science Ltd
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
0346-251X196
$15.00 + 0.00

AND LANGUAGE

TEACHING

KENNY

Center for Language and Educational Technology, Asian Institute of Technology,

GPO Box 2754, Bangkok, Thailand
A key question for communicative language teachers is how we get our students to say what they want. This question is inextricably mixed up with the sort
of syllabus approach we use, for, in a sense, the organization of a syllabus
dictates what we do and how we do it. It may even dictate our students
responses to the educational endeavour and their use of their autonomy. There
are two syllabus types. The knowledge transmission syllabus is essentially
an organization of ready-made knowledge. The experiential syllabus is an
organization of people. As such it is better suited to language teaching and
learning being wholly communicative. On the basis of the authors own experience of its use, a simple strategy for the implementation of an experiential
syllabus is put forward in the final section of this paper. Some discussion is
made of a language teachers role here. Before that, the relationship between
knowledge and experience is considered, and the difference between reified
knowledge and knowledge-for-use is clarified. The effects of reified knowledge
on students and teachers, as well as on the school timetable, is considered.
Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

TWO SYLLABUS TYPES

White et al. (1991: pp. 169-171) write: Any curriculum model is an expression of a particular ideology, and then go on to present three educational stances. One view of education is that it is concerned with the transmission, intact, of an esteemed cultural
heritage, while another view is one which stresses the growth and self-realization of the
individual. Yet another view sees education as an instrument of social change. White et
al. (1991: p. 171) associate the transmission mode with conformity, prescribed
canons of correctness, and grammatical rules. This is in line with what philosophers
of education like Ford and Pugno (1964), Phenix (1964), Hirst and Peters (1970) and
Hirst (1974) among others have indicated about this syllabus, which embodies the
school subjects. I will refer to it as the knowledge transmission syllabus. This syllabus is
not loved by everyone. Sociologists of education such as Young (1971). Gorbutt et al.
(1972) and Flude and Ahier (1974) attacked it for its reification of knowledge and the
alienating effect of this on classroom life.
449

450

BRIAN KENNY

White ef al. (1991: p. 171) describe their second syllabus as one which stresses growth and selfrealization and they say it will tend to err towards an approach which encourages individual achievement, possibly at the expense of conformity. A manifestation of such a
syllabus in practice would be if a teacher made a remark such as: it doesnt matter how you
say it, so long as you express yourself/get your message across (p. 171) This is a significant
statement and points up a major difference between this and the knowledge transmission
syllabus. For here the educational expectation is that those being educated actually do
have messages, and should use them. In other words the syllabus content can be provided by them, on the basis of their own experiences, thoughts, expectations and discussions with others. The syllabus here then is an organization of people, rather than an
organization of knowledge to be transmitted, and the emphasis is on the experiences
these people have had and are having now. This I call the experiential syllabus.
The third of the educational viewpoints given by White er al. (1991: p. 171) is characterized
as having a strong political orientation because education - and specifically language will be seen as having an empowering function. But this applies equally to views one
and two and thus leaves us with only two syllabus types. For all education is political
and empowers somebody. The knowledge transmission syllabus is no less empowering
than one which seeks to empower an exploited group (such as Freires educational work)
through the self-realization by that group of the nature of its exploitation.
But we would be making a mistake if we thought that only an overtly political syllabus
dealt with power. Benesch (1993: pp. 706-707) has cited a number of authors who see
not only language teaching but all education as being both ideological and political. In
this capacity the knowledge transmission syllabus helps perpetuate the status quo and
sees to it that other educational approaches are constrained or vitiated. Criticos (1993:
p. 158) observes that the knowledge transmission syllabus does not tolerate experiential
learning, action research, holistic medicine and other alternative ways of knowing and
working. While Ellis (1993: p. 91) has noted that the structural/knowledge transmission
syllabus is probably still the most common in language teaching today. So dominant is
the ideology of transmitted knowledge, that to escape its offerings may seem a penalization. For example, in a discussion of standard English, which he describes as an institutional language and thus a language of power in a way that other varieties of English are
not, Widdowson (1993: p. 325) argues that you empower pupils by teaching it, thereby
denying special privilege to those who happen to have acquired it by upbringing.
In an extended investigation of syllabus design, Candlin (1984: p. 30) points out that
syllabuses typically come in two ideological forms. In one, learners bank received
knowledge as a collection of communiques or states of knowing, and in the other learners are encouraged to explore ways of knowing, to interpret knowledge and to engage
in dialogue with it and with themselves. The first syllabus type is static and imposed
while the second is dynamic and negotiated (p. 33). Here we recognize the features of
the knowledge transmission and experiential syllabuses, as presented earlier by White et
al. (1991). Candlin (1984) goes on to describe the dynamic syllabus in a variety of ways,
and writes that it could be a series of guided experiences, focusing both on what is to be
learned and on how and why it is to be learned (p. 34). But here we should pause for
thought. For if learners experiences are to be guided and focused by a teacher, then

KNOWLEDGE.

EXPERIENCE

AND LANGUAGE

TEACHING

451

doesnt this mean that as far as the learners are concerned the experiences will be somehow debased and secondhand? In addition, if a teacher is to try and focus the learners
experience on what is to be learned, then this does suggest that what is to be learned is
known and even decreed in advance, and is thus knowledge which could actually be
transmitted. Why then are we trying to present it as the learners own experience? Is
this not duplicitous? We pull the wool over learners eyes by appearing to give them an
autonomy they cant use.
Newmark (1983: p. 163) has suggested that a key principle of the communicative teaching movement and an important test of our success as language teachers...is the ability
of our students to choose to say what they want. Now if this is the case, and 1 think it
is, then in allowing our students the autonomy to say what they want, we will not as
teachers be selecting knowledge for our students but will be encouraging them to pursue
their own experiences in the educational context. In discussions and reflections on these
experiences the students may well come to say what they want, and will gain both language and knowledge. But this knowledge will be a knowledge-for-use, born directly
from the learners experience. It will not be a pre-selected and reified knowledge. In the
remainder of this paper I will discuss briefly some ideas arising from this. These include
the relationship between experience and knowledge; and then reified knowledge, the
school subjects and their effects on students and teachers. In a final section I put forward
a simple strategy, based on my own experience as a teacher, for the implementation of
an experiential approach to both language and other learnings.
Knowledge und experience

Kerfoot (1993) describes a participatory ESL curriculum in South Africa. In what is a

radical educational context, Kerfoot admits a tension between the intentions of the syllabus and its content. This tension springs mainly from two assumptions. One is that a
participatory program requires printed materials even though these may come to constitute a new regime of truth (p. 442). The second is that it may need taught bodies of
knowledge (p. 438) though Kerfoot is perturbed by this. She wonders who will define
the needed knowledge and on what grounds. In highlighting this dilemma, Kerfoot has
put her finger on a sore spot. For what exactly is the relationship between knowledge
and experience?
Everything we do is an experience of a kind, and Auerbach (1993: p. 545) has warned
teachers of the dangers of letting learners treat their experience uncritically, as this can
only lead to a confirmation of what they already know. We may note then that experience needs interpreting if it is to lead to understanding and knowledge, and Usher ( 1993:
p. 179) sees re-enactment as a way of doing this. An experiential syllabus allows both
for re-enactments and interpretations as its participants report back to each other about
what they have been doing and the experiences they have had. For an experiential syllabus is essentially an organization of people. Its participants learn from experience and
reflections on this as they investigate issues they have identified as of pressing concern
and interest to them. A reportback provides a forum which allows for both a public and
a self-monitoring of the work-in-progress, and for a sharing of the educational gains
being made. These gains include both technical and socio-political knowledge. And as
the participants, working in groups, use a great deal of language while doing their work.

452

BRIANKENNY

the gains also include an Ll, an L2 or even an L3. For the languages used are the vehicles of the participants work and are needed as an integral part of this. In the case of a
deliberate learning of some language point, say a letter to a high-ranking official asking
for a meeting, then this is for a particular vital function related to the work in hand. It is
not for some function which may or may not turn up in the future. So the participants
proceed, and as they do their transactions generate interpretations, meanings and understandings. And this constitutes knowledge. It is knowledge-in-action. Participants may
deliberately seek specific knowledge from an expert or other source of information. But
this knowledge, which results from the participants own work and self-organization, and
is reclaimed by them for their own purposes, is also a radical because active and political
knowledge, personal and useful. It is knowledge-for-use. It is not some sort of pickled
knowledge immortalized in print, or delivered by a lecturer as part of a timetabled syllabus, where neither the lecture nor the timetable has been identified by the participants
as relevant to their work.
A knowledge transmission syllabus presents a quite different view of knowledge than
does the experiential syllabus. Here the syllabus is an organization of ready-made knowledge, not an organization of people. Where an L2 is to be acquired, this syllabus may
range from a choice of grammatical structures, or notions and functions and topics and
genres, through study skills to special lexis, taking in communicative acts and tasks, or
even be a selection of guided experiences focusing on what is to be learned, which will
doubtless be a selection from a list like that just made above. Nor is this state of affairs
to be altered or somehow rendered experiential where it is the learners themselves who
make the selection of items. This is cosmetic only. Of course, everything we do is an
experience. Attending a lesson on the ablative absolute or the Geiger Muller counter are
both experiences. But this does not render them examples of experiential learning. In the
case where a group of participants need to know about the Geiger Muller counter to do
their work, then a consultation with an expert would be a different matter. For a key
difference in all of this is whether a syllabus and its participants are engaged with real
work, or whether the syllabus and its transmitters are presenting knowledge for learners
to memorize.
I have pointed out before (Kenny, 1993a, 1993b) that investigative research can change
passive pupils into active investigative researchers, and that this is empowering because it
engages peoples autonomy with regard to the educational process. Pupils do the exercises a teacher gives them. Investigative researchers carry out pieces of relevant work
defined by them. I can refocus this distinction now and refer to learners, to whom
knowledge is transmitted, and who study knowledge in its reified forms, and participants, who through self-organization and autonomy find what it is they want to say and
also the knowledge and language necessary for the saying. For, in defining what needs to
be done, participants in an experiential syllabus also define the knowledge they need to do
it. And it is not reified knowledge.
The reified knowledge syndrome

For some students, knowledge, as they have come to understand it, presents a formidable, almost bodily, obstacle. They feel impotent before it, and unable to initiate any endeavors of their own until the fetishism has been exorcised. A group of three post-graduate

KNOWLEDGE.

EXPERIENCE

AND LANGUAGE

TEACHING

453

Asian students, on a pre-masters bridging program that I teach on in Bangkok, having

agreed to work together on an investigation of the effectiveness of different kinds of
computer networks, announce that they will be unable to begin until we have knowledge, which is rather like saying we cant begin until we know what the end is. But
which knowledge are they talking about? They dont know. We came here for knowledge, they say, referring to the postgraduate institution, because we lack it and cant do
anything until we get it. Some students dramatically reinforce this point and bury their
heads in dictionaries as if to show that the dictionary constitutes what they would regard
as real knowledge, and that if you want to learn English as a foreign language then the
way to proceed is by swallowing the dictionary in a systematic way, and surely this is
generally accepted? One student, noting that the timetable for the next few weeks has
time available for investigative research wonders if at last a slot might be found for a
teacher to give some lectures on English. Ive never had a proper English teacher, he
muses, nor proper English lessons. I sympathize as best I can and point out that for
the last eight weeks, via a series of tasks which were teacher-provided although studentcontrolled (that is to say the students got to fill the tasks with content of their own),
he had been making great use of English for his own purposes and shown a noticeable
improvement. He agrees, but points out again that this isnt the same as proper lessons.
This sort of thing is tiresome for a teacher. For the student is neither resiting nor rejecting.
All we have here is interference from a different but dominant educational approach.
For one of the effects of the knowledge transmission mode of educational delivery is that
for many learners all round the globe it constitutes the only way in which education may
officially be carried on. Anything else may be fun and useful, but a teacher teaching a
lesson is the real thing. However, one of the lesser functions of an experiential
approach is to challenge the dominance of knowledge transmission on the grounds that
education is something larger than it suggests. So a teacher remains unperturbed.
Meeting the group once more the teacher asks how they intend to start their work. The
students say they dont know. We will have to read some books, is put forward as a
solution. But which books? The students dont know. A doctoral student who is present
as a resource person says that if the group is ever to clarify what it is that is problematic
for them about computer networks, then they will first have to go out and do something
or talk to someone, and that only after that will it be clear what books will be relevant
to their investigations. But the students are not impressed, as the notion of doing something, as opposed to being told something by a teacher, has not been a part of their previous educational experience.
But what is happening here, and what is being raised is a very fundamental educational
issue, which is often exposed bluntly as students engage with experiential work. For
these students are suffering from the reified knowledge syndrome, a direct product I suggest of too much submission to transmitted knowledge in their earlier education. The
students lack focus, do not see the relevance of knowledge to life, have no grasp of
knowledge as a resource, or of knowledge-for-use, and are trapped in the knowledge
they have while prostrate before that they feel they lack. Over the next few days, negotiating progressive teacher perspectives with learner expectations of traditional schooling (Wrigley, 1993: p. 459), the group is persuaded to leave the building and go visit

454

BRIAN KENNY

various technicians and engineers who maintain and run computer networks both on
and off campus. As real network problems are identified and analysed, and ideas translated into acts, so the group abandons its pre-conceived abstractions in favour of a pragmatic approach to the collecting of data, with realistic cross-referencing of this with
information gleaned from experts and books. The group is now generating its own
knowledge and enjoying itself. That this knowledge may not be new to the world is not
the point. It is new to these learners, belongs to them, and is the product of their experiential learning.
Tyranny of the school subjects
According to Stenhouse (1975: p. 6) Prophets may teach private wisdom: teachers must
deal in public knowledge. What Stenhouse means by public knowledge is embodied
in the school subjects. Our private wisdom is at best un-nurtured and at worst repressed;
or, at least, only considered as an extra-curricular activity. The prophets thus have all
the fun. But given that there is so little overt criticism of the school subjects it can only
be supposed that the tenets supporting their existence are generally felt to be beyond
reproach. Let us then consider what a few of these might be.
(a)

(b)
(c)
(d)

That all knowledge is expressible in the terms of a school

any knowledge that isnt identified with a school subject
Private wisdom is thus a non-starter, likewise interpersonal
That knowledge is always compartmentalized,
being of
some or other school subject.
That what teachers teach are the school subjects.
That what students learn are the school subjects.

subject. In other words,

is no knowledge at all.
knowledge.
necessity identified with

Without going into the philosophical complications of (a) and (b) here I suggest that the
manifest absurdity of (d) as a fact in the real world puts all four of these assumptions in
doubt. Yet school subjects exercise an appalling domination over the education system,
and are a disaster for learning of an experiential kind. For the day is chopped into pieces
for their accommodation, and what is reinforced is that other ways of conceiving of a
school day, timetable, syllabus, or educational way of life, are out of the question.

BRINGING

EXPERIENCE

INTO THE CLASSROOM

Given the popularity and rapid world-wide spread of task-based approaches to language
teaching and learning (Kenny and Savage, 1997), it seems like that experiential learning
- a development of the task-based approach - will also be on the increase. Yet it was
recently said that: Teachers do not deny the value of experiential activities...they do not
know exactly how to implement an experiential strategy (Stern, 1992: p. 322).
Any attempt to implement an experiential syllabus requires a change in classroom perspectives. From a teachers point of view the focus now is on getting pupils and learners
to become participants and to start saying what they want to say. While, from a participants point of view, the focus shifts from memorization and banking to a need to
speak out, and ultimately to define, plan, carry-out and reportback on pieces of work.

KNOWLEDGE,

EXPERIENCE AND LANGUAGE

TEACHING

455

Habits acquired from a possibly long previous submission to the knowledge syllabus
mean that from time to time neither of the parties to this different way of doing things
will find it easy going or immediately rewarding, and there are difficulties that can arise
in the beginning. These will include pupils who want to be told exactly what to do, and
teachers who find doing this irresistible.
Figure 1 shows a simple strategy. In the opening stages of engaging with experiential
work, with people who have not done this before, our objectives as teachers are to establish
what it is and how it works, and to orientate everyone to the manner of proceeding. The
exact nature of Task A is subordinate to setting up this procedure. In any case, Task A
is not something to be learned but something to be done. Neither do we have the sort
of complication that Long and Crookes (1992: p. 43) get into, for our tasks are not
intended to provide a vehicle for the presentation of appropriate target language samples to learners. We have no wish to put any restrictions at all on the language the participants may acquire. Paradoxically then it doesnt matter critically what Task A is, for
educational value here lies in the reportback and evaluation sessions as well as in the
doing of the task. Our aim is to bring the participants to a point where they are
sufficiently confident and autonomous to initiate work of their own. But to get the ball
rolling a teacher is going to provide Task A.
I will describe now a technique which we have been using for many years at the Asian
Institute of Technology, Bangkok, with postgraduate engineering students from all over
Asia, in pre-masters intensive English and also on bridging programs. The technique is
designed to start participants off on an experiential syllabus. After a day of orientation
and assessment, we give out papers which tell the participants, working in pairs, to go
and find out about a word circled in a list of say fifteen words. These words include,
for example, such concepts as alternative technology, gender and sustainable development, which we have chosen deliberately for their relevance to students at our
Institute and to modern life, but also for their ambiguous and disputable nature. But
you choose your words to suit your participants, and give different words to different
pairs. The rubric at the head of the paper says: Come back at 1.00 pm and say what you
did, who you talked to and what you found. Receiving the paper, participants are often
puzzled and start asking the teacher questions. The teacher confirms that the paper literally means what it says, and leaves the classroom. Participants eventually do likewise.

r
Fig.

I A strategy for introducing

experiential

learning.

456

BRIANKENNY

In the first reportback session, sitting round in a group, a number of things become
apparent: (a) that nearly all the participants headed for dictionaries and encyclopedias;
(b) that nobody spoke to anyone; and (c) that definitions of the words were copied down
and are now read out, usually with incomprehension, for there is nothing more numbing
than dictionary definitions out of context. The teacher asks repeatedly who did you talk
to? Participants reply: No one. Not even your partner?, asks the teacher. Not even
my partner, replies the student. In the case of alternative technology, it often happens
that participants treat this idea as two separate words and come up with the proposition
that alternative technology means having a choice between different technologies. Oh
you mean like a choice between a pencil and a ball point pen? asks the teacher. Yes,
says someone: no, says someone else. Well then what? says the teacher. It is possible
at this point that some other participants will come up with their own ideas of what
alternative technology might be, and that some of these suggestions may be near the
mark or even hit it. But a teacher does not confirm any explanations, only ruminates
about them. For a teachers job here is to lubricate the proceedings. In fact the teacher
now starts pushing the discussion in the direction of wondering what participants will do
next and notices that on the timetable further investigation is scheduled for tomorrow
morning, with another reportback in the afternoon. A participant may ask why are we
doing this? The teacher looks round at everyone else, for the teacher is reluctant to
dominate the proceedings by being the person who always has a ready answer.
Suggestions can be made by other participants. In the absence of any explanation from a
teacher, the originator of the question will often concoct a fairly traditional understanding of the task as an exercise designed to extend learners vocabulary. The teacher concurs. For a teachers task is to keep all options open, and to get as many people as
possible joining in, saying what they think. Criticism at this point is not required, though
participants can be encouraged to take a critical stand and this is productive.
In a second and third reportback the atmosphere changes as those participants who have
actually talked about their word with other people on campus or elsewhere, drop
definitions in favor of contextualised explanations including examples. This draws other
people into the discussion as they give examples too, or get involved in the politico-economic aspects of the words in question, which start to be apparent in any discussion that
relates the words to the lived-in world. People also begin to see connections between
words, for example alternative technology and sustainable development; while others point out that words in isolation do not signify anything, but mean different things to
different people. It is possible that someone will say how boring it is just talking about
one word all the time. And this is true. By now, however, most people in the room are
no longer just talking about one word, but are enjoying the larger discourse that grew
out of the task. But having someone say its boring can be interpreted as a challenge to a
teachers authority. Interpretations and meanings are what we are all about. What will a
teacher do? Some participants may indicate displeasure at the person uttering the challenge. It is very comforting if someone says no it isnt boring and explains why, or even
if someone else agrees that the challengers word was perhaps not one of the best to deal
with. But, in the end, a participant, in this different educational mode, is entitled to think
something boring if thats the case for them, and to say so. Different teachers will respond
in different ways. The question of what exactly a teachers authority is in a situation like
this is difficult to answer. The sort of authority bestowed on a teacher by the knowledge

KNOWLEDGE,

EXPERIENCE

AND LANGUAGE

TEACHING

457

transmission mode will not be in place here; neither will the sort of authority bestowed
by obedient pupils. In fact a teacher doesnt really want any authority except that of
being good at the job. But what is the job in a syllabus like this? Hoping it doesnt seem
far-fetched, I would suggest impresario, entrepreneur, or even producer as suitable labels for it, as these do carry connotations of trying to get other people to give of
their best, and of making appropriate and original arrangements for this.
Readers may think I have given a very academic example of a task, but you could use
other words and other activities. It is the procedure, and how a teacher behaves in an
early reportback, which I wanted to convey. Other words might include the harbor,
city hall, or race relations. In a situation where the target language is initially in
extremely short supply, as in Kenny and Laszewski (1997) various realia can be introduced into a reportback to provide discussion. These can include photographs (Savage
and Storer, 1992: p. 191) drawings and video, or sounds and simple interviews on audio
tape. These are produced by the participants.
Do not be deceived by the apparent simplicity of the transactions portrayed in these
reportback sessions, for knowledge is being gained. This includes hard knowledge,
such as how a solar cell works (arising from an investigation of alternative technology)
or how the harbor is managed and its traffic controlled. In a reportback session many
of us may be interested in and benefit from an explanation by other participant colleagues about these matters. But other kinds of knowledge are being generated and
sharpened too. These include things like how to interact and work cooperatively; how to
report events and activities; how to distinguish the valuable from the trivial; how to
carry out an informative interview; how to use language better: and the usefulness of
applied critique and evaluation. None of this is taught, but is knowledge, including the
target language, gained on the job.
Negotiuting a piece of work

How do we get from tasks suggested by a teacher to work negotiated by participants?

There is no clear answer to this, because there is as yet little data about how experiential
syllabuses work, and how topics are negotiated (Legutke and Thomas: 1991: p. 239). I
can, however, describe what I have experienced. A sufficient number of teacher-initiated
tasks provides participants with practice in reporting back so that they reach a point
where they are familiar with each others interests and manner of self-expression. A
degree of familiarity, mutual understanding and trust, and preparedness to cooperate,
are essential preliminaries to negotiating a piece of work. even where the degree of
mutual understanding and synergy remains limited. A teacher may have to judge when
the situation is ripe for the suggestion that participants should now negotiate work of
their own. Following this a number of things may happen: (1) Participants choose who
they want to work with and then start wondering what they may do. (2) A strong topic
emerges around which people begin to orientate themselves. (3) People ask a teacher to
suggest something. (4) An eminently ludicrous topic turns up in an attempt to satisfy
perceived teacher requirements and to attain a swift closure; and (5) a subject is
identified about which some participants want to explain to others who are not thought
to know about it. Of these, (1) and (2) are good; and (3) and (4). which do not turn up
frequently. need talking into something sensible. It is important to try and grasp the

458

BRIANKENNY

motivation behind a topic and a teacher can make a major contribution here by spotting
and criticizing suspect topics, especially those whose potential to become pieces of work
is doubtful. Number (5) above is a case in point, though happily rare. The participants
here have not actually got anything to investigate, apart from assembling information
for a lecture. For they want to initiate others into an area of knowledge the others are
thought to lack. In short, they want to act as traditional teachers, and have identified
their colleagues lack of knowledge as constituting an area that needs something done
about it. The wheel has come full circle here, and reified knowledge wreaks revenge. For
what tends to happen is that these participants repeat lectures and lessons they themselves have earlier witnessed, and gradually become frustrated by the lack of response in
the rest of the group, as a mini knowledge syllabus is let loose in the experiential classroom. Even this situation can provide material for interaction, experience and learning,
but it should never really have gone so far. The time for ironing out suspect topics is at
their period of initiation and preliminary definition, and it is done by means of group
discussion and analysis. Topic negotiation, which is one of the benefits allowed by experiential learning, is a serious matter and a teachers involvement is crucial. An unsettled
situation can prevail for a number of days for what is happening is an unpredictable but
necessary process. Rogers (1967: p. 298) has pointed out that with groups, as opposed to
individuals, for vital self-initiated, self-directed learning to emerge is an issue about
which we know little. But, whatever the case, eventually pieces of work do appear of
sufficient definition for groups to begin their investigations, and these, plus reportback
sessions, bring about further clarification of the work itself.
An experience

A group of six students including Mongolians, Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese, wanted to
work together and agreed on a topic which had been in the air for some time: telecommunications in poor rural areas. The members of this group were convinced that
telecommunications, far from being an advanced technology for use in rich countries,
were in fact essential to an economic development and thus no luxury. The interest of
the group was split between straight telecommunications enthusiasts and those more oriented towards engineering management. But poor rural areas brought them together.
Their investigation over a period of six weeks included discussions with a variety of
officials, planners and bankers, as well as with telecommunication specialists, both academic and in the field. They also went for a week to a poor area in North East Thailand
to see the problems of a shortage of telecommunications first hand. Here they talked
with farmers, telephone managers, and engineers. They looked at the governments plans
for future development and made more urgent plans of their own, They got in touch
with a Bangkok-based United Nations agency, who explained that they took a holistic view
of communication systems. This was a new idea for the group, but time ran out before
they could follow it up. And in fact, the investigation had to stop just at a moment when
doors were opening on new vistas. These included macro questions of economics, politics
and developmental priorities. It also became apparent in reportback sessions that there
was a developing awareness among participants of a possible gap between what people
say and what they do. This included the difference between official statements and
official action, and even extended to a critique of the academic institution itself for sustaining a gap between theory and practice, by failing to disseminate its discoveries and
inventions to the lived-in world, in a way that would make them acceptable.

KNOWLEDGE,

EXPERIENCE

AND LANGUAGE

459

TEACHING

In the end, and paradoxically, I am not able to say how much of value the participants
in this experience gained, or even whether it is a proper example of experiential learning.
But I can point to certain dimensions about it that would not have been present had the
group followed a prescribed syllabus in the knowledge transmission mode. First: the investigation, which was initiated and managed by the participants, was carried out in the
target language English, which was indeed the only language the group had in common.
Second: the investigation generated its own knowledge of various kinds, but also made
use of knowledge and procedures already accumulated in different places under a number of headings, for example, economics, rural life, statistics and communications theory.
The investigation thus integrated amounts of knowledge-for-use, and was not inhibited
by either the school subjects or a timetable. Third: the investigation brought together a
group of people who wanted to work together for some common good, which they had
agreed upon. This required them for long periods to abandon their Lls for a foreign
tongue, and also to control idiosyncrasies and individualisms where these could have disrupted team work and cooperation. In short, these people had to put themselves at risk.
make sacrifices and learn to work together. That they did all these things, did not let the
work fall apart, attended reportback sessions where they verbally reconstructed and evaluated their progress, and were pleased with the outcomes of their investigation. leads me
to suppose that this was a generous learning experience of an experiential kind.

REFERENCES
AUERBACH,
BENESCH,

E. (1993) Putting

the P back in participatory.

S. (1993) ESL, ideology

and the politics

CANDLIN,
C. (1984) Syllabus design as a critical
Design, pp. 2946. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

TESOL

Quurfer/r

of pragmatism.
process.

In Brumfit.

27(3). 5433545.
Quurrerly 27(4). 7055717.

TESOL

C. (Ed.),

Gene&

Engli.~h S~~//uhu.v

CRITICOS,
C. (1993) Experiential
learning and social transformation
for a post-apartheid
In Boud, D., Cohen. R. and Walker, D. (Eds), E.uperience.for Leuming, pp. 157-168. London:
Press.
ELLIS,
FLUDE,
FORD,

R. (1993) The structural

G. and PUGNO,

syllabus

and second

language

acquisition.

TESOL

Quurfer!,. 27( 1). 91

J. (Eds). (1974) Educahilif_v in Schools and Ideology. London:

M. and AHIER,

Croom

L. (1964) The Structure of Knowledge and the Curriculum. Chicago:

GORBUTT,
D.. BOWDEN,
Teaching 89. 67-83.

T. and PRING.

R. (1972) Education

as the control

R. (1970) The Logic of Education. London:

HIRST,

P. and PETERS,

HIRST,

P. (1974) Knowledge and the Curriculum. London:

KENNY,

B. (1993a) Investigative

KENNY,

B. (199313) For more autonomy.

research:

Routledge

Routledge

How it changes

learner

& Kegan
status,

learning future.
Open University

Rand

of knowledge.
& Kegan

KENNY.

B. and SAVAGE.

LEGUTKE,

Paul.

Paul.

TESOL Quur/er/y. 27(2), 217 23 I.

Sysrem 21(4), 431442.

W. (1997) Langmge

M. and THOMAS,

McNally.

Educufron for

KENNY,
B. and LASZEWSKI,
M. (1997) Talkbase
in Vientiane.
In Kenny, B. and Savage,
Languuge and Development: Teachers in o Changing World, pp. 129-140. London: Longman.
KERFOOT,
C. (1993) Participatory
TESOL Quarter1.v 27(3). 43 1445.

I 13.

Helm.

education

and Development: Teuchers in a Chunging World. London:

in a South

African

context:

contradictions

W. (Eds).
Longman.

and challenges.

H. (1991) Process and Experience in the Lunguuge Clussroom. London:

Longman.

TESOL

Quurterl!

NEWMARK,
L. (1983) How not to interfere with language learning. In Brumfit, C. J. and Johnson.
The Communicurive Approach to Language Teuching, pp. 160-167. Oxford University Press.

K. (Eds).

LONG, M. and CROOKES,

26( I ), 27-56.

G. (1992) Three

approaches

to task-based

syllabus

design.

460

BRIAN

KENNY

PHENIX, P. (1964) Realms of Meaning. New York: McGraw Hill.

ROGERS, C. (1967) On Becoming a Person. London: Constable.
SAVAGE, W. and STORER, G. (1992) An emergent language program framework: actively involving learners
in needs analysis. System 2(2), 187-199.
STENHOUSE, L. (1975) An Inlroduction

fo Curriculum

Research and Development.

London: Heinemann.

STERN, H. H. (1992) Issues and Options in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
USHER, R. (1993) Experiential learning or learning from experience. Does it make a difference? In Boud, D.,
Cohen, R. and Walker, D. (Eds), Experiencefor
Learning, pp. 1699180. London: Open University Press.
WHITE, R., MARTIN, M., STIMSON, M. and HODGE,
Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

R. (1991) Management

in English

Language

WIDDOWSON, H. G. (1993) Proper words in proper places. ELT Journal 47(4), 3 17-329.
WRIGLEY,
TESOL

H. (1993) One size does not fit all: educational perspectives and program practices in the U.S.

Quarterly 27(3), 449-465.

YOUNG, M. (1971) Knowledge and Control. London: Collier-MacMillan.