To be presented in International

Conference on Education and Language

2013, UBL, Indonesia

Employing Experiential Learning To

Teach Writing For English As A Foreign
Language Learners Through A
Reflection Project

Adesti Komalasari
Universitas Respati Yogyakarta
English Learning Situation in Indonesia

• English has been taught from the fourth grade of

Elementary School
• Indonesians still become ESL (English as a Second
Language) learners
• They use English passively
• They do not experience English
The Importance of English in Indonesia

• English is one main requirement to apply jobs in most

offices, since the applicants should obtain certain TOEFL
score.
• English is one of the academic languages in Indonesia.
Most references used are in English.
• English becomes a compulsory subject in almost all majors
 Why Experiential Learning?

• It gives learners opportunities to encounter into some new

actions and get new understanding about English
proficiency (combining experiences and knowledge to
generate more understanding)
• It lets the learners share what they have learnt, gives them
opportunities to identify their feelings of the new
experiences, identify more aspects related to their
experiences and show their responds toward the
experiences
 Why Experiential Learning? (Cont’d)

• It gives them opportunities to identify the significance of

their experiences, to draw the conclusion, and finally to
actualize the things that they found from the experiences.

Learners are not only receiving the theory or formula in using

English , but they are also getting changes to understand what
they are undergoing.

Next is a model of Experiential Learning Cycle proposed by

David Kolb (1984)
Experiential Learning Model
Another Experiential Learning Cycle
 Why Reflective/Journal Writing?

• Writing skill is needed to demonstrate the learners'

understanding of the experiences or the courses.
• The learners will encounter difficulties in the writing production
because they combine their knowledge on English and their
experiences or their findings.
• Writing is needed in building English for EFL learners.
• Reflective/Journal Writing requires their acknowledgement of
their daily experiences, the learning experiences, and the
language usage experiences.
• Reflective Writing does not limit their production to any particular
topic but requires them to recall what they have learnt
 The Research Participants

• They were 50 first-semester students of Biology Education

of Sanata Dharma University who took English Subject as
one of the compulsory subjects.
• They were required to present and write some English
essays in a biology context.
• Their English proficiency were ranging from very basic to
intermediate. Most students were not able to produce
English sentences correctly but have adequate English
vocabulary references. Some of them only knew some
simple basic English phrases that they commonly hear in
their daily life.
 The Research Method

• The learners were given some understandings on the

difference between Indonesian and English.
• The reflective or journal writing was assigned after the
learners learnt some theories and practiced in the class.
They could tell anything related to their experience outside
the English class using the lesson that they had just learnt.
• They were given feedback and they had to analyze the
mistakes on their writings.
• They were asked to share their difficulties, the lesson
learnt, and the suggestion of the following topics.
 The Scheme

ACT
This is the Experience Stage,
where the learners encounter
into some new actions and get
new understanding about
English proficiency.

REFLECT
EVALUATION
This is the Sharing stage, where
This is the stage where the
the learners identify their
students get the feedback of
feelings of the new experiences,
their work. The feedback can be
identify more aspects related to
the correction or the
their experiences and show
reinforcement from the
their responds toward the
language tutor
experiences.

APPLY
CONCEPTUALIZE
This is the actualization stage,
This is the stage where the
where the learners actualize the
learners identify the significance
things that they found from
of their experiences and find
English learning experiences in
some new result, discovery, or
a form of a reflective/journal
conclusions.
writing
 Discussion

• The language components that are drawn attention to are:

the sentence pattern in simple present and simple past
tense, the diction (including spelling, phrases, phrasal
verbs, and expressions), and the time reference
appropriateness.
• The topics or lesson preceding the journal writings are
shown in the next slide:
 The Journal Topics

Date Journal Topic Objective

To apply their knowledge on
the difference between
1st Journal or 28th August 2012
Free Indonesian and English,
reflective Writing 3rd September 2012
especially to make verbal and
non-verbal sentences.
4th September 2012 To practice using Simple
2nd Journal or
17th September Daily Activities Present Tense in describing
Reflective Writing
2012 their Daily Activities
To practice using Simple
18th September
Present in a broader sense
3rd Journal or 2012
Free and using adverbs of
reflective Writing 24th September
frequency (describing events,
2012
lectures, specimens)
To Practice using Simple Past
4th Journal or 1st October 2012
Free Tense in describing their last
reflective Writing 2nd October 2012
activity
 The Journal Topics

Date Journal Topic Objective

To Practice using Simple Past
Tense in a broader sense
5th Journal or 8th October 2012 (describing Past Events, the
Free
reflective Writing 23rd October 2012 history of one particular
object in biology, their last
gathering or faculty events)
To practice using Simple
Present to describe a movie
6th Journal or 22nd October 2012 (the plot, the characters, the
BEE MOVIE
reflective Writing 30th October 2012 characteristics of the
characters, and the moral
values)

Their Feelings on To Practice using Simple

7th Journal or 26th October 2012
Overall English Present and Simple Past
reflective Writing 27th October 2012
Lesson Tense in one piece of writing.
 Discussion (Cont’d)

• There are two learners that become the example in this

research. They are Tresia Jawa and Rinanti Nugraheni
• They were chosen because: Tresia Jawa made significant
progress even though she had not been able to produce
many sentences yet and Rinanti Nugraheni produced
longer writing, so her writing was more observable.
• The findings of their journal writings are:
 The findings – Tresia Jawa

Mistakes on
Mistakes on Diction (including
Mistakes on Time
Number of Sentence Pattern spelling, phrases,
Reference
Sentences Accuracy (in phrasal verbs, and
Appropriateness
sentence) expressions)
Suitability
1st Journal or
3 1 2 3
reflective Writing
2nd Journal or
7 5 1 4
Reflective Writing
3rd Journal or
9 5 4 2
reflective Writing
4th Journal or
6 5 3 6
reflective Writing
5th Journal or
13 6 2 7
reflective Writing
6th Journal or
7 1 3 -
reflective Writing
7th Journal or
10 2 1 1
reflective Writing
 The findings – Rinanti Nugraheni

Mistakes on
Mistakes on Diction (including
Mistakes on Time
Number of Sentence Pattern spelling, phrases,
Reference
Sentences Accuracy (in phrasal verbs, and
Appropriateness
sentence) expressions)
Suitability
1st Journal or
11 2 2 -
reflective Writing
2nd Journal or
20 5 5 4
Reflective Writing
3rd Journal or
37 10 12 6
reflective Writing
4th Journal or
12 6 3 2
reflective Writing
5th Journal or
15 7 9 2
reflective Writing
6th Journal or
20 2 1 1
reflective Writing
7th Journal or
16 6 6 10
reflective Writing
 Considerations

• The number of sentences in every journal was not

determined so it is difficult to calculate the progress in
percentage.
• The students were allowed to consult online dictionary but
not allowed to use google translate. This instruction was
not reliable since the researcher was not vigilant enough to
check them one by one.
• The students were free to write anything related to their
experiences, so there would be one or two learners that
wrote anything other than their real experience like song
lyrics or poems.
 Conclusions

• Experiential Learning is one of the approaches that

requires students to really experience what they learn. It
involves their critical thinking, their willingness to apply
what they have learnt and to share the difficulties.
• It gets the students to really experience the learning
process and the language usage.
• It involves interpersonal connection among the learners
and between the learner and the teacher so they can
exchange their experiences from the learners’ perspectives
and also from the language instructor’s perspective.
Thank You