The Effectiveness of Experiential Learning in Phonological Awareness through Minimal Pairs

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Language teachers always look for specific extensive decoding instructions and best practices for students with severe impairments on phonemic awareness and decoding skills. Often, these pedagogical innovations were applied with lesser chances of success to students with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In this study, we witnessed remarkable results of progress in authentic learning using explicit experiential learning strategies. We attained an exemplary high level of success with evidence-based approaches on experiential learning theory and contrasting treatment through minimal pairs.

METHODS

The researchers used one group pre-test post-test pre-experimental research design. Utilized experiential learning approach and linguistic bases of phonological interventions to 30 randomly selected grade 11 students who participated in phonemic assessments with inclusive 10 guided process steps of modular instructions. Each lesson module used experiential learning of minimal pairs contrasting treatments with data analyzed statistically.

RESULTS

There is a high level of significance in the study. The computed t-value was greater than the t-table value wherein computed t-value was 14.75 with a degree of freedom (df) of 30-1=29 and critical value at 2.045. This implied that the null hypothesis is rejected; therefore, the alternative was accepted. There was a significant difference between students' post-test and pretest. The mean score of pretest (46.47) is reduced to 15.33 after the application of the intervention and the variance of post-test (62.53) is less than the pretest (244.88). Experiential learning then was effective in improving phonological awareness of Grade 11 students at Cabitan National High School.

DISCUSSIONS

The results of this study showed significant improvement in phonemic awareness after the applied intervention. Thus, utilization of experiential learning showed a high level of significance in the study. This implied to utilize experiential learning in teaching phonemic sounds through lecture-aided materials and visualization models in every language teaching process. The knowledge gained from this research can be used by language teachers as effective teaching tools for pedagogical practices, which is potentially useful in increasing solutions to severe impairments of phonemic sounds productions in the English language.