Enlivening pedagogical practices in EFL grammar classrooms based on Kolb's four- facet- model

Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) is one among several theories and models that have been raised in order to understand students' various learning styles. This theory postulates creating a learning environment that makes it easier for students to link their prior knowledge to real-life situations; allowing them to transfer what they learned in one context to another by applying their new experiences to real-life situations. The present study investigated the impact of Kolb's experiential learning theory to enliven pedagogical practices in EFL grammar classrooms at the English Language Department, College of Humanities, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, KSA. A need has been felt to adopt such pedagogical practices and suitable teaching methodologies that might motivate students to learn according to their different individual learning styles. This objective was implemented in this study by exploring learners' different learning styles that facilitated the modeling of the content in a way that created a creative, live and authentic relationship between learners and the learning environment. The study sampled a total of sixty EFL students who were divided equally between control and experimental groups. The experimental group received teaching through Kolb's four facet cycle, while the control group was taught according to the conventional teaching method. A t-test was used to measure the difference between the mean scores of both the control and experimental groups. Significance of the difference between the mean of both groups was tested at a 0.05 level. Results of the post-test proved the improvement of the experimental group class interaction in grammar skills due to the application of the experiential learning as an innovative teaching/learning method, taking into consideration the learners' learning preferences.