The traditional education model cannot meet the needs of Japanese language major learners for listening skills. Therefore, it is urgent to develop a new pedagogy that can substantially improve learning outcomes for better listening and speaking skills of learners. The author introduces experiential learning approach (EL), a solution that is built on psychological theories and has achieved satisfactory performance in the education practice of some other academic programs. The paper describes the application of EL theory in the training of Japanese listening skills, and the possible benefits of rich teaching content and diverse education modes to the EL method. Combining with the author’s years of experience in Japanese listening teaching in higher education institutions, the research compares EL method and traditional learning method in two groups of Japanese language learners. It is proved that the experiential teaching method (ET = EL) improves learners’ listening skills better than the traditional one. The author has concluded that it is beneficial to apply EL to Japanese listening training in higher education institutions and it will also be a direction for the reform of listening teaching.