According to the characteristics of close combination of professional theory and engineering experiment of civil engineering, based on the general existing problems during current course teaching, a teaching approach of combination of engineering experiment and theoretical teaching is proposed and related measures about course content modification, selection of typical experimental projects, checking method, and establishment and utilization of teaching and research experiment platforms are discussed. Taking civil engineering specialized courses and engineering structure experiment course as teaching cases, the main ideas and key implementation steps of the teaching method are described in detail. Students' gains and inspirations in innovative ideas and professional quality are listed from experiment reports written by students and discussion and feedback after class, so as to verify the effect of the proposed method.