The Intemexus educational philosophy is based on the principle that foreign/second language teaching should prepare students to interact with other people in a globalized world. This means that it is not enough for students to develop their language skills. They also have to be able to cope with cultural differences, use communication resources like the Internet and become aware of the role they can play as citizens of the world.
In our view, therefore, foreign/second language teaching and learning should address both language and educational goals. These goals can be summarized as follows, to:
• develop the students’ ability to communicate effectively, that is, prepare students to ”interpret, express and negotiate meaning” (Savignon, 1990);
• develop the students’ learning strategies and problem-solving skills;
• help students interpret their own and other cultures’ values and beliefs, thus raising their awareness of their own cultural identity and contributing to the development of an intercultural attitude;
• raise students’ awareness concerning social issues and world citizenship.
Internexus Teaching Approach
Our teaching approach is based on a set of principles that address (A) a view of language and (B) a view of learning
A. View of language
1. Our goal is to develop students’ communicative competence. According to Savignon (1990), communicative competence is the ability “to interpret, express and negotiate meaning”. This ability involves four components (or four competences): grammatical (the ability people have to use the language correctly in terms of its syntax, morphology, lexicon and phonology); socio-linguistic (the ability to use the language appropriately depending on the setting, topic and roles of interlocutors); discourse (the ability to make sense out of a text or to produce a coherent text); and strategic (the ability to compensate for imperfect knowledge of the language).
2. Since we view language as a set of systems that people use to do things, express ideas and construct meaning, the way the syllabus is organized has to reflect this view. Therefore, we subscribe to a task-based syllabus, in which content is organized around communication tasks and on the kind of language students need in order to accomplish those tasks. However, we believe that specific reference should be made in the syllabus to the grammatical component, so as to help teachers and students organize the linguistic knowledge they have constructed.
B. View of learning
1. We subscribe to the view that knowledge is constructed through social interaction (and not simply transmitted). Social interaction refers to processes through which people interpret and respond to texts and contexts in order to (re )construct knowledge. These processes usually involve understanding, applying and questioning information and concepts. Language learning, therefore, is not a result of mere exposure to, memorization and repetition of language input, but rather the result of people’s active participation in communication contexts in which meanings are constructed.
2. This means that although memorization and repetition can be useful at times as learning strategies, focus should be placed on tasks that develop students’ ability to do things such as questioning ideas, making inferences, establishing associations/analogies, connecting previous to new knowledge, comparing and analyzing data, and (re)organizing ideas.