1. Theoretical foundations
1.1. The object of study For a long time the object of study in language courses has been the language system itself. Descriptions of language that come from linguistics (traditional and transformationalgenerative grammars, structural, functional and discourse analysis, and the like) have found their pedagogical translation in the teaching of specific language areas (e.g. the elements of a sentence, text analysis, etc.). These descriptions, together with how the learning process is conceived (as habit formation, as acquisition of rules, as active processing of information, as an emotional experience), have resulted in a variety of methods and approaches for the teaching of a foreign language. In the case of teaching English, these have gone from the grammar translation method to communicative approaches. This programme has adopted a different view of language and, therefore, a different view of what teaching language means. A fundamental premise is that language is a complex object that serves not only communicative, but also cognitive and reflection purposes, whereby an individual comprehends the world and integrates him/herself into society. From this viewpoint, using language efficiently means being able to interact with others through the
production and interpretation of oral and written texts in order to participate in society. Therefore, in this programme the learning of a foreign language focuses on what it is that expert language users do when interpreting and producing oral and written texts, preserving the social function of such acts. In other words, the object of study of this foreign language course is the social practices of the language. Conceptualising the object of study in this way presents us with important challenges. For pedagogical reasons, language has been traditionally fragmented into parts that were studied and practised in isolation, with the underlying belief that by studying the parts of the system a student would be able to ‘recreate the complete picture’. Having social practices of the language as the object of study implied making a different selection of contents and organising them in different ways. Thus, the dominant division of language into four skills has not been adopted. Instead, the focus is on the practices needed to produce and interpret oral and written texts.
1.2. The notion of learning Experiential learning is a pedagogical conceptualisation of human learning (from a cognitive viewpoint) from which a variety of methodologies and tasks can be derived. It is not a term that can be applied to a series of tasks and activities for the classroom, nor to a method to be followed by teachers and students. Experiential learning is based on the notion of the constructive nature of learning, that is, that every individual is constantly and actively
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