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Date Posted: 06:03:45 07/10/03 Thu
Author: Igor AL Silva
Subject: Task 10

The Lexical Approach has its main foundations on Lewis’s (1993/97) works, and it can be noticed that in recent years the Lexical Approach has been adopted by many teachers as an alternative to grammar-based approaches. According to Kranz (in: http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej09/r10.html), the Lexical Approach stands for an approach in which “ language consists not of traditional grammar and vocabulary but often of multi-word prefabricated chunks.” Thus, by using this approach, teachers concentrate learner’s attention on these chucks (unanalyzed wholes from which students infer patterns in the target language), since lexical phrases are a productive resource for learners, either in production, comprehension and “necessary analytical reflection on the forms and meanings of the target language” (Kranz).

In other words, this approach aims to develop learner’s skills concerning lexis, that is, word and word combinations. Therefore, for instances, expressions such as "I'm sorry," "I didn't mean to make you jump," or "That will never happen to me," provide learners with a background from which they can grasp some patterns in the second language.

Lewis (1997b) points out the following taxonomy of lexical items:
· words (e.g., book, pen, pencil)
· polywords (e.g., by the way, upside down, once upon a time)
· collocations, or word partnerships (e.g., community service, absolutely convinced)
· institutionalized utterances (e.g., I'll get it; We'll see; That'll do; If I were you . . .; Would you like a cup of coffee?)
· sentence frames and heads (e.g., That is not as . . . as you think; The fact/suggestion/problem/danger was . . .) and even text frames (e.g., In this paper we explore . . .; Firstly . . .; Secondly . . .; Finally . . .)

It’s main characteristics or principles are:

· A central element of language teaching is raising students' awareness of, and developing their ability to 'chunk' language successfully.
· Although structural patterns are known as useful, lexical and metaphorical patterning are accorded appropriate status.
· The central metaphor of language is holistic - an organism; not atomistic - a machine.
· It is the co-textual rather than the situational element of context which are of primary importance for language teaching.
· Grammar as a receptive skill, involving the perception of similarity and difference, is prioritised.
· Receptive skills, particularly listening, are given enhanced status.
· The grammar/vocabulary dichotomy is invalid
· Collocation is used as an organising principle, even though it is arbitrary and dictated by linguistic convention. It is "the readily observable phenomenon whereby certain words co-occur in natural text with greater than random frequency" (Lewis, 1997a, p. 8).
· Successful language is a wider concept than accurate language
· The Observe-Hypothesise-Experiment cycle replaces the Present-Practice-produce paradigm
· Most importantly, language consists of grammaticalised lexis - not lexicalised grammar
· Lexis is the basis of language.
· Lexis is misunderstood in language teaching because of the assumption that grammar is the basis of language and that mastery of the grammatical system is a prerequisite for effective communication.
· One of the central organizing principles of any meaning-centered syllabus should be lexis.

Besides, according to Nattinger (1980), teachers should use activities to develop learners' knowledge of lexical chains. Some of these activities are the following:
· Intensive and extensive listening and reading in the target language.
· First and second language comparisons and translation—carried out chunk-for-chunk, rather than word-for-word—aimed at raising language awareness.
· Repetition and recycling of activities, such as summarizing a text orally one day and again a few days later to keep words and expressions that have been learned active.
· Guessing the meaning of vocabulary items from context.
· Noticing and recording language patterns and collocations.
· Working with dictionaries and other reference tools.
· Working with language corpuses created by the teacher for use in the classroom or accessible on the Internet—such as the British National Corpus (http://thetis.bl.uk/BNCbib) or COBUILD Bank of English (http://titania.cobuild.collins.co.uk)—to research word partnerships, preposition usage, style, and so on.


In sum, the lexical approach is concerned to teaching chunks (word and word combinations) instead of vocabulary, and it also aims at a communicative approach, trying to make learner’s deal with the real target language.

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