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Date Posted: 10:24:28 07/11/03 Fri
Author: Lidiane Luiza da Cunha
Subject: Task 10

Task 10
The Lexical Approach
The Lexical Approach is a re-definition of language methodology built by grammar-based approach. It came as an alternative way to study language structure through its lexical instead of simply through descontextualised grammatical rules. In this conception of language teaching discussed by linguists such as Willis (1990) and mainly Lewis (1993,1997), language production is not regarded as a syntactic rule-governed process but the retrieval of larger phrasal units.
This shift from language structural teaching that focuses on grammar and isolated words to an approach that considers grammaticalised lexis (not lexicalised grammar) is very important to language teaching development but still misunderstood by many language courses. In order to understand this, we need to understand the concept of the lexis. The lexis is, in a broader sense, meaningful multi-word prefabricated chunks such as collocations, idioms, fixed and semi-fixed phrases, sentence frames and text frames. The meaning of the chunks depends on the context and on cultural knowledge about language; thus, lexical approach is also concerned with the fact the meaning also depends on a paradigmatic level of language. This is the reason why the context and the lexis are so intimately connected in this approach. Language teaching, then, should be based on fixed expressions (the chunks) that occur frequently in spoken language and in the discourse in general, this concept is more important than accuracy itself.
Thus, according to this approach, students should be taught as much lexis as possible because, as Lewis claims, the exposure to enough suitable input, not formal teaching, is the key to increasing learners’ lexicon, and these vocabulary range should be acquired instead of taught. Nevertheless, Lewis theories about lexical approach do not explain explicitly how language teachers make learners “acquire” enough lexis.
Many studies of this approach on Internet suggest that learners should be trained through activities that increase their lexicon such as:
· intensive and extensive listening and reading;
· translation from chuck-to-chunk;
· guessing meaning of words by the context;
· noticing (awareness of lexis in language that comes throughout the Observe-Hypothesis-Experiment principle);
· the use of dictionaries and other reference tools;
· working with language corpuses (that records natural and up-to-dated chunks).
Reference:
http://www.ltpwebsite.com/lexicalapproach.htm
http://www.ltpwebsite.com/implementing.htm
http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej09/r10.html
Harmer, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Essex: Longman. 2001.

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