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Date Posted: 09:12:11 07/10/03 Thu
Author: Ana Regina F. de Araújo
Subject: Task 10

TASK 10


The first linguist to come up with the term “lexical approach” was Michael Lewis in 1993.
Other linguists who have studied its concept and principles have helped develop this theory.

As the name suggests, the “lexical approach” is based on the theory that words, “chunks” of the language and expressions and the situations in which they appear are the basis of a lan-guage. Grammar comes afterwards just to link these expressions. Therefore, the approach advocates that once the expressions are essncial to native speakers, they should also be the basis of learning a second language.

“Willis (1990) has attempted to provide a rationale design for lexically based language tea-ching and suggests that a lexical syllabus should be matched with na instructional metho-dology that puts particular emphasis on language use. Such a syllabus specifies words, their meanings, and the common phrases in which they are used and identifies the most common words and patterns in their most natural environments. Thus, the lexical syllabus not only subsumes a structural syllabus, it also describes how the “structures” that make up the syllabus are used in natural language.”(http://www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/0102lexical.html )

“The key principles of the “lexical approach” are:
 Language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar.
 The grammar/vocabulary dichotomy is invalid; much language consists of multi-words ‘chunks’.
 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.
 Collocation (fully fixed expressions) is integrated as na organising principle within syllabuses.
 The central metaphor of language is holistic – na 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, it is prioritised.
 Receptive skills, particularly listening, are given enhanced status.
 The Present-Practise-Produce paradigm is rejected, in favor of a paradigm based on Observe-Hypothesise-Experiment cycle.”

In my own words now, the lexical approach is interesting and makes a lot of sense if we take for granted that when we learn a language, even our own, we start from words and expressions and people understand us; later, as we understand the language system, we attempt to put words/expressions together and utter sentences. Another aspect is that when we need to explain a sentence in context, we naturally start from the most concrete to the most abstract profile of that sentence which is generally the structure.




Ana Regina F. de Araújo




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