Arianny Rodriguez

The lexical approach appeared in

1993. it was coined by Michael Lewis and it is
focus on the development of meaningful
chunks (lexical chunks or collocations) to
fulfill different functions or purposes.
Lewis said that vocabulary should be the most
important aspects in teaching English stating that
“Language is grammaticalised lexis not lexicalised
grammar”, i.e. the key for creating meaning is in lexis.
For fluent production, it is not necessary to manage a
set of grammar rules or to stock words but, to have
access to a stock of words.
The acquisition of vocabulary is not linear but
branching process, i.e. words are not learned
mechanically but associatively; learners are able to
recognize and use collocations, expressions, combined
or recombined words, etc. without understanding their
constituent parts.
The practice-present-produce paradigm is replaced for
a paradigm based on observe-hypothesis-experiment
cycle; students observe the language in use, whether
listening to it or reading texts, then they make
assumptions or hypothesis of how the language works
and finally, they create it, this would be the experiment
part.
Listening have more priority than other skills.

Task and process are emphasized instead of exercise

and product.
 There is not an specific theory of learning, however,
According to Lewis (1997, 2000) native speakers carry a
pool of hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of
lexical chunks in their heads ready to draw upon in
order to produce fluent, accurate and meaningful
language.
 Learners at the beginning of the learning will try to
organize lexis in a way that allow them to store an
recovery it rapidly and with effectiveness. However,
learning lexis is not an easy task, it is a slow and
complex process which require a lot of dedication and
effort from teachers and learners.
 http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/v
ocabulary/02/lexical.php

 http://www.nspeak.com/lexical.htm

 http://myenglishpages.com/blog/lexical-
approach/