THE LEXICAL APPROACH

BACKGROUND
Lexis plays the central role in this approach.
According to lexical approach, language
learning and communication are not grammar,
functions, notions or some other unit of
planning and teaching but lexis, that is, words
and word combinations.
Lexical approach reflect a belief in the
centrality of the lexicon to language structure,
second language learning and language use and
in particular to multiword lexical units or
“chunks” that are learned and used as single
items.
 Linguistic theory has also
recognized a more central role for
vocabulary in linguistic description.
 THE LEXICAL
APPROACH
THEORY OF LANGUAGE AND LEARNING
• Lewis believes that encouraging learners to
notice language, specifically lexical chunks
and collocations, is central to any
methodology connected to a lexical view of
language
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.
Too many items for teachers and materials to present
to learners, ask learners to practise and then produce.
•

Lexical chunks (that are not collocations)

By the way
up to now
upside down
if I were you
A long way off
out of my mind

lexical chunks (that are collocations)

totally convinced
strong accent
terrible accident
sense of humour
sounds exciting
brings good luck
How then are the learners going to learn the lexical items they
need? One of the criticisms levelled at the lexical approach is its
lack of a detailed learning theory.

It is worth noting, however, that Lewis (1993) argues the lexical
approach is not a break with the communicative approach, but a
development of it. He makes a helpful summary of the findings
from first language acquisition research which he thinks are
relevant to second language acquisition:
Language is not learnt by learning individual
sounds and structures and then combining them,
but by an increasing ability to break down wholes
into parts.
Grammar is acquired by a process of observation,
hypothesis and experiment.
We can use whole phrases without understanding
their constituent parts.
Acquisition is accelerated by contact with a
sympathetic interlocutor with a higher level of
competence in the target language.
Schmitt (2000) makes a significant contribution to a
learning theory for the lexical approach by adding that 'the
mind stores and processes these [lexical] chunks as
individual wholes.’
The mind is able to store large amounts of information in
long-term memory but its short-term capacity is much more
limited, when producing language in speech for example, so
it is much more efficient for the brain to recall a chunk of
language as if it were one piece of information. 'Figment of
his imagination' is, therefore, recalled as one piece of
information rather than four separate words.
The lexical approach develops many of the fundamental
principles advanced by proponents of the communicative
approach.

The most important difference is the increased

understanding of the nature of lexis in naturally occurring
language, and its potential contribution to language
pedagogy.
 KEY PRINCIPLES
• Language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized
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 is integrated as an organizing principle within
syllabuses.
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 prioritized.
Receptive skills, particularly listening, are given enhanced
status.
The present-practise-produce paradigm is rejected, in
favour of a paradigm based on the observe-hypothesise-
experiment cycle.
Studies based on large-scale computer databases of
language corpora have examined patterns of phrase
and clause sequences as they appear in samples of
various kinds of texts, including spoken examples.
Three important UK-based corpora are COBUILD
bank of English corpus, the Cambridge
international corpus, and the British national
corpus.
DESIGN
 Lexical units have been referred to by many different labels,
including "gambits" (Keller, 1979), "speech formulae" (peters,
1983), "lexicalized stems" (Pawley & Syder, 1983), and
"lexical phrases" (Nattinger & Decarrico, 1992).
 Lewis (1997b) suggests the following taxonomy of lexical
items:
Words (e.g., Book, pen)
Polywords (e.g., By the way, upside down)
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 . . .)
 as Lewis maintains, "instead of words, we consciously try to
think of collocations, and to present these in expressions.
Rather than trying to break things into ever smaller pieces,
there is a conscious effort to see things in larger, more holistic,
ways"
• Furthermore, collocation is not determined by logic or
frequency, but is arbitrary, decided only by linguistic
convention. Some collocations are fully fixed, such as "to catch
a cold," "rancid butter," and "drug addict," while others are
more or less fixed and can be completed in a relatively small
number of ways, as in the following examples:
• Blood / close / distant / near(est) relative
• Learn by doing / by heart / by observation / by rote / from
experience
• Badly / bitterly / deeply / seriously / severely hurt
Specific roles for teachers and learners are also assumed in
a lexical approach.
Lewis supports that teacher talk is a major source of learner
input in demonstrating how lexical phrases are used for
different functional purposes.
Willis proposes that teachers need to understand and manage a
classroom methodology based on stages composed of task,
planning and report.
In general terms, Willis views the teacher’s role
as one of creating an environment in which
learners can operate effectively and then helping
learners manage their own learning.
This requires that teachers “abandon the idea of
the teacher as ‘knower’ and concentrate instead
on the idea of the learner as ‘discoverer’ .
Materials and teaching resources to support lexical
approaches in language teaching are of at least four types.

Type 1 consists of complete course packages including

texts,tapes,teacher’s manuals,and so on,such as the collins
cobuıld english course.

Type 2 is represented by collections of vocabulary teaching

activities such as those that appear in lewis’s ımplementing
the lexical approach.
Type 3 consists of “printout” versions of computer corpora
collections packaged in text format.

Type 4 materials are computer concordancing programs and

attached data sets to allow students to set up and carry out their
own analysis.These are typically packaged in CD-ROM form.
Activities used to develop learners' knowledge of lexical
chains include 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.
 CONCLUSION
The lexical approach is not really revolution but an evolution as it tries to
develop principles already known by communicative language teachers. The
aim of ELT is still the teaching of communicative abilities by focusing on
successful language rather than accurate language.
This approach challenge a traditional view of word
boundaries, emphasizing the language learner's need to
perceive and use patterns of lexis and collocation.

Most significant is the underlying claim that language

production is not a syntactic rule-governed process but is
instead the retrieval of larger phrasal units from memory.
• Contemporary language teaching methods tend to
be similar for students at different level of
competence; with the lexical approach the
materials and methods appropriate to beginners or
elementary students are radically different from
those employed for upper-intermediate or advanced
students.