The document discusses the Lexical Approach to language teaching. It focuses on having students learn lexical phrases or "chunks" as the basic units of communication rather than individual words. The Lexical Approach was formalized by Michael Lewis in 1993 and prioritizes receptive skills like listening and reading. It distinguishes between vocabulary, which are individual words, and lexis, which includes fixed word combinations. Examples of lexical items discussed include compounds, phrasal verbs, idioms, and fixed phrases. An activity is proposed that exposes students to chunks through a reading passage and various post-reading exercises.
2. Lexical Approach
The Lexical Approach is all about recognizing and producing lexical phrases as
“chunks” and using them effectively to communicate. If students got enough
exposure to these chunks they’d soon pick up the grammar around them.
It was first formalized and put down by Michael Lewis in 1993.
3. The Lexical Approach focuses, rather than creating original sentences, on
practicing a set of phrases that are useful to interact.
With this approach, the receptive skills, such as listening and reading, are
given priority.
Lexical Approach
4. Vocabulary and Lexis
The lexical approach makes a distinction between these two terms:
Vocabulary: stock of individual words with fixed meanings.
Lexis: which includes not only the single words, but also the word combinations
that we store in our mental lexicons.
The Lexical approach talks about standard phrases, trying to keep things as big
as possible.
In Lewis’ words, “Instead of words, we consciously try to think of collocations,
and to present these in expressions.”
5. Terms
When we talk about Lexical approach, there are some terms that are very used in
a regular basis to describe it:
Chunk. A general term to include all kinds of strong collocations, fixed phrases
and semi-fixed phrases.
Lexical item. This term includes both single words and multi-word items. So
when our students are learning English vocabulary, they are not just learning
“words” – they are also learning multi-word items, i.e. “chunks”.
Multi-word item. Although this lexical item is written as two or more words, in
terms of meaning it is effectively just one “word”. Examples: adverbial phrases
such as on the other hand; phrasal verbs such as to get on with; etc. Sometimes
called “polywords”.
6. Terms
Lexical phrase. A phrase that is sufficiently fixed that you could find it in a good
dictionary. This term includes all lexical items, idioms, proverbs, etc.
Collocation. Words that go together. A strong collocation is where the words like
each other’s company so well they are like those married couples where you
always find them together. Sometimes there is no clear dividing line between
a strong collocation and a compound or a fixed phrase.
7. Types of Multi-Word Lexical Items
One analysis (Moon, 1997) divides these items into:
• compounds • phrasal verbs • idioms of language • fixed phrases
Compounds : Whereas many compounds are written as one word
(workplace), others are hyphenated (to fast-forward) and many are written
as two words (cassette player).
Phrasal verbs: These range from transparent combinations (e.g. to break
off, to write down), through completives “where the particle reinforces the
degree of the action denoted by the verb” (e.g. to stretch out, to eat up), to
opaque combinations (e.g. to butter up, to tick off).
8. Types of Multi-Word Lexical Items
Idioms : Phrases that are wholly or partly fixed (...) and cannot be
understood from the usual meaning of the individual words they contain.
help yourself, you might as well (do it), and mind your own business.
Fixed phrases: A general term covering a broad range of multi-word items,
including items such as of course and at least, greetings (How do you do),
proverbs and sayings (out of sight out of mind).
9. Activity
• General Goals
To develop students’ reading skills and increase students’ store of lexical chunks.
The activity will be divided into 3 stages: pre-reading, while-reading and post-
reading.
• Pre-reading
Students are asked to read one random sentence from the text selected for the
activity. Then they will guess whether the sentence comes at the beginning, in
the middle or at the end of the text.
The teacher will read to the students the title of the text and the first sentence.
Then, he/she will ask them what they think the story is about.
• While reading
The teacher will ask them to pay attention to the chunks and collocations that the
text contains and to the function they serve.
10. Activity
• Post reading
The teacher will ask them some questions about the story as such to check
comprehension. Then, they are supposed to express their opinion about the
story and whether they like it or not.
Then, the teacher will ask them to form groups of 3 people to discuss some other
questions about the chunks and collocations the text contained.
Also, the teacher will ask them to highlight the lexical chunks and to find
equivalents in Spanish.
Making use of some examples of chunks and collocations from the text, the
teacher will ask them to write variations of them. E. g.: “What other nouns can
you use after the adjective “shiny new”? E.g. shiny new shoes; shiny new
bike.”
Finally, the teacher will ask them to write an email in which they make use of
chunks and collocations to express themselves.
11. Level?
• The characteristics of this approach make it appropriate for using it in
beginner levels. It is important to remember that the lexical approach
focuses on learning fixed phrases or sentences to communicate; which is
very useful in communicative classes and for people who need to learn
quickly how to communicate in English speaking countries.
• Actually, intermediate level students are supposed to manage the
language reasonably. For that reason, they need to focus on managing
deeper levels of the language.
