The Lexical Approach

Background

The lexical approach is a method of teaching foreign languages described by M. Lewis in the 1990s. The basic concept on which this approach rests is the idea that an important part of learning a language consists of being able to understand and produce lexical phrases as chunks. Students are thought to be able to perceive patterns of language (grammar) as well as have meaningful set uses of words at their disposal when they are taught in this way.

In the lexical approach, instruction focuses on fixed expressions that occur frequently in dialogues, which Lewis claims make up a larger part of discourse than unique phrases and sentences. Vocabulary is prized over grammar per se in this approach. The teaching of chunks and set phrases has become common in English as a foreign or second language, though this is not necessarily primarily due to the Lexical Approach.

Nature of the lexis

There is a distinction between vocabulary, traditionally thought to be constituted of single items, and lexis, which includes not only the single words but also the word combinations that we store in our mental lexicons. Lexical approach advocates argue that language consists of meaningful chunks that, when combined, produce continuous coherent text, and only a minority of spoken sentences are entirely novel creations. Michael Lewis present this taxonomy of Lexical items:

Ø Poly words (e.g. by the way, upside down)

Ø Collocations or word partnerships (e.g. community service, absolutely convinced)

Ø Institutionalized Utterances (e.g. I’ll get it.  We’ll see, If I were you…

Ø Sentence frames (e.g.  That is not as … as you think.)

Ø Sentence heads (e.g. The fact was that….)

Ø Text frames (e.g. In this paper we explore….Firstly...; Secondly…; Finally….)

Lexical Chunks

That are not collocation

Ø By the way

Ø Up to now

Ø Upside down

Ø If I were you

Ø A long way of

Ø Out of my mind

The Lexical Approach pays attention not only to single words but more importantly to collocations and institutionalized utterances and sentence frames. Michael Lewis states that

“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” (1997a, p. 204).

Collocations

A collocation is the readily observable phenomenon whereby certain words co-occur in natural text with greater than random frequency and is not determined by logic or frequency, but is arbitrary, decided only by linguistic convention. Some collocations are fully fixed, such as:

Ø to catch a cold

Ø rancid butter

Ø drug addict

Why use Lexical Approach?

Ø It cares about the communication

Ø It teaches the language pattern as they are used by the native speakers

Ø It teaches fixed or set phrases

Ø It awakens the language awareness

Ø It increase the students’ of lexical chunks

How use Lexical Approach

Ø By organizing a lexical syllabus

Ø But not applying a random exposure of the lexical items in the classroom

With the activities below:

Ø Intensive and extensive

Ø Letting learners record of language patterns by providing them the opportunity to discover chunks on their own

Ø Categorizing word chunks

Ø Using sentences heads

Ø Using summarizing words

Ø Directing students’ attention to the specific chunks in the text