T THE LEXICAL APPROACH
· A lexical approach refers to one derived from the belief that the building blocks of language learning and communication are not grammar, functions, notions or some other unit of planning and teaching but lexis that is words and word combination.
· Lexical approaches in ELT reflect that the centrality of the lexicon to language structure, second language learning and language use.
· In particular to multiword lexical units or chunks that are learned and used as single items.
· Linguistic theory also gives a central role to vocabulary in linguistic description.
· Formal transformational/generative linguistics previously too syntax as the primary focus, now gives more central attention to the lexicon.
· Advances in computer-based studies of language have provided a huge, classroom-accessible database for lexically based inquiry and instruction.
· These studies have focused on collocations of lexical items and multiple word units as central in learning and teaching.
Approach
· In the lexical view, only a minority of spoken sentences are entirely novel creations.
· Multiword units functioning as chunks or memorized patterns form a high proportion of the fluent stretches of speech heard in everyday conversation.
· The role of collocation is also important in lexical based theories of language. Collocation is the regular occurrence together of words.
· Lexical units are thought to play a central role in language learning and in communication.
· Lexis is also believed to play a central role in language learning.
· Krashen suggests that massive amounts of language input (especially through reading) are the only effective approach to such learning.
· A third approach to learning lexical chunks has been contrastive.
· According to Bahns, the teaching of lexical collocations in EFL should concentrate on items for which there is no direct translational equivalence in English and in learners’ respective mother tongues.
· Lewis acknowledges that the lexical approach has lacked a coherent learning theory and attempts to rectify this with the following assumptions about learning theory in the lexical theory:
1. Encountering new learning items on several occasions is a necessary but sufficient condition for learning to occur.
2. Noticing lexical chunks or collocations is a necessary but not condition for input to become intake.
3. Noticing differences, similarities, restrictions and examples contributes to turning input into intake although formal description of rules probably does not help.
4. Acquisition is based not on the application of formal rules but on an accumulation of examples from which learners make provisional generalisation.
5. No linear syllabus can adequately reflect the nonlinear nature of acquisition.
Design
Syllabus
· Lexical syllabus
· A syllabus is based on lexical rather than grammatical principle.
· The lexical syllabus not only subsumes a structural syllabus, it also indicates how the structures which make up syllabus should be exemplified.
Learning Activities
· Computer based activity
· Training learners how to use concordancer
· Teaching assistances: lexical analysis such as observation, classification and generalisation.
Role of Learners
· Learners make use of computers to analyze text data previously collected or made available free-form on the internet.
· Role of data analyst: language samples taken from real life.
Role of Teachers
· Lewis: Krashen’s Natural Approach
· Teacher talk is major source of learner input on demonstrating how lexical phrases are used for different functional purpose.
· Willis: classroom methodology; task, planning - to create an environment in which learners can operate effectively and to help learner manage their own learning- abandon the idea of the teacher as knower and concentrate instead on the idea of learner as discoverer.
Role of Materials
Teaching resources:
1. Completely course packages including text, tapes, and teacher’s manuals.
2. Collections of vocabulary teaching activities.
3. Printout version of computer corpora.
4. Computer concordancing programs and attached data set.
Procedure
· Collocation
· According to Hill, classroom procedures involve:
1. teaching individual collocations
2. making students aware of collocation
3. extending what they know by adding knowledge of collocation restrictions to known vocabulary
4. Storing collocations through encouraging students to keep a lexical notebook.
Conclusion
· Although the status of lexis has been considerably enhanced by developments in lexical and linguistic theory, by work in corpus analysis, and by recognition of the role of multiword units in language learning and communication, lexis still refers to only one component of communicative competence.
· It remains to be convincingly demonstrated how a lexically based theory of language and language learning can be applied at the levels of design and procedure in language teaching, suggesting that it is still an idea in search of an approach and a methodology.
