Background

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• Background
• -As an alternative to grammar- based approaches
• -originated by Nattinger and developed by M.
  Lewis
• -the building blocks of language learning and
  communication is lexis

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• Michael Lewis (1993), who coined the term lexical
  approach,
• suggests the following
• Lexis is the basis of language.
• Lexis is misunderstood in language teaching
  because of the
• assumption that grammar is the basis of language
  and that mastery of the grammatical system is a
  prerequisite for effective communication.
• The key principle of a lexical approach is that
  language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not
  lexicalized grammar.
• One of the central organizing principles of any
  meaningcentered syllabus should be lexis.

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• Theory of languge
• It bases on lexical language theory.That is it
  consists of lexical items and multiple word units

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Lexical Terms

• 1)Lexicon
• A lexicon is often used to describe the knowledge
  that a speaker has about the words of a language.
  This includes meanings, use, form, and
  relationships with other words. A lexicon can
  thus be thought of as a mental dictionary.
• Example A successful learner develops an L2
  lexicon independently of their L1 lexicon, which
  means there is less confusion, translation and L1
  interference.
• In the classroom Many teachers and learners
  regard expanding the target language lexicon - in
  other words, learning more vocabulary - as a
  priority. Advanced level learners, for example,
  will express the need for 'more words'
  frequently.

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• 2)Lexical chunk
• A lexical chunk is a group of words that are
  commonly found together. Lexical chunks include
  collocations but these usually just involve
  content words, not grammar.
• ExampleIn this dialogue there are five possible
  chunks- Did you stay long at the party?- No, I
  got out of there as soon as they ran out of food.
  
• In the classroomFocusing on lexical chunks is a
  useful way to look at language and to extend
  learners' control of it. For example, learners
  can spend a little time at the end of a reading
  comprehension exercise identifying chunks in the
  text and analysing them, or identifying other
  contexts they might be found in.

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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., Ill get it
  Well see Thatll
• 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 . . .)

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• 3) Lexical set
• A lexical set is a group of words with the same
  topic, function or form.
• Example 'Cat, dog, tortoise, goldfish, gerbil'
  is part of the topical lexical set pets, and
  'quickly, happily, completely, dramatically,
  angrily' is part of the syntactic lexical set
  adverbs.
• In the classroom Lexical sets are a way of
  looking at new vocabulary that some learners find
  useful. Activities include asking learners to
  sort words into groups, word games such as the
  chaining game 'I went to the market and bought',
  Odd One Out, and Stop, and class poster projects.

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• 4) corpus
• Collections of language items including spoken
  samples packaged in text format on internet
• - Cobuild Bank of English Corpus
• - British National Corpus
• -the Cambridge International Corpus

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• Learning theory
• Lexical approach does not have a coherent
  learning theory and attempts to rectify this with
  some assumptions about learning theory in lexical
  approach.

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• DESIGN
• -objectives
• -syllabus
• -learning activities
• -roles of learners
• -roles of teachers
• - materials

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• OBJECTIVES
• - Reviving an interest in a central role for
  accurate language description
• - raising learners awareness of the lexical
  nature of language
• - developing learners proficiency with lexis, or
  words and word combinations
• - Making learners comprehend and produce lexical
  phrases as unanalyzed wholes, or chunks in
  their natural enviornment
• - Making sure that language production is not a
  syntactic rule-governed process but is instead
  the retrieval of larger phrasal units from
  memory.

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• ACTIVITIES
• Intensive and extensive listening and reading in
  the target language.
• First and second language comparisons and
  translationcarried out chunk-for-chunk, rather
  than word-for-wordaimed 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.

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• 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
• - the British National Corpus
• -COBUILD Bank of English to research
  word partnerships, preposition usage, style, and
  so on

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• SYLLABUS
• - Lexical syllabus
• Consists of multi-word prefabricated chunks
• - collocations ( to catch a cold, a broken
  home)
• - fixed and semi-fixed expressions ( nice
  day for it thats/ its not my fault)
• - idioms ( to go hell for leather,to beat
  about the bush)
• -sentence frames and heads (e.g., That is
  not as . . . as you think The fact/suggestion/pro
  blem/danger was . . . ) and even text frames
  (e.g., In this paper we explore . . . Firstly .
  . . Secondly . . . Finally
• - similes, binomials, trinomials,
  connectives,conversational ganbits
• Specify the most basic,important and the
  commonest meanings in English( Collins Cobuild
  English Course)

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• ROLE OF TEACHERS

• -The teacher talk is the major source of learner
  input
• -Organizing the technological system,providing
  scaffolding to help learners
• -The teacher methodology
• Task
• Planning
• Report

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• ROLE OF LEARNERS
• Discoveror
• Discourse and text analyst
• Manager of their own learning
• Constructor of their own linguistic
  generalization
• User of technological system
• Students talking time is dismissed, encourage
  participation through listening, noticing, and
  reflecting

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• MATERIALS
• Complete course package
• -texts
• -tapes
• -teachers manuals such as the Collins
  Cobuild English Course ( Willis and Willis 1989)
• Collections of vocabulary teaching activites
  such as those appear in Lewis Implementing the
  Lexical Approach (lewis 1997)
• Printout versions of computer corpora collection
  packaged in text format
• Computer concording programs and attached data
• - packaged in CD-ROM form such as
  Oxfords Micro Concord
• -downloaded from sites on internet

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• INSTRUCTION GIVING
• Instruction should center on
• -word patterns and lexical items,
• - the ways in which they can be pieced
  together
• - the ways in which they vary
• - the situations in which they occur

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• PROCEDURE
• -Teacher can use four types mentioned in design
  in different way.
• -Teacher is major source of information in first
  stage
• -Student should be active in learning in
  collocation .
• -Learners must take on the role of discourse
  analyst via one of the text search computer
  programmes.
• -Learners reproduce multi-word lexical chunks by
  recalling informations from their mental.

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• CONCLUSION
• Lexical and linguistic theory, thanks work in
  corpus analysis and importance of multi-word
  units in language learning enhanced the status of
  lexis in language teaching .
• However, an approach or methodology describe in
  this book does not cover our lexical approach.
• It is still an idea in search of approach and
  methodology.

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ACTIVITY SAMPLES

• Textual analysis activities
• Preparation activities
• Speaking activities
• Dictionary and matching activities

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• Textual analysis activities
• Students can analyse texts to heighten their
  awareness of collocations. Depending on the text,
  you might ask the students to find, for example,
  five useful collocations that occur around a
  certain topic. Or you could give students a list
  of words or phrases and ask them to find what
  collocates with them in the text. You could also
  go further than the text and ask them to find
  further possible collocations with certain items
  in the text using a collocation dictionary.

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• Preparation activities
• Ask the students to brainstorm nouns on a
  particular subject, perhaps for a writing task.
  Then get them to suggest verbs and adjectives
  that collocate with those nouns, then adverbs
  with the verbs, thus building up a number of
  lexically dense collocational fields.

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• Speaking activities
• Get the students to do creative drills. For
  example, devise a 'Find somebody who...' activity
  for them to practise collocations. For
  example,Find someone who.....has been on a
  strict diet.....has found themselves in an
  embarrassing position...has made an inspired
  choice etc.

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• Dictionary and matching activities
• Get the students using collocation dictionaries
  to find better ways of expressing ideas,
  including replacing words like 'new' and
  'interesting' with better, stronger words to
  create typical collocations, or finding the 'odd
  verb out'. For example,
• Which verb does not go with 'answer'?come up
  with, do, get, require
• Spot the odd verbCan you find the verb which
  does not collocate with the noun in bold?1.
  acknowledge, feel, express, make, hide, overcome,
  admit shame2. apply for, catch, create, get,
  hold, hunt for, lose, take up job

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REFERENCES

• Implementing the Lexical Approach, Michael Lewis,
  LTP
• Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching,
  Richards Rodgers, Cambridge University Press,
  Chapter 12
• Teaching Lexically, online course, summary by
  Gladys Baya
• http//www.slideshare.net/Cindy422/lexical-approac
  h-to-second-language-teaching