LCB TTC

Methods II
Yohana Solis
2009
 Look at this version of the introduction. What
do the parts printed in bold in square
brackets have in common?

The principles of the Lexical Approach have

[been around] since Michael Lewis
published 'The Lexical Approach' [10 years
ago]. [It seems, however, that] many
teachers and researchers do not [have a
clear idea of] what the Lexical Approach
actually [looks like] [in practice].
 Itis a language teaching method
published by Michael Lewis in 1993

 Based on the insight of the language

lexicon

 Language consists of lexical items

(single words or multi-word items)
 Language consists
of CHUNKS
 LA highlights the
combinations which
are not only
possible but highly
likely.
 Words
› can stand alone
› Single or multi-word
 Collocations
› certain words co-occur in natural text
 Fixed expressions
› social greetings,
› politeness phrases,
› idioms
 Semi-fixed expressions
› simple slot,
› sentence heads,
› minimal variation
 The mental state of knowledge
about words. It specifies how a
word is spelt, pronounced, its
parts of speech and what it
means.

 Central attention to the lexicon

and how the lexicon is coded
formatted and organized.

 Raising students´awarness of,

and developing their ability to
“chunk” language succesfully.
The ability to retrieve ready-made chunks of
language cuts down on planning time : the
speaker is using long-term memory rather than
processing capacity.

“Speakers show a high degree of fluency when

describing familiar experiences or activities in
familiar phrases. It is notorious that speakers are
at their most hesitant when describing the
unfamiliar.”
Pawley and Syder op.cit.
 Word formation : happy, unhappy, unhappily,
unhappiness etc

 Pattern grammar
eg spend/waste (time)

 Grammatical manipulation of chunks to give

alternatives :
make a loss He made an enormous loss

But also…
 An attempt to free grammatical words from
structural constraints – eg would, any
 Language consists of grammaticalised
lexis, not lexicalised 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
organising 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
prioritised.

 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.
 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
 Discoverer

 Data analyst

 Student’s talking time is dismissed,

encourage participation through
listening, noticing, and reflecting.
 Type 1 Course packages Collins
COBUILD English course
 Type2 collections of vocabulary
teaching activities
 Type 3 “Printout” versions of computer
corpora
 Type4 concordancing programs and
attached data sets
 Corpus : a collection of examples
of texts/utterances of a language

 Concordancer : computer
software which analyse corpora.
See :
http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx
http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/lookup.html
 The LA suggests more time devoted to
multi-word items
 Awareness-raising receptive activities
 Efficient recording of new language

 Itis not sufficient for an item to be

unknow, it needs to be unknown and
useful.
 Challenge the learners to master a
sufficiently large lexicon

 Dictionary-based activities

 Moderatelyccompetent users of
English should handle around 2000
most common lexical items
 Class time should be devoted to strategy
training for dealing with unknow lexical
items.

 Class time is better spent raising

awareness and encouraging effective
recording of patterns.

 Schmitt & Schmitt (1995): words that

arevery familiar should not be taught at
the same time for fear of causing
confusion to the learners’ lexicon.
 TheLexical Notebook replaces the
traditional vocabulary book
(L1 words=L2 word translation)

 New items need to be recycled if they

are to be fully acquired / encourage
learners to look back at language they
have recorded and do something with
it
1. Topic: awareness of
different types of
lexical items within a
topic framework
2. Situation: prediction of
lexical items likely to
appear
3. Collocation: recorded
as individual word-like
unit
4. Notion: synoptic
description of an event
with a psychological
unit
 Excercises and  Conciousness-
Activities which help raising:
the learner notice
L2 more accurately Accurate noticing of
ensure quicker and lexical, grammatical
more carefully- or phonological
formulate patterns, help
hypothesis about convert input into
L2. intake.
 Identifying chunks
 Matching
 Completing
 Categorising
 Sequencing
 Deleting
If we want to incorporate insights from the Lexical
Approach into our teaching we will need to :

 maximise input : text based approach – possibly

“lexically enhanced” texts
 maximise “noticing” activities – learners need to realise
the items in the chunks are connected; eg use corpora
examples
 provide copious activities which ask learners to work
actively on the chunks
 allow for productive practice of those chunks that we
want students to use productively
 recycle – in follow-ups reformulate Ss’ utterances to
include those chunks
 recycle – reuse the same text in future with different
activities
 recycle – “lexically enhance” future texts to include
chunks previously taught as well as new ones
 recycle – recycle - recycle
 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.authorstream.com/Presentation/metu.efl252-173474-
lexical-approach-education-ppt-powerpoint/
 http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/sueswift-147955-lexical-app
 http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/sicesova-205692-lexical-app