Teaching Methodology

Chapter 11: The Lexical Approach

Lecturer: Ali A. Ariamanesh

The new language-teaching proposal was introduced early in 1990s by Lewis (1993). Its central
idea was the claim that the main building blocks of language and communication are not
grammatical forms nor functions and notions; instead, it was proposed that the basic parts and
parcels of language are ‘lexical units’ which are words and particularly ‘multi-word
combinations’. These combinations are technically called ‘lexical chunks’ and are learnt as
single units. The chunks, then, consist of ‘collocations’, ‘routines’ and ‘fixed or prefabricated
phrases’. This approach to language teaching/learning was ultimately labeled The Lexical
Approach, the view in which multi-word combinations or chunks are said to play a central role.

Approach of the Lexical approach (LA)

Theory of language: Lexical approach reflects a ‘structural’ view of language; however, a system
of lexical structures not grammatical ones. Thus, LA introduces another layer of language
structure as ‘multi-word units’ that are used to encode meaning.
Additionally, LA holds the idea that only a minority of spoken sentences found in everyday
language are entirely ‘novel’ creations, and that these multi-word units (chunks) account for the
memorized patterns that are heard from fluent language users in their everyday productions.
Some of these lexical chunks can be listed as the following collocations:

➢ Do the cooking, do my housework, do the shopping

➢ Make my bed, make a promise, make a meal
➢ Binomials: clean & tidy, each & every, day & night
➢ Idioms: dead drunk, run up a debt, beat the air
➢ Similes: as smooth as silk, fast as a bock
➢ Social routines: nice to meet you, see you later
➢ Discourse markers: on the other hand, contrary to this
➢ Compounds: head first, tea pot, green house
➢ Proverbs: Too many cooks spoil the broth, easy come easy go
➢ Exclamations: you must be kidding, it’s unbelievable

One useful way to explore and categorize the lexical chunks, as exemplified above, is to use
computer software and search engines in order to analyze ‘linguistic corpora’. A language corpus
(pl. corpora) is a large collection of written or spoken language, mainly produced by native
speakers, stored on a computer or any other digital device.

Theory of language learning in lexical approach

Lewis (2000) Proposes the following account of the learning theory in LA:

Noticing lexical chunks or collocations is necessary to make input become intake

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 Noticing similarities, differences, and different examples of lexical chunks plays an
important role in turning input into intake.
Acquisition is based on accumulation of L2 examples containing lexical units and
collocations.
Incidental learning depends upon the frequency with which these lexical units are
encountered and noticed through normal language use.
The encountered, noticed, and learnt lexical units are then transferred to the long-term
memory for later use.
The learning of lexical chunks and collocations is facilitated by cognitive processing,
repeated exposure, comparisons, contrasts, generalizations, etc.

Design of the Lexical Approach

Objectives: The main goal of LA is to develop learners’ awareness and use of lexical chunks as
an important feature of natural language use. Therefore, a prevalent goal of learners is to develop
strategies for identifying and learning the lexical units they encounter while reading and listening.

Syllabus: For lower-level students, direct teaching of lexical chunks and collocations occurs
frequently by the help of different reading and listening texts. However, for learners at higher
levels of proficiency, the syllabus consists of an organized record of the lexical chunks that
learners may encounter in different authentic uses of language, either written texts or monologues,
dialogues and conversations. Such a syllabus is then aimed at instructing the learners the required
strategies by which they may be able to recognize, learn, categorize, and use the lexical units
frequently seen in normal language-mediated occasions.
An important criterion to form the syllabus content is ‘frequency of use’. To this end, usually
a corpus-based frequency search is carried out to fill the syllabus with those L2 lexical units
(chunks, collocations, fixed phrases, etc.) most frequently found in normal language use.

Types of teaching/learning activities in the lexical approach

Activities used with LA include:

❖ Awareness activities: they will facilitate noticing of chunks. For example, using some
corpus analysis, it was found that the two vocabulary items ‘predict’ and ‘forecast’ are
used in normal language as the former being used as a verb and the latter mainly as a noun
along with a group of other co-occurring items.
❖ Training in text-chunking: An example of this activity is when learners are given some
authentic written text and asked to underline the lexical chunks or collocations.
❖ Memory-enhancing activities: they involve elaboration of lexical units in the form of
activities such as pronunciation practice, and finding the grammatical category of words,
meanings, associations, spellings, etc.
❖ Retelling: these are activities in which learners, having read or listened to a text, need to
retell or reproduce the content of that text while using the found collocations/chunks.

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Teacher roles in the lexical approach
Teacher is assumed to be a language analyst who is capable of recognizing multi-word units of
lexical items, collocations, idioms, pre-fabricated phrases, etc. Also, teacher’s talk is one major
source of comprehensible input for learners to get and discover those collocations/lexical chucks
used by the teacher. Teacher is also expected to be familiar with computer software used in corpus
analysis to bring along those patterns of vocabulary use in real occasions.

Learner roles in the lexical approach

Learners are assumed to be active participants in both the analysis of corpus data to find the most
frequently-used collocations and in carrying out tasks where perception or production of those
lexical units are practiced. Learners need to become autonomous in analyzing real-life uses of
language and notice how they are used in L2 for the purpose to ultimately be able to use multi-
word units of vocabulary.

The role of instructional materials in lexical approach

The welcomed materials in LA are mainly of two types:
✓ Coursebooks that include a focus on multi-word units or collocations.
✓ Corpus-informed materials that come out of corpus-analysis. An example of this can be
when learners insert a word into a computer software linked to a large amount of written
or oral texts and find all examples of the use of that word including idioms, collocations,
chunks, etc.

Procedure in the lexical approach

Here, classroom procedures mainly involve those activities where learners are required to pay
attention to lexical chunks, take notes of them, elaborate them, and try to finally be able to use
them in their own productions. To this purpose, a major part of class will be allocated to reading
and listening tasks in which real-world lexical chunks are focused. There can be some exercises
in which target collocations are explicitly worked on. In summary classroom procedures in LA
may involve:
Teaching individual collocations
Making learners aware of collocations
Activating learners’ known vocabulary and adding some new applications of them
Storing collocations and the other lexical units by asking learners to keep a lexical
notebook.