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Introduction
The theory of learning
Noticing
Language awareness
About the authors
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Lexical Approach 2 - What does the lexical approach look like? | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC 23/01/17, 22:21
Further Reading
Introduction
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.
A theory of learning
In our first article, Lexical Approach 1 (/articles/lexical-approach-1-
what-does-lexical-approach-look), we spoke about the vast
number of chunks and collocations native speakers store. According to
Lewis (1997, 2000) native speakers carry a pool of hundreds of
thousands, and possibly millions, of lexical chunks in their heads ready
to draw upon in order to produce fluent, accurate and meaningful
language. Too many items for teachers and materials to present to
learners, ask learners to practise and then produce even if you
believed that a PPP methodology - which has been denigrated in
recent years - would lead to the acquisition of these language items.
How then are the learners going to learn the lexical items they need?
One of the criticisms levelled at the Lexical Approach is its lack of a
detailed learning theory. It is worth noting, however, that Lewis (1993)
argues the Lexical Approach is not a break with the Communicative
Approach, but a development of it. He makes a helpful summary of the
findings from first language acquisition research which he thinks are
relevant to second language acquisition:
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Lexical Approach 2 - What does the lexical approach look like? | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC 23/01/17, 22:21
experiment.
We can use whole phrases without understanding their constituent
parts.
Acquisition is accelerated by contact with a sympathetic interlocutor
with a higher level of competence in the target language.
Noticing
Batstone (1996) describes noticing as 'a complex process: it involves
the intake both of meaning and form, and it takes time for learners to
progress from initial recognition to the point where they can internalize
the underlying rule'. At the same time Lewis (2000) argues that
noticing chunks and collocations is a necessary but not sufficient
condition for input to become intake. If learners are not directed to
notice language in a text there exists a danger that they will 'see
through the text' and therefore fail to achieve intake.
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Lexical Approach 2 - What does the lexical approach look like? | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC 23/01/17, 22:21
Language Awareness
It is our assertion that learning materials and teachers can best help
learners achieve noticing of lexical chunks by combining a Language
Awareness approach to learning with a Lexical Approach to describing
language.
The students involved in the research were surveyed after using these
materials and asked how useful and enjoyable they found the materials.
All but one of the students said the materials were very useful and all
the students reported the class was either very useful or useful.
All the students said the materials would help them learn
independently.
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Lexical Approach 2 - What does the lexical approach look like? | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC 23/01/17, 22:21
Over half the students thought the materials were useful for learning
vocabulary.
All the students said they enjoyed the stories.
The teachers said that the readings were 'great', the students
understood and could appreciate the materials' relevance for
developing reading as well a productive skills.
One teacher said he was not sure if making the distinction between
different types of lexical chunks was necessary.
References
Batstone, Rob (1996). Key Concepts in ELT: Noticing. ELT Journal
50(3)273.
Bolitho, R, Carter, R, Hughes, R, Ivanic, R, Masuhara, H, and Tomlinson,
B (2003) Ten Questions about Language Awareness. ELT Journal 57/3.
Lewis, Michael (1993), The Lexical Approach, Hove: Language Teaching
Publications.
Lewis, Michael (1997). Implementing the Lexical Approach: Putting
Theory Into Practice. Hove: Language Teaching Publications.
Lewis, Michael (2000). Language in the lexical approach. In Teaching
Collocation: Further Developments In The Lexical Approach, Michael
Lewis (ed.), 126-154.Hove: Language Teaching Publications.
Schmitt, Norbert (2000). Key Concepts in ELT: Lexical Chunks. ELT
Journal 54(4): 400-401.
Thornbury, Scott (1997). Reformulation and reconstruction: tasks that
promote 'noticing'. ELT Journal 51(4): 326-334.
Tags
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Lexical Approach 2 - What does the lexical approach look like? | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC 23/01/17, 22:21
Tags
Vocabulary (/category/articles-site-
structure/articles/vocabulary)
Comments
joe replied on 26 March, 2008 - 10:54 PERMALINK
(/COMMENT/292#COMMENT-292)
ELISABETH BOECK,
(/COMMENT/292#COMMENT-292)
Elisabeth Boeck, Germany
From the lexical approach activities in the TRY section I
especially found the piece MY BEST FRIEND KYLE a
treasure trove of lexical items. The suggestion to
highlight texts for lexical chunks when presenting them
in class as a means to sensitize students to the
phenomena is, to my mind, particularly effective; and I
could imagine, when it comes to reproduction, perhaps
it might be useful for the teacher to gap-read the text
not in one go but paragraph by paragraph for better
retention on the part of the students.
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Lexical Approach 2 - What does the lexical approach look like? | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC 23/01/17, 22:21
(/COMMENT/16622#COMMENT-16622)
TRY MATERIALS
(/COMMENT/16622#COMMENT-16622)
Where are the TRY materials?
(/COMMENT/16628#COMMENT-16628)
LEXICAL APPROACH ACTIVITIES
(/COMMENT/16628#COMMENT-16628)
Hi thereI've just updated the article with links to the
activities, so you should be able to see everthing
now.Thanks for pointing this out.Rob
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Lexical Approach 2 - What does the lexical approach look like? | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC 23/01/17, 22:21
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