Edgar VelaidesHéctor Ruíz

Lexical Approach

The Lexical Approach is all about recognizing and producing lexical phrases as

“chunks” and using them effectively to communicate. If students got enough

exposure to these chunks they’d soon pick up the grammar around them.

It was first formalized and put down by Michael Lewis in 1993.

The Lexical Approach focuses, rather than creating original sentences, on

practicing a set of phrases that are useful to interact.

With this approach, the receptive skills, such as listening and reading, are

given priority.

Lexical Approach

Vocabulary and LexisThe lexical approach makes a distinction between these two terms:

Vocabulary: stock of individual words with fixed meanings.

Lexis: which includes not only the single words, but also the word combinations

that we store in our mental lexicons.

The Lexical approach talks about standard phrases, trying to keep things as big as possible.

In Lewis’ words, “Instead of words, we consciously try to think of collocations, and to present these in expressions.”

TermsWhen we talk about Lexical approach, there are some terms that are very used in a regular basis to describe it:

Chunk. A general term to include all kinds of strong collocations, fixed phrases and semi-fixed phrases.

Lexical item. This term includes both single words and multi-word items. So when our students are learning English vocabulary, they are not just learning “words” – they are also learning multi-word items, i.e. “chunks”.

Multi-word item. Although this lexical item is written as two or more words, in terms of meaning it is effectively just one “word”. Examples: adverbial phrases such as on the other hand; phrasal verbs such as to get on with; etc. Sometimes called “polywords”.

Terms

Lexical phrase. A phrase that is sufficiently fixed that you could find it in a good dictionary. This term includes all lexical items, idioms, proverbs, etc.

Collocation. Words that go together. A strong collocation is where the words like each other’s company so well they are like those married couples where you always find them together. Sometimes there is no clear dividing line between a strong collocation and a compound or a fixed phrase.

Types of Multi-Word Lexical ItemsOne analysis (Moon, 1997) divides these items into:

• compounds • phrasal verbs • idioms of language • fixed phrases

Compounds : Whereas many compounds are written as one word (workplace), others are hyphenated (to fast-forward) and many are written as two words (cassette player).

Phrasal verbs: These range from transparent combinations (e.g. to break off, to write down), through completives “where the particle reinforces the degree of the action denoted by the verb” (e.g. to stretch out, to eat up), to opaque combinations (e.g. to butter up, to tick off).

Types of Multi-Word Lexical Items

Idioms : Phrases that are wholly or partly fixed (...) and cannot be understood from the usual meaning of the individual words they contain.

help yourself, you might as well (do it), and mind your own business.

Fixed phrases: A general term covering a broad range of multi-word items, including items such as of course and at least, greetings (How do you do), proverbs and sayings (out of sight out of mind).

Activity• General Goals To develop students’ reading skills and increase students’ store of lexical chunks.The activity will be divided into 3 stages: pre-reading, while-reading and post-

reading. • Pre-readingStudents are asked to read one random sentence from the text selected for the

activity. Then they will guess whether the sentence comes at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the text.

The teacher will read to the students the title of the text and the first sentence. Then, he/she will ask them what they think the story is about.

• While readingThe teacher will ask them to pay attention to the chunks and collocations that the

text contains and to the function they serve.

Activity• Post readingThe teacher will ask them some questions about the story as such to check

comprehension. Then, they are supposed to express their opinion about the story and whether they like it or not.

Then, the teacher will ask them to form groups of 3 people to discuss some other questions about the chunks and collocations the text contained.

Also, the teacher will ask them to highlight the lexical chunks and to find equivalents in Spanish.

Making use of some examples of chunks and collocations from the text, the teacher will ask them to write variations of them. E. g.: “What other nouns can you use after the adjective “shiny new”? E.g. shiny new shoes; shiny new bike.”

Finally, the teacher will ask them to write an email in which they make use of chunks and collocations to express themselves.

Level?• The characteristics of this approach make it appropriate for using it in

beginner levels. It is important to remember that the lexical approach focuses on learning fixed phrases or sentences to communicate; which is very useful in communicative classes and for people who need to learn quickly how to communicate in English speaking countries.

• Actually, intermediate level students are supposed to manage the language reasonably. For that reason, they need to focus on managing deeper levels of the language.

References• http://www.icaltefl.com/what-is-the-lexical-approach

• Torres, A (2012) The lexical approach: collocability, fluency and implications for teaching. Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

• Carlos Islam, Ivor Timmis, BBC and British Council. Lexical Approach Classroom Activities