N.B. As I was unable to attend the final session, this blog along with two others entitled Mind the Gap and The Finnish Miracle, replace the diario and dossier for Tema 7 & 8.
The lexical approach is based on the book by the same name by Micheal Lewis, published in 1993. It focuses on the function of ‘lexical chunks’ - any pair or group of words that are commonly found together. The title for this blog comes from a much earlier quote from John Firth who, in 1957, said “You shall know a word by the company it keeps.” It is appropriate for this course as we are focused on ‘contexts’ in language teaching and Frith is noted for his work on the context-dependent nature of language.
The lexical approach is based on the book by the same name by Micheal Lewis, published in 1993. It focuses on the function of ‘lexical chunks’ - any pair or group of words that are commonly found together. The title for this blog comes from a much earlier quote from John Firth who, in 1957, said “You shall know a word by the company it keeps.” It is appropriate for this course as we are focused on ‘contexts’ in language teaching and Frith is noted for his work on the context-dependent nature of language.
Within the term
lexical chunk there are many different related terms, for example,
collocations, prefabricated phrases, formulaic language and frozen phrases,
among others.
Although lexical
chunks cover all of the above, collocations are sometimes dealt with apart. Chunks
include set expressions such as ‘by the way’, ‘up to now’ or ‘If I were
you’. Collocations include things
like ‘totally convinced’, ‘extremely busy’ or ‘a terrible accident.’
Grammar can also be
lexis, in the example above, “If I were you” demonstrates how parts of grammar
are stored as a single unit in memory and used in everyday speech, rather than
consciously remembered as, say, a second conditional.
Collocations can be
problematic for learners of English, there is no real reason why we say a
tall/high building but we can only refer to a person as tall. Thus Micheal Lewis suggests that
collocations should be the smallest unit of meaning, rather than individual
words. Teachers should try as much
as possible to expand the lexical repertoire of students to include chunks of
language rather than learning a word in isolation.
Within this approach
comes the idea of ‘noticing’ put forward by Batstone (1996), it’s not enough
for students to read a text that contains collocations and lexical chunks, they
should be trained to actively look for them, to notice how language is
typically used and to internalise it to use again.
This approach attempts
to avoid translation from the L1 to the target language. Students need to be exposed to set
phrases and chunks to avoid making awkward translations for their own
language. One classic mistake that
affects Spanish speakers is the tendency to say “I am agree” rather than “I
agree”. Teachers also need to be
careful with giving a set-in-stone translation. The word ‘soft’ could be translated in many different ways,
depending if we mean “a soft voice” “soft skin” or “a soft drink”. Likewise, how many different meanings
does “take off” have depending on the context?! To use the title of this very blog - Context is king!
In the lesson plan, I
have attempted to use the Lexical Approach using a short text and asking
students to create a ‘friendship test’ using hypothetical situations. They are directed to ‘notice’ chunks of
language both in the text and in the second conditional sentences given as
examples. They then recycle this
lexis to make their own sentences.
Hello Catherine!
ResponderEliminarI'm glad you chose to write about the lexical approach, as I hadn't read about it before. I’ve always thought that it was better to learn grammar and vocabulary separately in order to understand how to construct sentences; as opposed to set phrases and ‘lexical chunks’ that are simply things you memorize. Now that I’ve read a bit about the lexical approach, I understand how useful it can be.
Being able to understand common lexical chunks and collocations can, of course, improve reading skills. However, what I didn’t expect is that it can also greatly improve oral communication skills and fluency. In fact, I read that native speakers have a vast stock of them, and that they are vital for fluent production. Like you said, collocations can be problematic for learners of english, so i’m sure that the lexial approach will come in handy in my classes!
Here is the web page I found: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/lexical-approach-1-what-does-lexical-approach-look