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##  Lexical Approach to Second Language Teaching. ERIC Digest.                   

The lexical approach to second language teaching has received                   interest in recent years as an alternative to grammar-based                     approaches. The lexical approach concentrates on developing                     learners' proficiency with lexis, or words and word combinations. It            is based on the idea that an important part of language acquisition             is the ability to comprehend and produce lexical phrases as                     unanalyzed wholes, or "chunks," and that these chunks become the raw            data by which learners perceive patterns of language traditionally              thought of as grammar (Lewis, 1993, p. 95). Instruction focuses on              relatively fixed expressions that occur frequently in spoken                    language, such as, "I'm sorry," "I didn't mean to make you jump,"               or "That will never happen to me," rather than on originally created            sentences (Lewis, 1997a, p. 212). This digest provides an overview              of the methodological foundations underlying the lexical approach               and the pedagogical implications suggested by them. A NEW ROLE FOR            LEXISMichael Lewis (1993), who coined the term lexical approach,            suggests the following: 
* Lexis is the basis of language. 
*                 Lexis is misunderstood in language teaching because of the                      assumption that grammar is the basis of language and that mastery of            the grammatical system is a prerequisite for effective                          communication. 
* The key principle of a lexical approach is                   that "language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized               grammar." 
* One of the central organizing principles of any                   meaning-centered syllabus should be lexis. TYPES OF LEXICAL                   UNITSThe lexical approach makes a distinction between                       vocabulary--traditionally understood as a stock of individual words             with fixed meanings--and lexis, which includes not only the single              words but also the word combinations that we store in our mental                lexicons. Lexical approach advocates argue that language consists of            meaningful chunks that, when combined, produce continuous coherent              text, and only a minority of spoken sentences are entirely novel                creations. 
The role of formulaic, many-word lexical units have                been stressed in both first and second language acquisition                     research. (See Richards & Rodgers, 2001, for further discussion.)               They have been referred to by many different labels,                            including "gambits" (Keller, 1979), "speech formulae" (Peters,                  1983), "lexicalized stems" (Pawley & Syder, 1983), and "lexical                 phrases" (Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992). The existence and importance            of these lexical units has been discussed by a number of linguists.             For example, Cowie (1988) argues that the existence of lexical units            in a language such as English serves the needs of both native                   English speakers and English language learners, who are as                      predisposed to store and reuse them as they are to generate them                from scratch. The widespread "fusion of such expressions, which                 appear to satisfy the individual's communicative needs at a given               moment and are later reused, is one means by which the public stock             of formulae and composites is continuously enriched" (p.                        136). 
Lewis (1997b) suggests the following taxonomy of lexical                items: 
* words (e.g., book, pen) 
* polywords (e.g., by the way,             upside down) 
* collocations, or word partnerships (e.g., community            service, absolutely convinced) 
* institutionalized                            utterances (e.g., I'll get it; We'll see; That'll do; If I were                 you ...; Would you like a cup of coffee?) 
* sentence frames and               heads (e.g., That is not as ...as you think; The                                fact/suggestion/problem/danger was ...) and even text frames (e.g.,             In this paper we explore ...; Firstly ...; Secondly ...;                        Finally ...) 
Within the lexical approach, special attention is                directed to collocations and expressions that include                           institutionalized utterances and sentence frames and heads. As Lewis            maintains, "instead of words, we consciously try to think of                    collocations, and to present these in expressions. Rather than                  trying to break things into ever smaller pieces, there is a                     conscious effort to see things in larger, more holistic,                        ways" (1997a, p. 204). 
Collocation is "the readily observable                 phenomenon whereby certain words co-occur in natural text with                  greater than random frequency" (Lewis, 1997a, p. 8). Furthermore,               collocation is not determined by logic or frequency, but is                     arbitrary, decided only by linguistic convention. Some collocations             are fully fixed, such as "to catch a cold," "rancid butter,"                    and "drug addict," while others are more or less fixed and can be               completed in a relatively small number of ways, as in the following             examples: 
* blood / close / distant / near(est) relative 
* learn            by doing / by heart / by observation / by rote / from experience 
*            badly / bitterly / deeply / seriously / severely hurt LEXIS IN                LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNINGIn the lexical approach, lexis in             its various types is thought to play a central role in language                 teaching and learning. Nattinger (1980, p. 341) suggests that                   teaching should be based on the idea that language production is the            piecing together of ready-made units appropriate for a particular               situation. Comprehension of such units is dependent on knowing the              patterns to predict in different situations. Instruction, therefore,            should center on these patterns and the ways they can be pieced                 together, along with the ways they vary and the situations in which             they occur. 
Activities used to develop learners' knowledge of                 lexical chains include the following: 
* Intensive and extensive               listening and reading in the target language. 
* First and second              language comparisons and translation--carried out chunk-for-chunk,              rather than word-for-word--aimed at raising language awareness. 
*             Repetition and recycling of activities, such as summarizing a text              orally one day and again a few days later to keep words and                     expressions that have been learned active. 
* Guessing the meaning             of vocabulary items from context. 
* Noticing and recording                    language patterns and collocations. 
* Working with dictionaries               and other reference tools. 
* Working with language corpuses                   created by the teacher for use in the classroom or accessible on the            Internet&mdashsuch as the British National                                      Corpus (http://thetis.bl.uk/BNCbib) or COBUILD Bank of                          English (http://titania.cobuild.collins.co.uk)&mdashto research word            partnerships, preposition usage, style, and so on. THE NEXT STEP:             PUTTING THEORY INTO PRACTICEAdvances in computer-based studies              of language, such as corpus linguistics, have provided huge                     databases of language corpora, including the COBUILD Bank of English            Corpus, the Cambridge International Corpus, and the British National            Corpus. In particular, the COBUILD project at Birmingham University             in England has examined patterns of phrase and clause sequences as              they appear in various texts as well as in spoken language. It has              aimed at producing an accurate description of the English language              in order to form the basis for design of a lexical                              syllabus (Sinclair, 1987). Such a syllabus was perceived by COBUILD             researchers as independent and unrelated to any existing language               teaching methodology (Sinclair & Renouf, 1988). As a result, the                Collins COBUILD English Course (Willis & Willis, 1989) was the most             ambitious attempt to develop a syllabus based on lexical rather than            grammatical principles. 
Willis (1990) has attempted to provide a              rationale and design for lexically based language teaching and                  suggests that a lexical syllabus should be matched with an                      instructional methodology that puts particular emphasis on language             use. Such a syllabus specifies words, their meanings, and the common            phrases in which they are used and identifies the most common words             and patterns in their most natural environments. Thus, the lexical              syllabus not only subsumes a structural syllabus, it also describes             how the "structures" that make up the syllabus are used in natural              language. 
Despite references to the natural environments in which             words occur, Sinclair's (1987) and Willis's (1990) lexical syllabi              are word based. However, Lewis's (1993) lexical syllabus is                     specifically not word based, because it "explicitly recognizes word             patterns for (relatively) de-lexical words, collocation power                   for (relatively) semantically powerful words, and longer multi-word             items, particularly institutionalized sentences, as requiring                   different, and parallel pedagogical treatment" (Lewis, 1993, p.                 109). In his own teaching design, Lewis proposes a model that                   comprises the steps, Observe-Hypothesize-Experiment, as opposed to              the traditional Present-Practice-Produce paradigm. Unfortunately,               Lewis does not lay out any instructional sequences exemplifying how             he thinks this procedure might operate in actual language                       classrooms. For more on implementing the lexical approach, see                  Richards & Rodgers (2001). CONCLUSIONZimmerman (1997, p. 17)              suggests that the work of Sinclair, Nattinger, DeCarrico, and Lewis             represents a significant theoretical and pedagogical shift from the             past. First, their claims have revived an interest in a central role            for accurate language description. Second, they challenge a                     traditional view of word boundaries, emphasizing the language                   learner's need to perceive and use patterns of lexis and                        collocation. Most significant is the underlying claim that language             production is not a syntactic rule-governed process but is instead              the retrieval of larger phrasal units from memory. 
Nevertheless,              implementing a lexical approach in the classroom does not lead to               radical methodological changes. Rather, it involves a change in the             teacher's mindset. Most important, the language activities                      consistent with a lexical approach must be directed toward naturally            occurring language and toward raising learners' awareness of the                lexical nature of language. REFERENCESCowie, A.                           P. (Eds.). (1988). Stable and creative aspects of vocabulary use. In            R. Carter & M. McCarthy (Eds.), "Vocabulary and language                        teaching" (pp. 126-137). Harlow: Longman. 
Keller, E. (1979).                  Gambits: Conversational strategy signals. "Journal of Pragmatics,               3," 219-237. 
Lewis, M. (1993). "The lexical approach: The state of            ELT and the way forward." Hove, England: Language Teaching                      Publications. 
Lewis, M. (1997a). "Implementing the lexical                    approach: Putting theory into practice." Hove, England: Language                Teaching Publications. 
Lewis, M. (1997b). Pedagogical implications            of the lexical approach. In J. Coady & T. Huckin (Eds.), "Second                language vocabulary acquisition: A rationale for pedagogy" (pp.                 255-270). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
Nattinger,                   J. (1980). A lexical phrase grammar for ESL."TESOL Quarterly, 14,"              337-344. 
Nattinger, J., & DeCarrico, J. (1992). "Lexical phrases              and language teaching." Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
Pawley,              A., & Syder, F. (1983). Two puzzles for linguistic theory:                      Native-like selection and native-like fluency. In J. Richards & R.              Schmidt (Eds.), "Language and communication" (pp. 191-226). London:             Longman. 
Peters, A. (1983). "The units of language acquisition."              Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
Richards, J., & Rodgers, T.            S. (2001). "Approaches and methods in language teaching: A                      description and analysis" (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University             Press. 
Sinclair, J. M. (Ed.). (1987). "Looking up: An account of              the COBUILD project in lexical computing." London: Collins                      COBUILD. 
Sinclair, J. M., & Renouf, A. (Eds.). (1988). A lexical              syllabus for language learning. In R. Carter & M.                               McCarthy (Eds.), "Vocabulary and language teaching" (pp. 140-158).              Harlow: Longman. 
Willis, D. (1990). "The lexical syllabus: A new              approach to language teaching." London: Collins COBUILD. 
Willis,              J., & Willis, D. (1989). "Collins COBUILD English course." London:              Collins COBUILD. 
Zimmerman, C. B. (1997). Historical trends in                second language vocabulary instruction. In J. Coady & T.                        Huckin (Eds.), "Second language vocabulary acquisition: A rationale             for pedagogy" (pp. 5-19). Cambridge: Cambridge University                       Press. 
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This digest was prepared with funding from the U.S.            Dept. of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement,             National Library of Education, under contract no. ED-99-CO-0008. The            opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions or                  policies of ED, OERI, or NLE.                                                **Title:** Lexical Approach to Second Language Teaching. ERIC Digest.                   **Document Type:** Information Analyses---ERIC Information Analysis Products (IAPs) (071); Information Analyses---ERIC Digests (Selected) in Full Text (073); **Available From:** ERIC/CLL, 4646 40th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20016-1859. Tel:                 202-362-0700; Web site: http://www.cal.org.                                  **Descriptors:** Communicative Competence (Languages), Databases,  Language Patterns,             Language Proficiency,  Oral Language,  Phrase Structure, Second                Language Instruction, Second Language Learning,  Teaching Methods,              Vocabulary                                                                   **Identifiers:** ERIC Digests, Lexical Collocation                                            
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