Lexical Approach

Lexical approach is a method of teaching foreign languages. It is a term bandied about by many, but, I suspect, understood by few. The lexical approach concentrates on developing learners proficiency with lexis, or words and word combination.

Types of Lexis:

a.       “Lexical chunk”

b.      Collocation

c.       Idioms

d.      Similes

e.       Connectives

f.       A conversational gambits

Principles of a lexical approach:

a.       Language = Grammar + vocabulary

b.      Observe – hypothesis – experiment circle (present – practice – produce)

c.       Gramaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar

d.      Holistic – not atomistic

e.       Lexicon is prime

The teacher’s roles:

·      Teacher’s talk is the major source of learners input

·      Organizing the technological system, providing scaffolding to help learners

·      The teacher methodology:

ü Task

ü Planning

ü Report

The learners roles:

·      Replace the idea

·      Data analyst

Classroom activities:

a.    Listening and reading intensively and extensively

b.    Repetition and recycling of activities

c.    Guessing the meaning  of vocabulary items from context

d.   Noticing and recording language patterns and collocations

e.    Working with dictionaries and other reference tools

Materials:

a.    TYPE I, course packages

b.    TYPE 2, collection of vocabulary teaching activities

c.    TYPE 3, “print-out” version of computer corpora in text format

d.   TYPE 4, computer concordance programs