Lexical Approach Flashcards
What is the theory of language underlying the Lexical Approach?
The Lexical Approach reflects a structural view of language. This views language as a system of structurally related elements for the coding of meaning. The LA adds another level of structure, namely multi-word units. Multi-word lexical units play a central role in learning and communication.
What is the theory of learning underlying the Lexical Approach?
- Encountering new learning items on several occasions is a necessary but sufficient condition for learning to occur.
- Noticing lexical chincks or collocations is a necessary but not sufficient condition for input to become intake.
- Noticing similarities, differences, restrictions, and examples contributes to turning input into intake.
- Acquisition is based not on the application of formal rules but on an accumulation of examples from which learners make provisional generalizations.
What are the objectives of the Lexical Approach?
The goal of the Lexical Approach is to develop learner’s awareness and use of lexical chuncks as an important feature of naturalistic language use. A related goal is for learners to develop strategies for identifying and learning the chuncks that they encounter in spoken and written texts.
What kind of syllabus does the Lexical Approach have?
It is recommended for lower level students, direct teaching of the chuncks that occur most frequently, and language corpora can be a source of information for this strategy. The syllabus will consist of an organized record of the chuncks learners have encountered in different written and spoken texts.
What are the teacher roles in the Lexical Approach?
The teacher is assumed to be a language analyst, capable of recognizing multi-word units in texts, able to assess which ones are important enough to justify sustained attention in class, and able to use texts in such a way as to exploit their potential of learning the chunks. Teachers need to understand and manage a classroom methodology based on stages composed of Task, Planning, and Report.
What are the learner roles of the Lexical Approach?
Learners assume an active role in chunck based approaches to learning. As language analysts they may be expected to work with computers to analyze text data previously collected or made available “free-form” on the Internet. Here the learner assumes the role of the data analyst constructing their own linguistic generalizations based on examination of large corpora of language samples taken from “real-life”.
What is the role of instructional materials in the Lexical Approach?
Materials and teaching resources to support lexical approaches in language teaching include a) coursebooks, that focus on multi-word units in the syllabus; b) corpus-informed materials; corpora that can be accessed by the teachers and students.
