LEXICAL APPROACH

AIMI, AMIRAH, MYRA, VERO

 ADVANTAGES
 It is made up of units that are “capable of being broken
down into discrete elements” (Brumfit, 1980).
Thus, the target language that is used by the students can
be systematically ordered and graded.
It makes it easy for the learners to learn the L2 as the
structures can be progressively introduced.
The learners can gain a good command of the basic
grammar of the language.
Lexical syllabus is cyclic; infinite number of new sentences
can be formed once the students have mastered the basic
rules of grammar.
The rules of grammar found in L2 can be used to differentiate
potentials and constructions of L2 with that L1.
The structural approach also highlights the differences in meaning
of L1 compared to L2.
This helps the students to become aware of the differences found
in both languages and try to use L2 correctly or as correctly as
possible.
Chunking
Serial and Free Recall
In psichology, Chunking is defined as a phenomenon dealing with individuals’ responses when
performing a memory task. Tests where individuals can give a "chunking“ response can be made
up of serial and free recall tasks.
Serial recall is the ability to store items or events in memory in the order in which they occurred.
The sequence is to be repeated over time until it is stored in memory as a whole, rather than as
a series of items. This ability is very important to the use of language.
Free recall is a basic paradigm in which participants study a list of items on each trial, and then
are prompted to recall them in any order.
Both tasks require the individual to reproduce items including words, syllables, numbers, or lists
of letters that are often meaningful to him or her.
The size of the chunks generally range from two to six items, depending on language and
culture.
Lexical Approach

Premise
"Language is grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar"

Lexical chunks are vital for fluent production, as fluency does not
depend so much on having a set of generative grammar rules and a
separate stock of words, as on having rapid access to a stock of
chunks.

Two activities will be developed to help students notice the lexical

chunks in written and spoken texts.

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Lexical Approach

Activity

Destinataries
•B2 level students of Secondary 2/ High school

Overall Aims
•Develop language proficiency
•Acquire strategies to notice and process new language
•Train for autonomous learning

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Lexical Approach

Activity 1
Skills: Reading = Speaking = Writing

Provide activities that allow students to personalise texts encouraging

meaningful and authentic initial reactions to them,
Divide the class into two teams, as a relay race, and provide them with
a text.

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Lexical Approach

The title of the text is: Cricket makes Olympics

The International Cricket Council has already approached the International

Olympic Committee at the ECB's behest.
London is one of five cities still in the running to host the 2012 Games and
if successful, the ECB would like cricket to be part of the event.
Cricket was last part of the Games in Paris in 1900 when Great Britain beat
France to take the gold medal. The Twenty20 Cup was a huge success in its
inaugural season in English cricket last summer, attracting 250,000
spectators to games. Designed to attract a new younger audience into the
game, it has since spread to South Africa and the USA will soon have its
own version called Pro Cricket.

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Lexical Approach

The England women's team will play New Zealand in the first
international Twenty20 fixture in August, with the men due
to take on Australia next summer as a curtain-raiser to the Ashes series.
Inclusion in the Olympics could follow in the longer term if the IOC
is receptive to the idea. We are exploring the possibility of making
Twenty20 an Olympic Sport," said ECB chief executive Tim
Lamb."We have had preliminary discussions with the ICC about the
possibility of them

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Lexical Approach

"The ICC have expressed initial interest and a willingness to explore the
issue further if there is a clear desire to do so within the international
cricket community."
This season's Twenty20 Cup will have a new innovation with umpires
wearing microphones so they can explain their decisions to TV viewers.
"Our aim this year has been to increase attendance over last year, and we
are certainly on track to achieve this," said ECB marketing manager Tom
Harrison.
This year's Finals' Day will take place at Edgbaston on 7 August. making
a case for Twenty20 to be incorporated at the 2012 Olympics, particularly
if London is successful in its bid. "If that's too soon, perhaps further
down the line. Twenty20 in 2020, who knows?

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Lexical Approach

Some of the chunks are the following ones:

1.still in the running
2.take on (smb)
3.to be receptive to the idea
4.explore the issue further
5.making a case
6.further down the line
7.on track to
8.will take place at

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Lexical Approach

• The two teams are required to pick out a number of chunks from the
test.
• The students elicit the chunks and check with their partners within a
set time of 2 minutes.
• When the teacher gives the signal to begin, the first member of the
team takes the marker, goes up to the board, writes a chunk, hands the
marker to the next student and goes to the back of the line. The next
student does the same.

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Lexical Approach

• When time is up, the teacher stops the students Then the other team
takes its turn. Students continue having team alternate turns until each
has written all elicited chunks.
• The teacher invites peer = correction to eliminate incorrect or repeated
chunks and make any spelling or grammar corrections, Each team is
awarded a point for each correct chunk.
• The total of the scores determines the winner.
• The teacher asks the two teams to analyse the lexical chunks, what
they mean and how they are and might be used.
• For each chunk, students are asked to find out and write an equivalent
in their language and to tell their partner about the lexical chunks in it.

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Lexical Approach

Activity 2
•Skills: Listening = Speaking = Writing

•Provide students with opportunities to discover chunks for themselves,

•Get a whole lot of good lexical phrases by using videos of daytime soap
operas
•Pull out short segments and focus on various phrases of interest.
•Ask students to locate the lexical chunks.
•Analyse the lexical chunks, what they mean and how they are and might
be used.
•Create worksheets, mini = plays to experience lexical chunks in
authentic texts encouraging students to analyse, generalise, research and
experiment with lexical chunks,

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 Metalingual activities

What does to know a word mean? Think for the word “shop”, for example
Why is chunking important?
What are the advantages/disadvantages of dictagloss when teaching lexis/chunks?
Michael Lewis (1997) suggests the following taxonomy of lexical items:
1. Words
2. Polywords
3. Collocations, or word partnerships
4. Institutionalised utterances
5. Sentence frames
Think of an exampe for each of these.
Dictagloss activity
This activity should be used to consolidate and not to introduce new knowledge:
1.The students listen to the reading of a short text at normal pace, for meaning.
2.The text is read again and the students should jot down key words and phrases.
3.Working in small groups the students assemble their words and phrases and try to reconstruct the
text from the resources they share. Their version should contain the main ideas of the text.
4.Each group of students produces their own reconstructed version, aiming at grammatical
accuracy and textual cohesion but not at replicating the original text.
5.Each group reads their finished version to the class analysing and comparing each text.
6.Each text is then refined in the light of the scrutiny and discussion the students have shared.
7.The teacher writes any new or challenging language on the board for scaffolding purposes.
Lexical Approach

After the activities think about these questions:

•Which goals do I , as a teacher, think the activities achieved?
•Which goals do I think the activities fail to achieve?
• Did I notice students doing anything differently during the activities?
• Did my students have a positive, negative or indifferent response to the
activities?
• Did I have a positive, negative or indifferent reaction to these activities?

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