Language Teaching: The Lexical Approach

Michael Lewis wrote and published The Lexical Approach in 1993 and does agree that grammar and vocabulary form the basis of language acquisition. He says that language consists of multi-word prefabricated chunks; these chunks include collocations, idioms and expressions. He is more concerned with the improvement in the learner’s fluency. Language teaching is increasing students’ awareness and they are able to ‘chunk’ language.

Receptive skills, mainly listening, are given a lot of importance. The theory of Present-Practice-Produce is not accepted and instead the Observe-Hypothesise-Experiment cycle is favoured. The situational element of context is not as important as the co-textual element, in language teaching.

Lewis believes that he has designed ‘a principal approach’ rather than ‘a random collection of ideas that work’. This approach basically states that “language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar”. It says that the language taught by textbooks, is not what is actually used.

Rather than learning the grammar, communication has been greatly stressed upon, in this approach. The meanings of vocabulary should be guessed from the context. Reference tools like dictionaries should be used. Language patterns should be noticed and recorded. Language is learnt by breaking down wholes into parts.