The Lexical Approach
Caltanissetta settembre 2008
WORDS OF WISDOM

The human mind cannot help but make
meaning.

The teacher's primary responsibility is
response-ability.

You cannot learn what you do not
understand.
2
WORDS OF WISDOM / 2

When students travel, they don 't carry
grammar books, they carry dictionaries.

Grammar is what has always made
English a school subject.

If you want to forget something, put it in a
list.

Our purpose is to help students make
maximal sense from minimal resources.
3
The Lexical Approach 1

Language consists of grammaticalised
lexis, not lexicalised grammar.

The grammar/vocabulary dichotomy is
invalid; much language consists of multiword 'chunks'.

A central element of language teaching is
raising students' awareness of, and
developing their ability to 'chunk' language
successfully.
4
The Lexical Approach 2

Although structural patterns are
acknowledged as useful, lexical and
metaphorical patterning are accorded
appropriate status.

Collocation is integrated as an
organising principle within syllabuses.

Evidence from computational linguistics
and discourse analysis influence
syllabus content and sequence.
5
The Lexical Approach 3

Language is recognised as a personal
resource, not an abstract idealisation.

Successful language is a wider concept
than accurate language.

The central metaphor of language is
holistic -- an organism; not atomistic -a machine.
6
The Lexical Approach 4

The primacy of speech over writing is
recognised; writing is acknowledged as a
secondary encodement, with a radically
different grammar from that of the spoken
language.

It is the co-textual rather than situational
elements of context which are of primary
importance for language teaching.
7
The Lexical Approach 5

Socio-linguistic competence -communicative power -- precedes and is
the basis, not the product, of grammatical
competence.

Grammar as structure is subordinate to
lexis.

Grammatical error is recognised as
intrinsic to the learning process.
8
The Lexical Approach 6

Grammar as a receptive skill, involving the
perception of similarity and difference, is
prioritised.

Sub-sentential and supra-sentential
grammatical ideas are given greater
emphasis, at the expense of earlier
concentration on sentence grammar and
the verb phrase.
9
The Lexical Approach 7

Task and process, rather than exercise
and product, are emphasised.

Receptive skills, particularly listening, are
given enhanced status.

The Present-Practise-Produce
paradigm is rejected, in favour of a
paradigm based on the ObserveHypothesise-Experiment cycle.
10
MAKE

OALD 18 in 4 fields + 7 other + idioms + phr

CIDE
11 fields + phr
COBUILD 35 in 6 fields + phr
LDOCE 35 in 14 fields + 9 other + phr (make
up: 9)


11
UP




OALD
CIDE
COBUILD
LDOCE
18
23
33 in 3 fields/entries
46
12
Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale
Le “associazioni forti”






flauto
carattere
caffè
clima
ferro
dessert
13
Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale
Le “associazioni forti”





mani
scolare
uomo
asciutta
dentifricia
14
Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale
Le “associazioni forti”






posta
scuola
prova
pegni
medicinali
nebbia
15
Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale
Le “associazioni forti”






basso
uscio
mistero
volta
parola
[violino]
16
Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale
Le “associazioni forti”






libero
prezzo
settimanale
coperto
pulci
[ortofrutticolo immobiliare azionario]
17
Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale
Le “associazioni forti”






lago
sorpresa
polli
nozze
Antonio Rivolta
[capponi]
18
Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale
Regione
21
________
oltre
100
Comune
oltre
____
Presidente o Agricoltura,
_________ istruzione professionale, ecc.
Presidente
Istruzione,
_________,
_________
_________
Anagrafe,
_________,
_________
19