The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and a Way Forward

A Corpus-based Study of Collocation Production of Chinese EFL Learners

“…The initial attention on collocation derived from EFL/ESL teachers' suggestion that collocation instruction should be included in the class (McCarthy, 1984;Nation, 1990;Nattinger, 1980). The lexical approach which was granted as an important role in word and word combinations (Lewis, 1993) emerged as required. Lexical approach emphasized that the essence of language teaching lay in language chunks and multi-word units (Richards and Rogers, 2014;Schmitt, 2008).…”

“…Lexical approach emphasized that the essence of language teaching lay in language chunks and multi-word units (Richards and Rogers, 2014;Schmitt, 2008). The goal of teaching was to develop students' ability to process and produce language chunks (Boers and Lindstromberg, 2009;Lewis, 1993Lewis, , 1997. Schmitt (2008, cited in Richard andRichards andRogers, 2014) further commented lexical approach: '...teaching language based on the idea that language is made up of lexical units rather than grammatical structures...the units are words and chunks formed by collocations and fixed phrases.…”

“…However, most EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers pay more attention to grammar than vocabulary, and ignore the role of the lexicon. The attention on the lexical instruction derived from Lewis's (1993) groundbreaking view that 'language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar' (Lewis, 1993, vi). From then on, vocabulary has become more and more important.…”

A Study on the Use of Lexical Chunks by Chinese EFL Learners in Writing

“…Teachers give instruction focusing on relatively fixed expressions that occur frequently in spoken language, such as, "I'm sorry," "I didn't mean to make you jump," or "That will never happen to me," rather than one originally created sentences (Lewis, 2000). Michael Lewis (1993) also suggests that the key principle of a lexical approach is that "language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar." Lexical approach advocates argue that language consists of meaningful chunks that, when combined, produce continuous coherent text, and only a minority of spoken sentences are entirely novel creations.…”

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AbstractLexical Approach put forward by Michael Lewis (1993) is widely acknowledged in EFL teaching and lexical teaching is very important development in the evolution of language teaching (Lowe, 2003). For about thirty years of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in China, more and more teachers have realized the importance of teaching and encouraging learners to use ready-made lexical chunks.

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