The Lexical Approach

1. The Lexical Approach Caltanissetta settembre 2008

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. The Lexical Approach 1 • Language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar. • The grammar/vocabulary dichotomy is invalid; much language consists of multi-word 'chunks'. • A central element of language teaching is raising students' awareness of, and developing their ability to 'chunk' language successfully.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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 Observe- Hypothesise-Experiment cycle.

11. 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)

12. UP • OALD 18 • CIDE 23 • COBUILD 33 in 3 fields/entries • LDOCE 46

13. Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale Le “associazioni forti” • flauto • carattere • caffè • clima • ferro • dessert

14. Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale Le “associazioni forti” • mani • scolare • uomo • asciutta • dentifricia

15. Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale Le “associazioni forti” • posta • scuola • prova • pegni • medicinali • nebbia

16. Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale Le “associazioni forti” • basso • uscio • mistero • volta • parola • [violino]

17. Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale Le “associazioni forti” • libero • prezzo • settimanale • coperto • pulci • [ortofrutticolo immobiliare azionario]

18. Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale Le “associazioni forti” • lago • sorpresa • polli • nozze • Antonio Rivolta • [capponi]

19. Le tecniche dell’approccio lessicale