Anyone else actually read either of Lewis' books "The Lexical Approach" or "Implementing the Lexical Approach"?
"The Lexical Approach" seems to be the most misquoted book in ELT despite being the most encompassing read available in the field. Lewis' highlights all the advantages of the Communicative Approach and how we've gone on to ignore some of the most important aspects therein. And then he ties in studies into language corpora, research from all kinds of fields related to ELT, and key aspects of other approaches (eg. much of Krashen's theory)... and the result fits in perfectly with intuition.
The most important thing, as Lewis' insists himself, it is an approach (not a methodology) and should be seen as a good, foundational theory that you take with you into any other classroom situation or methodology. In Communicative Language Teaching you can tie in a Lexical Approach. In Task-Based Learning you can. In Text-Based Learning you can. In simply following the course-book you can. You could probably even do a decent Grammar-Translation or Audiolingualism class approaching them from a Lexical viewpoint. And when you do, what you provide the learners changes from being a side-dish or sushi box (nutritious already) into a full and wholesome meal (all that much more nutritious)!
So... any experiences with it? Reading? In class use? Adapted activities/tasks? Just generally letting it affect other things you do?
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I hesitate to push my own wares, but in this case I'm offering something for free, so there's no ulterior motive. If you'd like to look at one of the precursors of The Lexical Approach you can take a look at my book The Lexical Syllabus (Collins COBUILD 1990) You can download it for free from the Birmingham University website at www.cels.bham.ac.uk/resources/LexSyll.htm
Dave Willis
Dave Willis as in Willis & Willis?
Fantastic - will be looking at that immediately!
Thanks, Dave,
I tried the link but was redirected to the Birmingham home page which is password protected. Is there a way in?
I use aspects of the lexical approach in my EAP teaching and would agree with Heath that it is something that will fit into all kinds of teaching situations/methods/approaches. However, I cannot see how one could create an EAP syllabus that included progression, recycling and transferability to other contexts using only lexis.
Olwyn
Hi Olwyn,
Yes, you are right. 'Only lexis' is not enough. But that's exactly what I mean about The Lexical Approach being misunderstood.
One of the key points of The Lexical Approach is that we need to put a much heavier focus on lexis and a lighter focus on grammar. But that is less focus on grammar, not no focus. In addition to that, that is only one of the many important points made (eg. the fact that there isn't a clear cut distinction between grammar and words and that much language lies at varying places between the two). There's a lot more to The Lexical Approach, in relation to language, language learning, communication, and teaching, and I think all language teachers should at least have a light read of one or both of the books on it (but be forewarned, the first is quite a challenge, academically, to read - definitely not light bedtime reading).
Just don't put off looking into it more through rumours of it being 'zero grammar' or 'lexis only', because that's not The Lexical Approach at all.
Hope the EAP syllabus is working out well.
Heath