lexicalise your lesson 2: teaching grammar

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Lexicalise Your Lesson 2: Teaching Grammar

Leo Selivan

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Background

Michal Lewis. THE LEXICAL APPROACH. LTP 1993

Michael Lewis. IMPLEMENTING THE LEXICAL APPROACH. LTP 1997

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Key principles

Language consists of “chunks”

(collocation is the most important kind) Acquisition is not linear Syllabus organised around meaning Language consists of grammaticalised

lexis – not lexicalised grammar

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A bit of history

Advances in corpus linguistics

Collins COBUILD Project

Dave Willis’s Lexical Syllabus (1990)

700 most frequent words cover 70% of text

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Taxonomy

Collocations Polywords (e.g. phrasal verbs) Sentence frames (the … er, the … er) Situational utterances

(See you later, I should get going)

based on Nattinger (1992)

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Collocation

V+N make a mistakeachieve a goal

Adj+N demanding job N+N knee injury Adv+Adj deeply wounded V+Adv talk freely N+V (actions) bees buzz

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Traditional ELT

Traditional ELT

Learn Grammar(BONE)

Learn a lot of new words(FLESH)

Extensive noun vocabulary

Struggle to useNo wonder learners make mistakes

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Grammar and Lexis

What grammar structures do you associate the following groups of words with?

always / sometimes / usually / never for / since / never …ago / last year / yesterday

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Grammar and Lexis

But consider this:

We are already doing a lot to combat crime in the city Ben was already 17 when we moved to Birmingham.

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Misconceptions about grammar

Grammar is not a supposed set of rules There is no evidence that explicit knowledge of grammar aids acquisition Grammar is not a set of transformations Grammar is often oversimplified to the point that it does not make any sense Spending a lot of class time on “traditional” EFL grammar condemns learners to remaining on the intermediate plateau.

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Misconceptions about grammar

You’re looking good

I’ve been wanting to do this for ages.

Look. It’s been snowing!

Wow! Did you see that?!

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Grammar and Lexis

May I …? I might… I’ll see you tomorrow. I hope so. Can you wait a minute? – Can’t you wait a

minute?

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Teaching grammar

Structure-based learning

Item-based learningConsciousness Raising

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TASK 1: Reflect

Think of a grammar rule (in your coursebook or other materials you use) which you found not very helpful? Why was it unhelpful?

Discuss in pairs.

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I should really get going. Is there anything you need? I’m not stupid, am I?! When it comes to… There’s been a lot of opposition to… Who do you work for?

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TASK 2: Correct errors

Are you happy with this view of grammar?

Discuss in pairs.

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Error Correction

Correct Collect

many grammatical errors are actually the result of lexical deficiencies and that what is thus needed is NOT more grammar correction and study, but rather more lexical input

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Present Perfect

Superlative

It is the best / most … I’ve ever …

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Past Perfect

It was not as … as I’d expected.

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Topic: Travel

Have you ever been to…?

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Useful objects

pen / eraser / pencil

Have you got (a) …?

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House

bathroom / living room / bedroom

shower / bed / sofa

Where is Mike?He is in the bathroom, having a shower.He is in the living room, watching TV.He is in the bedroom, playing computer games.

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De-lexicalised words

took the dog out for a walkYou took advantageI took it as a complimentLet’s take the bus Do you mind taking my photo?How do you take your coffee? With milk?Who do you take me for?!

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De-lexicalised words

low-semantic content words with a vast number of common collocates

Set

SeeDo

GoHave

Take

Make

PutGet

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TASK 3: Correct errors

We studying in the same school.What does his job?It’s [the film] about people who live in England at the last century.I don’t know how to tell it.People which learn languages need a lot of practice.

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Misanalysed grammar items

Will as the future Would as 2nd or 3rd conditional Reported speech

Based on Willis (1990)

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Immediate advantages of LA

Increased fluency (speaking & writing) Faster comprehension when reading Better comprehension, especially when

listening to fast speech

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Bibliography Hill, Jimmie & Lewis, Michael (1997) The LTP dictionary of selected collocations

Hove: LTP Hill, Jimmie, Lewis, Morgan & Lewis, Michael (2000) Classroom strategies,

activities and exercises in Lewis, Michael ed. Teaching collocation Boston: Thomson Heinle

Lewis, Michael (1993) The lexical approach Hove: LTP Lewis, Michael (1996) Implications of a lexical view of language in Willis, J and

Willis D, eds. Challenge and change in language teaching Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann

Lewis, Michael (1996a) Implementing the lexical approach Hove: LTP McCarthy, Michael & O’Dell, Felicity (2005) English collocations in use

Cambridge: CUP Nattinger, James, & DeCarrico, Jeanette. (1992). Lexical phrases and language

teaching. Oxford: OUP. Pawley, Andrew & Syder, Frances (1983). Two puzzles for linguistic theory:

Nativelike selection and nativelike fluency. In J.C. Richards and R.W. Schmidt (Eds.), Language and communication (pp. 191-226). New York: Longman.

Sinclair, John (1991) Corpus, Concordance, Collocation Willis, Dave (1990) Lexical Syllabus: Collins ELT