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The Lexical Syllabus: by Ana Marie D. Caseres

The document discusses the lexical syllabus approach to language teaching. It proposes that language consists of grammaticalized lexis rather than lexicalized grammar. The lexical syllabus focuses on teaching common lexical phrases and chunks as unanalyzed wholes. It selects frequent words and sentences from language corpora to present to learners in authentic contexts. Advantages include efficiency, authenticity, and some creative grammar teaching through lexis. Disadvantages include low-information words and restrictive pre-set lists. Further research analyzes terms in specialized corpora to design more realistic syllabi.

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Ernesto S. Caseres Jr
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333 views9 pages

The Lexical Syllabus: by Ana Marie D. Caseres

The document discusses the lexical syllabus approach to language teaching. It proposes that language consists of grammaticalized lexis rather than lexicalized grammar. The lexical syllabus focuses on teaching common lexical phrases and chunks as unanalyzed wholes. It selects frequent words and sentences from language corpora to present to learners in authentic contexts. Advantages include efficiency, authenticity, and some creative grammar teaching through lexis. Disadvantages include low-information words and restrictive pre-set lists. Further research analyzes terms in specialized corpora to design more realistic syllabi.

Uploaded by

Ernesto S. Caseres Jr
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Lexical Syllabus

By Ana Marie D. Caseres


Background Information
The lexical syllabus is first proposed by John Sinclair
(1988) in The Lexical Syllabus for Language Learning.

The famous book for the lexical syllabus is Dave


Willis’ (1990) The Lexical Syllabus: a new approach
to the language teaching.

The best documented course book to apply the lexical


syllabus is the Collins COBUILD English Course by
Willis & Willis (1988).
Theoretical Assumptions
• “Language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not
lexicalized grammar.” (Lewis, 2002)
• Language learning is to comprehend and produce
lexical phrases as unanalyzed wholes or chunks,
which are raw data for learners to begin to perceive
grammar.
• The methodology associated with the lexical
syllabus allows learners to experience language
items in natural contexts and to learn from their
experience.
• The lexis or chunks selected are the commonest ones
according to the frequency in the language corpus.
Main Components
• A list of lexis, chunks, collocations or short
sentences to be learned

They are selected according to the frequency in


the language corpus.

• A list of tasks to be evolved or experienced

They are ordered according to simplicity.


Merits
• Efficient: A lexical syllabus only offers to
the learners things worth learning. (Sinclair,
1988)

• Authentic: A lexical syllabus aims to use


the authentic or spontaneous produced texts.

• Creative: In a lexical syllabus, some


grammars are taught lexically.
Drawbacks
• Words of high frequencies are usually low
in information and content, like the, of, and.

• The commonest chunks are only


appropriate for the low level learners.

• The pre-set list of lexis has some restrictive


effect on the choice of topics.
Further Research Direction
• The study of terms in a specialized corpus
has received much attention recently. For
example, Flowerdew (1991) designed a
syllabus including 2000 words based on a
specialized Biology corpus. He finds it very
realistic.
References:
Brown, J.D. 2001. The Elements of Language Curriculum. Beijing: Foreign Language
Teaching and Research.
Gui, Shichun. 2004. New thinking on China’s foreign language education. Journal of
Foreign Language,152(4), pp.2-9.
Lee, Joyce Yuan-yee. 1994. A critical study of the lexical syllabus. Meeting Points in
Language Studies, pp. 157-183 [on line]. Available Telnet: http:
//hdl.handle.net/1783.1/1352.
Lewis, M. 2002. The Lexical Approach: the state of ELT and the way forward. Australia:
Thomson Heinle.
Nunan, D. 1988. Syllabus Design. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Qiu, x. 2002. An introduction of lexical approach. Journal of Anhui Agriculture
University, 11(3), pp. 118-120.
Sinclair, J. M.& Renouf, A (Eds).1988. A lexical syllabus for language learning. In R.
Carter & M. McCarthy (Eds.), Vocabulary and Language Teaching, pp. 140-158.
Harlow: Longman.
Tickoo, M.L. 1990. Book reviews: the lexical syllabus Collins ELT 1990. RELC Journal,
21(2), pp.87-94.
Willis, D. 1990. The Lexical Syllabus: a new approach to language teaching. London:
Collins ELT.
Willis, J. & Willis, D. 1989. Collins COBUILD English Course. London: Collins
COBUILD.

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