The Lexical Approach: Making the Leap from Grammar to Lexis

Is the Lexical Approach a teaching method that involves a focus on teaching vocabulary in general and chunks of language and collocations in particular? In essence, never teach or learn words in isolation. Or is it all about a different approach to teaching grammar?

Here’s an expanded summary of what Hugh Dellar understands the Lexical Approach to be, and what becoming a more lexically-orientated actually means for classroom practice. It’s based mostly on notes I took at the Making the Leap from Grammar to Lexis workshop he gave at IH Dublin on 24 September 2016, but also draws on things he’s written, as well as other webinars and youtube videos.

Hugh Dellar is the author (along with Andrew Walkley) of a number of coursebook series that at least attempt to incorporate the Lexical Approach into the teaching and learning, most notably Innovations and, to a lesser extent, the follow up Outcomes series. Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley’s book Teaching Lexically: Principles and Practice (Delta Publishing, 2016) also shows how this lexico-grammatical approach can be put in practice in the classroom even if you are not using those coursebooks. You can get a taste of how this methodology book sets out the principles of the Lexical Approach and how those principles can be applied in the classroom in this Teaching Lexically handout that DELTA Publishing distributed at an IATEFL workshop in 2016.

One spin off to the ongoing discussion around the Lexical Approach in the teachers’ room at Atlas was a group of teachers developing our own Keeping a Vocabulary Notebook, a study guide for students. In this very practical guide that teachers could share with their students, we discuss some reasons why vocabulary notebooks are necessary, how to notice and record vocabulary, how students could organise their notebooks, and finally, how students could best use them for revision.

So, here goes….

Over time teachers develop and transition from doing what we’re trained to do on CELTA courses to finding our own way. Hugh Dellar (HD) has, for a long time, advocated moving away from largely teaching grammar and other language items in an ordered sequence to paying more attention to conversational patterns and teaching language lexically.

HD argues that CELTA input sessions train us all to believe that language awareness equates to knowing all about grammar, the tense system, modality, etc. In short, CELTA courses instil a fear of grammar in us with trainees being led to believe that becoming a good teacher involves being able to present language items, checking meaning using closed concept checking questions or some well thought out timeline, doing some controlled practice gap-fill (perhaps illegally photocopied from Murphy), and moving on to set up some contrived freer exercise to produce the target language. This PPP model feeds into students believing they’ve now “done the present perfect simple” and are ready to move on to “do the present perfect continuous”. HD suggests that this “Lego house” model of language teaching / learning of placing one discrete block of language on top of another has its roots in the structuralist view (Chomsky) that grammatical structures are the skeleton of the language and we need to build that framework before then fleshing it out with words. (Note to self: Perhaps it’s actually more “Airfix” than “Lego” because at least with Lego you can modularise and change, amend and adapt any design as you go. Airfix is more predetermined, with a more rigid order of construction and inflexible outcome.)

While the PPP paradigm may not be as omnipresent as it once was, either on CELTA / CertTESOL courses or in coursebooks, to this day, coursebooks such as Headway and English File (i.e., Headway redux) do continue to set out a very predictable sequence of grammar structures with associated practice exercises. HD has argued that a PPP-type is seductive for several reasons:

It makes you feel in control as a teacher, especially if you’re a novice teacher. Grammar knowledge gives teachers a sense of power over students and non-teacher native speakers. Grammar is what makes English academic.
It limits the questions you get asked.
It creates the illusion of progress. Teachers and students alike are able to say we’ve done the present perfect, etc.
It’s tightly structured, though still allows you space to be creative (e., with ‘wacky’ presentations)
It does provide us with a knowledge base.

While it is understandable that it is difficult to completely shake teachers out of the PPP way of thinking, the Lexical Approach does offer a framework to challenge it. HD says his teaching career is in many respects a story of unpacking the Lexical Approach for classroom application.

What forced HD to change his approach to teaching was a combination of his own foreign language learning experience, a realisation that a certain rot had set in in his teaching, his decision to do the DELTA, and then finding Michael Lewis’ The Lexical Approach. HD described how, as teachers, we see students learning grammar items and lists of words, but then they often seem to struggle to put them together in anything that resembles normal everyday conversation. As teachers, at worst, we are doing little more than bashing them over the head with grammar items that they don’t need. With many course books we’re showing students language in certain contexts that they are unlikely to come across, simply hoping they retain the underlying grammar structures that we can later attach words to.

Michael Lewis in The Lexical Approach argues that language is not just lexicalised grammar. He argues for the primacy of lexis and that we should see language as grammaticalised lexis. That is, it is lexis that carries more meaning and drives communication, and the grammar simply comes attached to the lexis rather than the other round. This was a profound shift in perspective.

At the chalkface, this shift in approach to incorporate the ideas of Lewis would be reflected in a move away from “doing” grammar forms in one lesson, “doing” another lesson on GB vs US English and then another lesson “doing” phrasal verbs, to lessons in which we teach vocabulary and then through that the grammar that goes with it – a more lexically-orientated way of teaching.

Why make the leap away from grammar dominated teaching to a more lexically-orientated way of teaching?

When we’re teaching grammar, we’re actually not teaching too much. For example, if we’re teaching the ‘perfect’ we’re essentially teaching the idea of ‘before-after’. Any Irish speaker would know how easy it is to avoid using a distinct perfect tense just by using ‘after’. For example, “I’m after making a coffee. Do you fancy one?” That’s all the perfect tense really conveys.
While there are undoubtedly layers of grammar, by Intermediate level students have covered most of the aspects of grammar that they’ll need to be effective speakers. But the toughest thing for students to grasp about grammar is the way that interacts with lexis. Students don’t understand how vocabulary is grammaticalised, and it’s this that prevents them from being able to develop their ability to hold normal conversations.
We generally want to help our students understand how language works better and have normal conversations better. Grammar-dominated teaching essentially doesn’t help build conversational skills. At least, it doesn’t work as well as it could do. Students wedded to grammar-structuralism and PPP learn to talk about the language, not talk in English. Students know all the meta-language, and they grow up believing learning English is all about learning more grammar. The system creates grammar fear and dependency and means students don’t get the chance to see how conversations develop. This focus on structures in isolation distorts the reality of usage.
Similarly, students simply don’t learn how to use things linearly after a presentation-practice and presentation session. Once is never enough! How grammar and lexis interact is complex and the separation of grammar and vocabulary, especially when the vocab is presented as single words, makes life harder for students. We’re asking them to put together knowledge of grammar structures and single words. It’s asking so much of them.
As a teacher, if you don’t jump you’ll die of boredom teaching the same list of grammar items year after year.

HD references the importance of Michael Hoey’s idea of lexical priming. HD believes that we learn how grammar and vocabulary interact through repeated exposure to the two things at the same time in meaningful contexts. This repeated exposure to the patterns of language reinforces are primings – our expectations of how language works. Initially at least, students bring into their English learning their understanding of how the translated words work in their own L1. They bring primings from their L1 into their English learning.

Hoey’s ideas of the importance of patterns in language sync with the Lexical Approach’s idea of not teaching single words on their own, and students needing the co-text. Hoey and Lewis are both essentially arguing that we should teach words with the grammar they often go with. The grammatical pattern that words often take (colligation) could be termed ‘grammatical collocation’.

For example “arrest” is often used in the past passive “he was arrested”. Expose students to this pattern and teach the grammar (passives) on the back of the lexis.

Some Implications for Teaching and Learning

Looking to move on from the ‘tyranny’ of PPP to take on board the idea of language being grammaticalised lexis and to teach grammar more lexically, HD argues we can do a number of things in the classroom:

1. Real examples in context are better than explanations

Keep it real! Teach grammar in real-world situations so that students hear and see what the grammar is really used to do. Don’t teach odd sentences that we’re unlikely to hear. Start from thinking of what a typical context would be and how the conversation would develop. Students need the real co-text.

For example, what does ‘rush’ mean? How do we teach it? We could write “to rush” in the vocab column on the board. Adding collocations would be a reasonable next step: “to be in a rush”. But think about the examples you write on the board so as to show students the typical ways of exactly how words are used. Tell a story that makes typical use of the language and write it up. For example, “Listen, I’d love to stop but I’m in a rush / hurry. Could we catch up later?”

This longer chunk of conversation gives students an example of real world usage that they might actually want to say. It shows the context and gives the co-text. It also supports dealing with differentiation in class by allowing stronger and weaker students to focus on and take away whatever they are able to learn from this longer example. Ironically, it also provides for more exposure to grammar – the grammar spins out of the vocab chunks. Finally, it aids receptive understanding and provides extension opportunities by providing prompts to ask, interact, extend and speak about the story. For example, we could ask students why they might be in a rush…. running late, etc.

Similarly, look at how we go into an Elementary group. We should think of useful exchanges students need to in real life and work from what students are saying and need to say better. Look at the patterns, practise them and substitute in other verbs as we develop accuracy and confidence. This is teaching grammar as lexis, as fixed phrases.

I’m Gary. What’s your name?

How long have you been living here?

2. Teach the probable – not the possible

Keep things true to what you hear and say – think when you would say this, when will the students hear this? If they won’t, don’t teach it. And don’t overstretch structures lexically – e.g., with the future perfect we really only ever use 10 or so verbs in that tense, so focus exposure to that pattern using “I’ll have finished, lived, done, etc.”

3. Focus on institutionalised sentences

Focus on examples of grammar that are so predictable that they become fixed chunks of language. For example, yes, when learning “will” and “wont” it’s useful to understand that we sue these to make promises, and threats at the time of speaking. But knowing that isn’t enough. The definitions are meaningless unless they are rooted in a common stock of sentences that students hear. Here are some fixed, institutionalised examples of grammar that students need to hear.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

I’ll pay you back tomorrow.

This won’t hurt.

Conversations and the way they develop need to be given priority over the study of structures in isolation. Look at the variety of structures we use in response to a question using one particular structure. We rarely answer using the same structure:

What are you doing tonight?

I was thinking about…
I’m just going to take it easy.
I might go to the cinema.
I’ll see what my friend’s doing.

Why did you decide to do that, then?

Well, I’ve been thinking about it for a while.
My mum told me to do it.
I should have done it ages ago.
I was going to do it the other way

Have you been to see a doctor about it?

Yes, I went yesterday.
No, but don’t worry, I will.
Not yet, but I’ve got an appointment for tomorrow afternoon.
Not yet, but maybe I should.

A focus on conversations helps students see the interaction of structures with other structures and vocabulary with other structures.

4. Reformulation – say it frequently, say it better

Students need repeated exposure to the most common grammatical patterns across a wide range of topics. Techniques and routines that involve reformulation aid this. Listen to what students are trying to say and help them say it in a better way. Students need to do different things on different days to the same structures. And in so doing, point out the grammar patterns.

For example, students at Pre-Intermediate first learn the questions “have you ever been to Cork?

No never, but I’ve always wanted to.

Yes, I went there last year.

On another day talking about society. (present perfect but in different content)

Prices have gone up over the last few months.

As students are talking, the teacher can pick up on things they are trying to say but can’t quite say either because of grammar or because of vocabulary problems, and always because they don’t know how to use them. As the teacher is writing language up on board, gap certain words. Summarise what people were saying and elicit what’s missing. Ask students, for example, why verb forms are in the particular form. For example,…

We’ve been investing in green technology.

Give students time to write and ask questions. Reformulate the output and give it back to them – refocused input. Encourage noticing so that students are primed better, and so have better expectations of how language will work.

Linked to intervening and reformulation is not being afraid to interrupt and disturb what students are doing with the language. It’s our job as their teachers to focus on the gap between what they are saying and what they think they are saying. Tell students “Yes, you’ve expressed your meaning but this is how you say it better.” Fluency will come as you improve your accuracy.

5. Dense classroom materials

Long live gap-fills! We should look carefully at what we’re doing when we are checking answers to gap-fills. First, make sure everyone understands why the right answer is correct before then exploring and playing with the language more. When extending in this way, we shouldn’t be asking only closed concept Y/N questions. Instead ask more open questions to engage students. Ask for reasons and opinions. For example, ask why you’re in a rush?

I don’t want to miss my train
I’m meeting my girlfriend in a bit

When we ask about language around words, correcting gap-fills provides another opportunity to take what the students say, write it up on the board with good grammar. This again allows students to see what the next step is, i.e., what it is that they’ll be learning next.

In correcting exercises, students also often ask about differential meaning between what two words. For example, “grant” vs “subsidy”? Is a subsidy like a grant? How can the teacher best clarify the differences? Again, get the language up on the board. Give example sentences, and ask students about the words from those examples. And from contextualising the words we can look at the grammar patterns around them.

6. Not everything taught will be learned

We have to accept that not everything taught will be learned. Some things will stick, other things won’t. But students can re-encounter things if we recycle language in subsequent classes with open questions that use that language. This also moves language from the book into students’ own lives. And you as the teacher learn more about your students.

Have you ever felt like a fish out of water?

Do students in your country get grants?

Do the police turn a blind eye? Why? When?

7. Work with the course book

This is in no way advocating a raw dogme approach. It’s an argument for using the course books in a different way. Typically, teachers could be taking a page from the course book before class, thinking about how you are going to explain the language, and what you yourself would say in answer to the questions. The teacher then has this language up your sleeve, ready to inject into the class. At least at the outset, the teacher knows what language you are taking into the class, before moving off productively on the tangents that are relevant to the students. The best improvisation is prepared improvisation.

In developing ourselves as teachers in this way, there is no need to call on a bag of catchy games for classes. Instead, we should be doing much the same thing each day. That is, we pick up a page from the course book and prepare from that material. Using course books effectively, in fact, should be the focus of CELTA courses. This wouldn’t make classes ‘samey’ at all because while we go through much the same steps each time, what comes back from each class each time will be different. In fact, varied and interesting classes result from the different interactions that are generated in different classes.

Like a guitar teacher or driving instructor, we are teaching a life skill. There is a lot of repetition, we are practising fixed routines. When students can produce these reasonably accurately, this then allows you to go off on a degree of improvisation. There’s no need for fun tricks or fancy games in class, just do some reading, highlight vocab, and move on to speaking using the vocab and draw out some of the grammar around those lexical items.

8. Prep with a dictionary

Use a dictionary to help prepare examples before class. Try to keep dictionaries out of the classroom. Dictionaries can be useful when the teacher is not around as a resource, but they can’t connect the language to students in the same way as the teacher can.

In the teachers’ room, talk more about language with your colleagues. Rather than ask if others have an activity you could use to practise the present perfect simple, or a speaking activity to get hem talking more, or a song to wow them on a Friday, instead speak to your colleagues about language and what the difference is between words, e.g., “oily” and “greasy”. And check examples out in the dictionary.

9. Horses for courses – focus on different things at different levels

Students need to do grammar as lexis, and generally start off doing so. For example, we teach “What’s your name?” in your first beginner class. In real life we don’t then go on to say, “I’m not Welsh”. We should go on to teach enough language to allow them to do the conversation they need. We might even introduce more fixed institutionalised sentences such as “How long have you been living here?” This is useful to know at elementary level.

But students need to know different things about the grammar at different levels. Students generally get to an intermediate level with a focus on grammar structures. But they will only push on to an advanced level if they focus more on developing layer and layer of lexis, collocation, fixed expressions, etc. Students at higher levels simply need to practise grammaticalising more. As the teacher, beyond B1 level don’t bother too much about the big grammar items. Perhaps just briefly explore discrete grammar points in clear contexts. For example, when teaching dramatic inversion at advanced level, students can easily sound like they’ve learned some mad sentences from a course book. And often, they have! It is ok to learn that grammar item, but teach it in clear, meaningful context – e.g., letter of complaint about train. “No sooner had I arrived than…”

Consider at what level would you teach each of these sentences?

What’re you studying? ELEM
I’m going out with a couple of friends tonight. ELEM
Crime is getting worse and worse at the moment. PRE-INT
I’m doing an extra shift at work tonight. PRE-INT
My boss is breathing down my next about it. ADV
They’re denying him access to a lawyer. ADV
They certainly are stepping up their campaign. ADV
She’s not pulling her weight. ADV

Could all of them be taught at elementary level? Grammatically, they are all present simple, and present simple is commonly taught at elementary level. But you’d probably limit it to the first 2 in an elementary class. And move into collocations and idiomatic expressions at higher levels.

Examples with present continuous:

I’m cooking dinner now.
I’m going out with a couple of friends tonight.

The form is straightforward:

I am

You are

He / she / It is + ing

We are

You are

They are

Two functions are:

To talk about an action happening around now, one that has already started but has not yet finished.
To talk about an arrangement with other people in the future

Just knowing the pure grammar doesn’t help students say any of the above sentences. Knowing to say these sentences involves an awful lot more than just knowing the grammar rules.

10. Change of mindset

Teachers might needs to have a change in mindset. We need to move from believing that authority comes from our ability to explain grammar to appreciating that it grows from our ability to contextualise and exemplify language. On CELTAs and when doing observations we should be planting these seeds of teaching lexically to encourage teachers to allow classes to go off on tangents. Whether a class starts with a reading or listening, as observers, we should point out missed opportunities to trainees and teachers, and suggest how they could open the language up for students to personalise and define the tangents.

With this approach there are no more standalone grammar lessons. Students instead work on broadening their language range in the knowledge that they will get more accurate and improve by first and foremost focus on learning new language. This might mean a change of mind set for exam students as well. They’ll have to move away from the idea that they need more grammar to pass the exam. If they don’t believe you, show students exam papers and ask them to find the explicit grammar questions. There aren’t any! Students will get through the Cambridge English First exam if they know more language. Even with higher level learners we could return to teach “problem” to higher levels by introducing examples of it with “tackle a …” etc.

Summary Don’ts:

Don’t teach every meaning of a word all at once.
Don’t over-explain or try to explain why lexical items are the way they are.
Don’t teach etymology.
Don’t worry about saying “because that’s what people say”.

Summary principles behind teaching lexically:

Vocabulary primarily drives communication.
Vocabulary needs to be consistently taught with connected words and grammar.
Interaction between students and teachers and students is essential if we are to pitch teaching to needs of our students

The Lexical Approach

The Lexical Approach: Making the Leap from Grammar to Lexis