This article, based on material which was originally part of our Delta Module One course, focuses on taking lexical chunks into account when teaching lexis and looks at:
a) the advantages
of teaching lexis as chunks
b) the disadvantages/problems
of the approach
c) ways lexical
chunks can be presented and practised
a)
The advantages of teaching lexis as chunks
1. If
learners are going to have any contact with native speakers or read/listen to
texts produced by NSs, they are going to come across large numbers of lexical
chunks (collocations, idioms, metaphors, polywords, etc) and will need to
understand them. This might be particularly important for ESOL learners.
2. Many
chunks are fixed and may be non-transparent in meaning. It makes no sense to analyse
the meaning of the individual words in chunks such as “in spite of”, “sheer
cheek”, “a dead ringer” etc. If they are to be taught, they therefore have to be taught as chunks. The same is
true of the collocations of various delexicalised verbs such as “do” and “make”
– eg “Do damage” but “Make a mess”. Some languages (eg Italian) have only one
word for do/make, and even those
which make the distinction (eg German) may collocate them with noun phrases
differently. It is therefore essential the learners know when to use each of
them
3. The fact that expert users can usually replace an unheard word in a chunk without problems means that it may be that chunks are stored as such in the brain. Hoey argues that as we acquire new words we take a subconscious note of words that they occur with (collocation) and of any associated grammatical patterns (colligation). Language production is not therefore a matter of simply combining words and rules but rather a retrieval of the language our brains are lexically “primed” for in this way. If this is so, teaching them as chunks would be a brain friendly way of presenting and practising them.
4. At
lower levels, certain items need to be taught as chunks because they involve
grammar which is “too advanced” for the learners to fully understand, but are
useful (and if in an English speaking context essential) for everyday use.
Examples include “I’d like…” and “Shall we”. These can therefore be taught and
used as chunks until learners are at a level to fully understand them more
fully
b) The disadvantages/problems of the
approach
5. If
learners are learning English as an International Language (EIL), the use of
many chunks might well make them more difficult for their interlocutors
to understand than if they used more transparent language – eg “It was raining
a lot” may not be completely natural English, but is much more comprehensible
than “It was tipping it down”.
6. The
sheer quantity of expressions means that
focusing on any significant number will use up a large proportion of class
time, as it will not be sufficient for learners just to “notice” them once –
they will need constant recycling if they are to be retained.
7. Learners
will have difficulty understanding which of the expressions are fixed, which
only semi-fixed and what the
restrictions are. This might lead to them sounding unintentionally comic – eg
the learner who has learnt “It was pouring with rain” but extends this to
produce “It was pouring with snow”.
8. The lexis they include may not be particularly
useful.
Many idioms, for example, include linguistic items that would be rare in
"everyday" English, and in some cases are more or less restricted to
the specific idiom. Consider an axe to grind, a
dead ringer, in cahoots with, off his rocker.
c) Ways lexical chunks can be presented
and practised
Presentation can occur
9. ..
in the follow up stage to discussion activities, when lexical chunks can be
introduced as alternative ways of saying something a learner has expressed. Eg.
If a learner has said “it was raining a lot” the teacher can introduce the
idiom “It was pouring with rain” and/or (depending on level) “It was tipping it
down” or the collocation “It was raining hard”. Introducing them as “emergent
language” - ie as an alternative way of
expressing something the learner wanted to say, - makes them more
meaningful to the learner and therefore more likely to be retained.
10. …
using visuals. This can be a good way of recycling lexical fields at lower
levels, while at the same time making the learners feel that they are learning
something new and more advanced. Eg to recycle parts of the body the learners
are given a picture of a person and a number of short texts with words missing
but arrows pointing from the missing word to the relevant body part. Eg “It was
really expensive. It cost an …. and a ….”
– with arrows pointing to the person’s arm and leg. They have to
remember the lexical items for themselves, but the co-text provides the meaning
of the expression. (See here)
11. …when
using authentic texts. After comprehension work has been completed, activities
can encourage learners to “notice” useful lexical chunks such as collocations,
figurative language, polywords, binomials etc - eg by giving the learners a version of the
text with the expressions highlighted in bold, asking them to infer the meaning
of the chunks from co-text etc.
12. ..
using specially constructed inference activities where learners match a lexical
chunk to its meaning. Eg learners see a
number of sentences, each with a target expression such as “When Anne told her
sister about the birthday party her husband was planning for her, she really let
the cat out of the bag”. Amongst the other meanings below the sentences
will be the meaning “revealed a secret”.
13. …
through lexically enhanced texts such as those used in the “Business Matters”
series of textbooks. Lexical enhancement means that the text is rewritten
specifically to introduce a larger number of lexical chunks than were present
in the original. “Noticing” activities can then be done as in point 11.
14. …
using expressions that are selected specifically for their similarity to those
in the learners’ L1 (in monolingual classes). In my own learning of Italian, I have noticed that if a figurative expression has a conceptual
equivalent in my L1 (English), it's easier to remember than otherwise. So, for
example, the Italian equivalent of “green fingers” is “green thumb”. It's not a translation, but is so
conceptually similar that I have no difficulty remembering it. Expressions like
this can be built into T-produced listening and reading texts and “noticing”
activities like those in point 11 can then be used.
Practice
15. If
lexis has been presented through texts, the same text or sections of the text
can be used in the same and subsequent lessons to practise and recycle the
expressions, with a different activity type. Activity types that might be used with
the text include:
- Gapfills (with one part of the chunk
gqpped – eg “The COVID crisis means that many families are finding it difficult
to …………. ends meet.”)
- Dictation activities such as Dictogloss
or running dictations
- “Spot the mistake” activities – eg a
binomial expression might be inverted - *"error and trial” - or a polyword
included with a wrong preposition – *In spite to the problems….
-
Jumbled word activities – the learners
have the text with the expressions gapped but all the words in a box at the
top. They have to reconstruct the expressions.
This solves the problem of having
to find different texts which recycle previously taught chunks – a virtual
impossibility for many of them.
References and Further Reading
Hoey, M. (2012) Lexical Priming
Selivan, L. Lexical Grammar CUP (excerpt)
Powell, M. New Business Matters, Heinle
Lindstromberg, S. and Boers, F Teaching Chunks of Language: The Issue of Memory
Lindstromberg, S. Revisiting ‘My Good-bye to the Lexical Approach’
(See also the reference lists that precede the final two articles).
