THE LEXICAL APPROACH The State of ELT and a Way Forward MICHAEL LEWIS TRATRINGLanguage Teaching Publications 114a Church Road, Hove, BN3 2EB, En No unauthorised photocopying land All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduce, stored in a retrieval system, for trasmited in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying. recording, Ot ‘otherwise, without the prior permission af the Copyright owner Acknowledgements, [am grateful to many people who have discussed ideas in this book with m particularly those who contributed the ‘Words of Wisdom’ opposite. Peter Wilberg first impressed on me the importance of collocation; Henry Widdowson struck a cord with ‘random lexicalisation’ and my colleague Jimmie Hill has proved, as usual, an invaluable sounding board. Equally, many with no contact with language teaching have exercised more influence than they know by encouraging me to think about language, people, values and what itis in fife that matters ‘The Author Michael Lewis taught English in Sweden at all levels from primary school to adult, In 1981 he co-founded LTP, He has lectured on language and methodology in most European countries, Japan, the States and Central America. He is the author of The English Verb and a number of student texts, and co-author of Business English (with Peter Wilbetg) and Practical Techniques for Language Teaching (with Jimmie Hill). His main current interests lie in the areas of grammar, vocabulary and the development of a lexical approach and appropriate teacher-friendly classroom materials, © Language Teaching Publications 1993 Reprinted 1994, 1996, 1999 ISBN 0 906717 99 X Cover design by Anna Macleod Printed in England by Commercial Colour Press, London E7,Words of Wisdom Many people — professional colleagues, friends, and writers have wittingly or unwittingly influenced me. T have always gathered particular sentences or phrases which seem to me to express an idea more precisely or succinctly than T have thought it, or heard it expressed before, The few which follow have profoundly influenced my thinking on matters touched on in this book, T hope their creators recognise them, and do not wish to disown insights which seemed to me at the time, and still seem, profound, The human mind cannot help but make meaning, Sister Margaret Walshe, Crawley, 1988 We improve our ideas through a lengthy trail of broken images and abandoned illusions. Don Cupitt, Writing about the history of ideas The teacher's primary responsibility is response-ability Peter Wilberg, Editorial Meeting 1988, You cannot learn what you do not understand. Professor Henri Adamchiewski, [ATEFL 1992 Grammar is what has always made English a school subject. Jimmie Hill, Private Conversation 1984 When students travel, they dont carry grammer books, they carry dictionaries. Professor Stephen Krashen, British Council Conference, Milan 1987 Most examples in textbooks and grammar books are randomly lexicalised. Professor Henry Widdowson, TESOL Convention, San Francisco 1990 If you want to forget something, put it in a list Earl Stevick, Writing about memory, Our purpose is to help students make maximal sense from minimal resources. Otto Weiss, IATEFL 1989.