Lexical approach with young learners

CHAPTER II LEXICAL APPROACH IN THE PROCESS

2.1 How to apply the lexical approach to language teaching in your classroom

1. Immerse students in authentic materials.

“Authentic material” refers to natural exposure to the language that native speakers encounter every day. For example, Spanish speakers get their news through their favorite Spanish news channels. Germans read German novels. The French watch French movies. The Italians go to restaurants and read the menu in Italian.
“Authentic material” is different from language textbooks or tutorials that are created for language students. Those are purposely made easy. For example, in video tutorials, teachers slow down and enunciate the words clearly so that viewers can follow along. They also explain what each word means and give sentence examples.
This doesn’t happen with authentic materials. There’s the unspoken assumption that readers, viewers or listeners already understand the language, so they go at it full speed.
Immerse your students in authentic materials—real materials created for real native speakers. Where else can you find living and relevant language, as it’s normally used every day? Let your students experience the language as it is, and they’ll grow proficient in noticing the linguistic “chunks” that we’re talking about.
One way to do this is through authentic videos through FluentU. FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons. FluentU takes a step back from the traditional textbook approach and encourages students to learn languages in a more natural way.

2. Highlight lexical chunks every chance you get.

In the beginning, your students will find it challenging to judge for themselves which words in the sentences come as a group. It’ll be your job to highlight them.
For example, highlight the chunks when you write sentences like:
“It’s time for a quick shower.”
“I don’t like fast food.”
“The loss caused excruciating pain.”
Bring your students’ attention to the bolded words.
Highlight them or circle them on the board. Say them repeatedly and ask the class to repeat them as well. Isolate them from the other words in the sentence. Explain to students what they mean.
Give other examples when the phrase is correctly used, and let students known when the phrase would not be appropriate. For example, you can point out that even though “fast” and “quick” essentially mean the same, “fast shower” and “quick food” just don’t sound right.