A LEXICAL SYLLABUS

A Lexical Syllabus

A Lexical Syllabus

Introduction

With the passage of time, the attention on language teaching has drawn concern towards the manner in which languages are taught and the approaches that are exercised in the teaching of the languages. As a result, it has become almost essential to ensure that the practice of language teaching is refined and developed in the area of the students as well as in the area of the teachers. In essence, language teaching techniques are now considered to be issues that require the channelling of attention towards multiple aspects (Batstone 1996, 273). The fundamental objective of the subjection of this attention towards language teaching is to bring about a language teaching approach in which the teacher is able to communicate exactly what he/she wants to communicate to the students and the students feel motivated to delve into the lesson.

Research in this area has led to the establishment of the realization that two 'forms' of language are generally used in the classroom. The first form is that which is brought into use for the basic purpose of communicating, while the second form comes forth when the teachers and the students communicate during the lesson and the teacher creates an environment in which the students are to exercise all the rules and formalities that are applicable on the subject language. While this may appear to be a seemingly simple categorization, it is significantly complicated by the fact that the usage of multiple language forms of the same language can cause considerable confusion amongst the students; thereby resulting in the creation of a deficiency in the lesson (Bolitho et. al. 2003, 251). This problem, regardless of the degree to which it is underestimated, is present in almost every classroom where a language is being taught. One of the most effective ways of dealing with this problem is to use the lexical approach to language teaching; thereby using a lexical syllabus.

The lexical syllabus focuses on vocabulary as a primary objective rather than on sentence structure. By doing so, the lexical syllabus allows students to come to terms with the practical aspect of the language before they delve into the formalities of the language. The substance of the lexical syllabus is to provide students with the 'working parts' of the language so that they can adopt a 'fill in the blanks' approach to the language rather than build an awareness of the language from scratch. This allows students to develop a genuine understanding and interest into the fundamentals of the language, rather than simply learning the language for the sake of passing an exam or an evaluation. As students continue to benefit from the lexical syllabus, the development of the formalities of the language becomes a process that takes place as the student continues to study the language.

There is little doubt in the fact that the developments in teaching-assistance technology in the last few years has led to a tendency for students to give preference to corpus-based ...