After studying two different languages I have found that use of the old Lexical approach is not efficient in learning conversational speaking. I took a crash course on Czech language which was oddly taught in this style, and I found it completely useless. As I knew present perfect and past perfect formula, I could not tell you what the conductor was saying while riding the metro. I feel that in a crash course of a language one must learn the basis of conversational and fluency before grasping the technical aspects of the language. This is where I find that the New Lexical Approach is a better way to approach a foreign language. Through the new Lexical Approach, words are put into lexemes where meaning of more than one word is stressed opposed to a single word. As some words may be found in more than one lexeme, it is through these that the meanings are absorbed (Schmitt). With this methodology, the use of grammar is found second to the knowledge of vocabulary.

The new Lexical approach of word association and language corpora is something that I find to be more useful when trying to pick up a language for everyday purposes. In an introductory crash course on a language, I find it more important to learn common phrases and word association oppose to learning proficient grammar structure. In the new Lexical Approach method the study of collocations is what is found to be useful because of generalities in grammar (Lewis). Schmitt’s book states that the knowledge of word association and meaning within more than one word (lexeme) is far more important than the single word itself (Schmitt). Through lexeme students are able to absorb context and meaning of a word, rather than one single meaning. I find that through vocabulary and contextual information, is where fluency can be achieved.

The Lexical approach is something found useful because of the 320 million words in the English dictionary the average person uses only one million of them per month. Schmitt finds that the use of lexemes, rather than pure vocabulary, is more efficient when learning the English language. As the brain chunks words together without the use of lexemes, researchers have found that the use of “word chunking” is doing what the brain already does (Schmitt). As the brain chunks single words in order to form sentences, it is through lexemes that this “chunking” process is being taught (Schmitt).

Stressing the use of word context and word association, counter to grammar, makes fluency a key part of learning the language. As I find that both methodologies of the Lexical approach are worthy, I find that the use of the new method is more resourceful when trying to learn a language in a short period of time. I also feel that the overall grasp on the language is a great building block for more complicated language lessons.

Lewis, Michael. "Teaching Collocation: Further Developments in the Lexical Approach." Google Scholar (2000). 19 June 2007.

Schmitt, Norbert. "Vocabulary in Language Teaching." Cambridge Press (2000). 19 June 2007

Mikela Lee- Manaois