🌱Scott Thornbury's Teaching Unplugged (Dogme ELT)

The Lexical Approach by Michael Lewis

Lesson Profile Template

This reusable profile establishes the lexical constraints of the lesson, steering the focus away from abstract grammar structures and toward multi-word units.

Stage 1: Observe (20 Minutes)

The objective of this stage is twofold: decode the text for semantic meaning and actively notice how words cluster together in natural discourse. ^2

Step 1.1: Gist Comprehension

Before diving into lexical chunks, students must understand the context. Provide a high-level reading or listening task.

• Teacher Action: Set 2–3 gist questions. Pass out the authentic text or play the audio track.

• Student Action: Read or listen for the overarching narrative or argument without stopping at unknown vocabulary.

Step 2.2: Lexical Noticing Task

This is the core shift away from traditional teaching. Students revisit the text specifically to locate word partnerships rather than individual words.

• Teacher Action: Direct students back to the text. Instruct them to find and underline specific semantic combinations (e.g., "Underline every word that appears alongside the noun 'decision'").

• Student Action: Scan the text and mark chunks like make a snap decision, weigh the options, or come to a consensus.

Stage 2: Hypothesise (20 Minutes)

In this stage, students analyze the chunks they found, look for patterns, and deduce the rules of usage, collation constraints, or register restrictions.

Step 2.1: Pattern Analysis

Students organize the noticed chunks into analytical frameworks to figure out how they behave.

• Teacher Action: Provide a categorization matrix or a guided discovery worksheet.

• Student Action: Classify the chunks into structural types or collexemes.

Sample Hypothesising Matrix

Students fill out a table based on the text to analyze structural variations:

Step 2.2: Testing Constraints

Students determine the boundaries of the collocation—what cannot be said.

• Teacher Action: Present a prompt testing the limits of the phrase (e.g., "We can say a 'snap decision'. Can we say a 'flash decision' or a 'fast decision'?").

• Student Action: Use intuition, dictionary lookups, or a simplified corpus tool to discover that flash decision is non-standard, thereby formulating a hypothesis about native-speaker idiomaticity. ^3

Stage 3: Experiment (20 Minutes)

Experimentation is not a rigid "controlled practice" session with gap-fills. Instead, it is a period of scaffolded production where learners test their hypotheses in communicative contexts.

Step 3.1: Contextual Modification

Students adapt the semi-fixed expressions they analyzed to fit new, personalized scenarios.

• Teacher Action: Provide a new, parallel scenario context.

• Student Action: Take a frame like The downside of [X] is [Y] and adapt it to their own life (e.g., "The downside of working remotely is the lack of direct collaboration").

Step 3.2: Communicative Activation

A free-fluency task designed to elicit the newly acquired lexical bank naturally.

• Teacher Action: Monitor a roleplay or discussion task, tracking the naturalness of lexical choices rather than just checking for grammatical errors.

• Student Action: Engage in a discussion or debate requiring them to use the target expressions to achieve a communicative goal (e.g., negotiating a budget cut or choosing a project vendor).

References