Here, on the other hand, is a table which suggests - but doesn't explicitly state - a rule about noun and verb endings:

from Naunton J, Think First Certificate, Longman

A similar approach is used with word collocations, wherever a general tendency can be identified. Here, for example, is a coursebook extract that focuses on the difference between make and do combinations:

VOCABULARY

Make or do?

1 Read the following sentences carefully.

Last night I tried to do my homework. However, I kept making mistakes because the man upstairs was doing his exercises and making a noise.

Make usually means to create, bring into existence, or produce a result.

Do usually means to perform an action. However, there are exceptions to this 'rule', as you will see in Exercise 3.

from Bell J and Gower R, Intermediate Matters, Longman

One problem with a rule-based approach is that the scope of the rule is not always clear. How many, and which, adjectives can be turned into verbs by the addition of -en, for example? Sweet and fresh -- yes, but wet and dry? There is the added problem of the lack of one-to-one match between forms and categories. For example, in- and un- both express negation (uncertain, inactive), but in- can also be used with the meaning of in, or within (as in inclusive). And when do we use in-, as opposed to un- or non- or dis-, to convey negation? How, for example, does the learner know whether to use unsatisfied, dissatisfied, insatisfied or nonsatisfied ?

Other pattern-highlighting techniques involve the use of texts and include the following:

- learners are given a text and asked to search for and underline all compound nouns, negative prefixes, multi-word units, etc.

- learners find words in a text that are derivations. For example, 'Find three words in the text that are derived from sense ...'

- learners classify these derivations according to which part of speech they are

- learners categorise underlined words in a text according to a common affix, or according to the word formation principle they exemplify (compounding, conversion, etc.)

The more of these kinds of operations the learner does the better, since (as we saw in the last chapter) the more decisions the learner makes about a word the greater the depth of processing.

A great advantage of working from texts is that the words that are to be focused on are already in context, hence their meanings may be clearer than if presented as isolated words in a list. Also, and perhaps more importantly, the shared context will bring words together that are commonly associated. In the following text, for example, there are a number of words associated with time, crime and the law.

An approach to focusing on these features might be:

* Ask students to read the text and to answer comprehension questions to gauge level of understanding. For example:

1 The maximum time you can be detained without charge is:

a 24 hours b 36 hours c 60 hours

2 You can be detained for 36 hours only if:

a. a a serious arrestable offence has been committed,

b. b a magistrate gives permission,

c. c further questioning is necessary.

* Ask learners (working together and using dictionaries) to underline all words relating to legal processes, and to categorise these according to a) people, b) processes.

* Ask them to use dictionaries to make verbs for these nouns: limit, detention, charge, offence, questioning, suspect, and to make nouns of these verbs: arrest, detain, commit, extend, secure, preserve. Which of the verb forms can take -able to form an adjective?

* Ask them to circle all time expressions with numbers and note the prepositions used in each case.

* Ask learners to identify the verbs that fill these slots: ______a person

without charge; _________an offence; __________a suspect in custody;

_______a suspect before a magistrate; ___________a time limit.

* Ask learners to rewrite the passage in 'plain English', e.g. as if they were explaining it to a friend. Alternatively, ask them to translate it into their own language.

* Learners then use the rewritten (or translated) passage as a basis for reconstructing the original text. They then compare the reconstruction with the original.

* A follow-up activity might be to ask learners to research and summarise this aspect of the legal system in their own country (respecting, of course, their cultural sensitivities).

Note that this text, although short, is difficult and the tasks would be achievable only by quite advanced learners. Nevertheless, the same tasks could be adapted to much easier texts, and used at lower levels.

To summarise, then: the teaching of the grammar of word formation and word combination can be approached from two directions: early instruction in the rules, or the learning of a quantity of vocabulary items from which these rules are slowly distilled. We have looked at the case for a midway position that recognises the need for early exposure but at the same time accepts that consciousness-raising through focused attention can speed up the process of 'getting a feel for it'. Plentiful exposure plus consciousness- raising is a key principle underlying what has come to be known as a lexical approach.

4.2 A lexical approach

A lexical approach to language teaching foregrounds vocabulary learning, both in the form of individual, high frequency words, and in the form of word combinations (or chunks). The impetus for a lexical approach to language teaching derives from the following principles:

* a syllabus should be organised around meanings

* the most frequent words encode the most frequent meanings and

* words typically co-occur with other words

* these co-occurrences (or chunks) are an aid to fluency

A syllabus organised around meanings rather than forms (such as grammar structures) is called a semantic syllabus. A number of theorists have suggested that a syllabus of meanings - especially those meanings that learners are likely to need to express - would be more useful than a syllabus of structures. For example, most learners will at some time need to express such categories of meaning (or notions) as possession or frequency or regret or manner. Simply teaching learners a variety of structures, such as the present simple or the second conditional, is no guarantee that their communicative needs will be met. The present simple, for example, supports a wide range of meanings (present habit, future itinerary, past narrative, etc), some of which may be less useful than others. Wouldn't it be better to start with the more useful meanings themselves, rather than the structure?

A semantic syllabus - i.e. one based around meanings - is likely to have a strong lexical focus. The following sentences, for example, all involve the present simple, but they express different notions. These notional meanings are signalled by certain key words (underlined):

Does this towel belong to you? (possession)

How often do you go to London? (frequency)

I wish I'd done French, (regret)

Exercise is the best way of losing weight, (manner)

Words like belong, often, wish and way carry the lion's share of the meaning in these sentences: the grammar is largely padding. A lexical approach argues that meaning is encoded primarily in words. This view motivated two coursebook writers, Dave and Jane Willis, to propose that a lexical syllabus might be the best way of organising a course. The Willises believed that a syllabus based around the most frequent words in the language would cover the most frequent meanings in the language. Accordingly, they based their beginners' course around the 700 most frequent words in English. They used corpus data (i.e. computer banks of naturally occurring text - see page 68) to find out how these words 'behaved' - that is, the kinds of words and structures that were associated with these high frequency words.

For example, an extremely common word in English is way. According to COBUILD corpus data, it is in fact the third most common noun in English (after time and people). An analysis of corpus data shows that way is used to express a variety of meanings:

(after Willis D, The Lexical Syllabus, Collins)

Using corpus data, they then studied what kinds of grammatical structures way was typically found with - i.e. its syntactic environment. For example, the first use of way in the table above (meaning 'method or means') is commonly found in association with this pattern:

way + of + -ing a useful way of raising revenue the different ways of cooking fish

The next step was to devise teaching materials that illustrated these meanings and patterns, bearing in mind that the starting point was not the pattern itself, but the meaning (method, means), and its frequency, as evidenced in the high frequency of the word way.

4.3 Teaching lexical chunks

So far we have been talking about lexical chunks as if they were a single al chunks undifferentiated category. But there are different types of chunks and different degrees of 'chunkiness'. Of the different types, the following are the most important for teaching purposes:

- collocations - such as widely travelled; rich and famous; make do with; set the table

- phrasal verbs - such as get up; log on; run out of; go on about

- idioms, catchphrases and sayings - such as hell for leather; get cold feet; as old as the hills; mind your own business; takes one to know one

- sentence frames - such as would you mind if... ?; the thing is ...; I'd... if I were you; what really gets me is ...

- social formulae - such as see you later; have a nice day; yours sincerely

- discourse markers - such as frankly speaking; on the other hand; I take your point; once upon a time; to cut a long story short...

Within these categories further distinctions can be made in terms of fixedness and idiomaticity. Fixed chunks are those that don't allow any variation: you can say over the moon (to mean ecstatic) but not under the moon (to mean not ecstatic). Nor over the full moon, over the sun, etc. Many chunks are semi-fixed, in that they allow some degree of variation. Nice to see you is semi-fixed in that it allows lovely, good, wonderful, etc. in the nice slot, and meet, talk to, hear from, etc. in the see slot.

Some chunks are transparent in that the meaning of the whole is clear from their parts, as in the case of as old as the hills and to knock down. Others are much more idiomatic: to spill the beans and to knock off (meaning to steal). Neither fixedness nor idiomaticity are absolute values, however. Rather there is a cline from very fixed to very free, and from very idiomatic to very transparent. Phrasal verbs are a case in point. Some phrasal verbs are syntactically flexible: I'll bring up the paper or I'll bring the paper up. Others are not: I can't tell the twins apart but not I can't tell apart the twins. Moreover, the combination bring up has a range of meanings, some literal (I'll bring up the paper), some semi-idiomatic (Don't bring that subject up again) and some very idiomatic (They brought their children up to speak Italian).

The ability to deploy a wide range of lexical chunks both accurately and appropriately is probably what most distinguishes advanced learners from intermediate ones. How is this capacity developed? Probably not by learning rules - as we saw with word formation, the rules (if there are any) are difficult to learn and apply. A lexical approach is based on the belief that lexical competence comes simply from:

- frequent exposure, and

- consciousness-raising

To which we could perhaps add a third factor:

- memorising

Classroom language provides plentiful opportunities for exposure to lexical chunks. Many learners are familiar with expressions like I don't understand and I don't know long before they have been presented with the 'rules' of present simple negation. By increasing the stock of classroom phrases, teachers can exploit the capacity of chunks to provide the raw material for the later acquisition of grammar. Many teachers cover their classroom walls with useful phrases and insist on their use whenever an appropriate opportunity arises. A sampling of phrases I have noticed on classroom walls includes:

What does X mean?

How do you say X?

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