Theoretical Study On Lexical Approach To English Teaching

English teaching is a science of researching,teaching and learning English rules.The target of English teachings,namely helping students gain the ability of English application,will be efficiently achieved only when teachers are proficient in summarizing and teaching the universal English rules.Therefore,linguistic research,especially the research in the fields of language acquisition and language teaching,remains constantly an interesting and attractive topic among English teachers and all other people concerned.Heavily influenced by traditional linguistic views,the past teaching methods laid the emphasis on structure teaching.The teachers had no other choice but to ask students to learn words by heart while teaching lexis,which led to unsatisfactory results.Michael Lewis' Lexical Approach came into being against such a background.In fact,a successful teaching method must be based on the Language Acquisition Theory.In 1993,Michael Lewis dictated in his monograph Lexical Approach: The state of ELT and the way forward that 'Language consists of grammaticalised lexis rather than lexicalized grammar'.One thing should be pointed out,the above mentioned 'lexis' differs greatly from traditionally defined 'vocabulary',which not only consists of single words, but also collocated words and structuralized sentences etc.This theory pointedly denies the grammar-centered teaching methods practiced in the past and has led to profound thinking among English teachers.This dissertation mainly deals with the matter of lexis teaching. Basing herself on the Language Acquisition Theory,the author makes an analysis of the Lexical Approach presented by Michael Lewis,and thereafter brings forward her personal reflections on the Lexical Approach. The author holds the view that:First,it simplifies the process of grammatical analysis and promotes the efficiency of memorizing English words.Secondly,it offers a good explanation to the strange phenomena that can't be grammatically analyzed.Thirdly,only after one has mastered sufficient lexis can he or she achieve the purpose of speaking natural and idiomatic English,free from the obsession of Chinglish.Last but not the least,accumulating English lexis is equivalent to acquiring English culture to some extent,which also helps attract English learners.The author is scheduled to present her discussion through the following process:Chapter 1 is a review of the traditional English teaching methods and their respective theoretical defects,which provides the comparable materials for Lexical Approach.In Chapter 2,the author lists three major problems left by traditional teaching methods and analyzes their causes respectively,and accordingly puts forward the sole solution to these problems—applying the Lexical Approach to teach English.In Chapter 3,the author clarifies the necessity and the importance of lexis teaching based on Michael Lewis' Lexical Central Theories.Then the author elaborates at length on the productive means to implement the Lexical Approach by analyzing numerous language materials.In Chapter 4,based on the previous study,the author brings forward her theoretical thinking about lexical approach to English teaching,including how to promote the memorizing efficiency and the studying motivation of second language learners.Scientific Lexical Approach is a proven and key means to improve the efficiency of English learning and the ability of English application. This Lexical Approach can help students not only enlarge the lexis range but also train their ability to use English in communication.At the same time,unilaterally imparting information has been switched to training language competence in the classroom,which results in more vivid and interesting classes.Lexical approach can also lead English teaching out of the misguided process of 'learning by rote' and 'dumb English'.Correctly applying a Lexical Approach can yield twice the results with half the effort not only for students but also for teachers.