Free English Language Dissertations - Part 1. Examine The Treatment Of Lexis In Two Course-books. How Are The Items
Part 1. Examine the treatment of lexis in two course-books. How are the items introduced, practised and tested? Take into account the authors intentions and illustrate your account by close reference to one unit/chapter from each book
...we need to see English language teaching as located in the domain of popular culture as much as in the domain of applied linguistics.
(Pennycock, 1998, p162 cited in Harmer, 2001, p94)
For the purpose of this essay, lexis is defined simply as the words that make up a language. It includes all levels from morphemes to lexical phrases (Nattinger, 1988 cited in Harmer, 2001. It also includes the manner in which we ‘recast’ and reframe words with those that are similar, equivalent or alternative in order to fix, or negotiate (McCarthy, 1990), our understanding of the meaning.
The two selected course texts, Cutting Edge (Cunningham & Moor, 2004) and Matters (Bell, Gower & Cunninham, 1998) both integrate elements of a lexical syllabus into their approach. In the following two sections Module 8 of Cutting Edge and Unit 6 of Matters (see Appendix 1) lexis is introduced and expanded through a number of methods. Whilst Cutting Edge expounds an engage- practise - activate style (Harmer, 2001) of learning cycle (see Walmsley, 1979 cited in Els et al for a exploration of unit based teaching cycles), both combine a discovery learning style with more traditional grammatical constructs.
For example, Unit 6 of Matters is entitled Are You Green?.The subject area is the natural world and the subheading is the environment. The language focus of the unit is:
sentence structure, in particular defining relative clauses (sometimes known as 'identifying' or 'restrictive' clauses); clauses of purpose and clauses of result and
reason. (Matters, Bell & Gower, 1998, Unit 6)
This unit introduces a range of vocabulary and contextualises both its language style and content initially through a magazine article. These are then expanded through an intentionally inflammatory ‘interview’. The exercises, although sometimes appearing initially divorced from the previous exercise, conform to a learning cycle approach. They relate to earlier learning as well as serving to re-enforce the meaning of the vocabulary and its contexts. The focus on relative clauses, as with lexical phrases, aims at acquiring a familiarity that enables the students to specific forms more naturally and correctly. In both texts, the material is introduced through oral presentation, discussion, reading and written work. Brainstorming serves t is similar to Greens (1993) word wall in that it provides the vocabulary and offers the opportunity for visual and oral re-enforcement.
Cutting Edge has a Language Focus Section. This follows the same practise of building language familiarity through building ‘comparisons and talking about similarities’ (Cunningham & Moor, 2004).
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