The Failure of the Grammar Formula
What is a 'Lexical Item'?
You don't teach 'commit'. You teach 'commit a crime'. You don't teach 'heavy'. You teach 'heavy rain'.
*By the way*, *Nice to meet you*, *I'll get right back to you*. (You don't analyze the grammar of these; you memorize them as single units of meaning).
*Could you pass the [noun], please?*
*I haven't seen you since [point in time].*
*A watched pot never boils. I'm pulling your leg.*
Applying the Lexical Approach
Ditch Single Words
Never write a single word on the whiteboard. Always write the chunk (V+N or Adj+N).
Chunk Spotting
Give students an article. Task: Find 5 expressions that mean 'I strongly disagree'.
Fluency Over Accuracy
Prioritize teaching 100 useful phrases over perfecting one obscure grammar tense.
Teacher Tip
"When reviewing a reading text, do not analyze the grammar. Instead, ask students to 'collocate' key nouns from the text. Give them the noun 'decision' and have them race to find the preceding verbs and adjectives in the text (made a tough decision, arrived at a decision)."
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this mean I stop teaching grammar rules entirely?
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Not entirely. Rules are useful for pattern recognition, but the Lexical Approach argues that massive exposure to chunks naturally hardwires those patterns into the brain better than deductive rule-learning.
How does DrillKit support lexical teaching?
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Use the custom instruction box when generating a worksheet. Tell the AI: 'Create a gap-fill testing verb-noun collocations from the text, not single nouns.' The AI handles the heavy lifting of finding the chunks.