Second Language Teaching

Introduction

There are many theories about second language acquisition, and with each theory new methods are developed. Language teaching methodologies are in continuous development, which is why language teachers should be constantly getting updated. Teachers must take advantage of the most recent discoveries in psychology, linguistics, and other fields that allow this development. However,even though the earliest methods are considered to be outdated or obsolete, the learning about them can still provide the language teacher with techniques and activities that might help improve the students’ learning. In addition to this, there are approaches to consider when teaching a second language.
For all of these reasons, we have written a report on some of the methods of second languageteaching and the lexical approach to second language teaching. Among the methods explained in this report you will find the Grammar Translation method, the audio-lingual method, the communicative approach, suggestopedia, the situational method, and the direct method; including a brief historical review and their main characteristics.

Lexical Approach to Second Language Teaching
The lexicalapproach to second language teaching has received attention in recent years as a substitute to grammar-based approaches. (Moudraia, 2001) The lexical approach concentrates on developing learners' proficiency with lexis, or words and word combinations. It is based on the idea that an important part of language acquisition is the ability to understand and produce lexical phrases as unanalyzed wholes, or"chunks," and that these chunks become the raw data by which learners perceive patterns of language traditionally thought of as grammar (Lewis, 1993, p. 95).
According to Lewis (1993) instruction focuses on fairly secure expressions that occur frequently in spoken language, such as, "I'm sorry," "I didn't mean to make you jump," or "That will never happen to me," rather than on originally createdsentences.
He states that lexis is the basis of language, and coined the term lexical approach (Lewis, 1993). He goes on to say that Lexis is misunderstood in language teaching because of the assumption that grammar is the basis of language and that mastery of the grammatical system is a prerequisite for effective communication. The key principle of a lexical approach is that "language consistsof grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar."
One of the central organizing principles of any meaning-centered syllabus should be lexis (Lewis, 1993).

Moudraia (2001) investigation found that:
The lexical approach makes a distinction between vocabulary—traditionally understood as a stock of individual words with fixed meanings—and lexis, which includes not only the single words butalso the word combinations that we store in our mental lexicons. Lexical approach advocates argue that language consists of meaningful chunks that, when combined, produce continuous coherent text, and only a minority of spoken sentences are entirely novel creations.
He goes on to say that the role of formulaic, many-word lexical units have been strained in both first and second language acquisitioninvestigation. They have been referred to by many different labels, including "gambits" (Keller, 1979), "speech formulae" (Peters, 1983), "lexicalized stems" (Pawley & Syder, 1983), and "lexical phrases" (Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992).
Taxonomy of Lexical Items (Lewis, 1997)
Lexical Item | Examples |
Words | book, pen |
Polywords | by the way, upside down |
collocations | pricesfell, rancid butter |
institutionalized utterances | I'll get it; That'll do |
sentence frames and heads | That is not as [adjective] as you think;
The danger was... |
text frames | In this paper we will explore...; Firstly... |
Chart 1: Foreign Language Teaching Methods (2009)
Moudraia states that the existence and importance of these lexical units has been debated by a number of...