Lexical chunks are hip. Lexical chunks are useful. Lexical chunks are necessary for EFL / ESL students to become fluent. Lexical chunks are invisible, though, and that’s a shame. American actress Betty White will show you what I mean.
A lot of what our students ought to be learning in terms of lexis is, perhaps ironically, the stuff they’re least likely to notice. Why on earth would a student pay any amount of attention to lexical chunks such as “set the example”, for instance, when both set and example are perfectly familiar words, combined in a perfectly understandable way?
If the idea of going beyond individual words and teaching multi-word lexical chunks makes any sense to you, then the first step, I believe, is to train your eyes and your years to notice the seemingly invisible. By seemingly invisible, I mean lexical chunks that don’t really leap off the page or the video screen because they’re not difficult or unknown or odd-sounding or whatever. So here’s a short task:
In May 2010, actress Betty White was invited to host an episode of Saturday Night Live. Her hilarious opening monologue, in which she gently slammed Facebook and its users, became an instant YouTube hit.
Imagine you’re considering using this video with your intermediate students. Watch the excerpt and try to listen out for as many “invisible” lexical chunks as you possibly can, so that, later on, you can choose five or six items to highlight in class.
Remember: focus on chunks rather than individual words and on combinations of “old” words rather than on “new” words. Ready?
Now watch a subtitled version of the same excerpt, with my personal choice of lexical chunks potentially – and I say potentially – worth exploring. Ready?
You might have overlooked one or two or a lot of invisible lexical chunks, but I can assure you that your students would have done far worse.
And this is such a shame. There’s so much out there that they’re missing out on.
Be sure to check this other post on teaching lexical chunks.
Thanks for reading.
Just loved it, Tavinho! Thought-provoking, to say the least – both the clip and your choice of chunks.
Thanks for sharing so much of your expertise – I'm finally doing my online ELT course!
Have a nice day,
Lúcia
Lúcia,
I'm honored you're on board.
Just had great fun trying to identify the "invisible" phrases.
Out of the 10 I picked, 8 were on your list. Does that mean something? kkkkk Miss you!
Wow! 8 out 10! I'm impressed!
Luiz,
I saw read the article and watched the video last week but didn't have time to post a comment. I loved it! Totally agree that sts tend to go for lexical items that sound proficiency-like but don't make them sound too natural. The bits you selected are perfect! Great to raise awareness as clarifying MPF might prove a bit more challenging…
Elaine
Thanks, Elaine. I'm really glad to see you here.
I totally agree with you Luiz Otavio about what the students miss out on out there and it is for free. Thanks for the opportunity of watching this fantastic young woman.
Suzanne
I totally relate to Betty White, people have things so easy they don't even know how to use the resources, and that goes for teachers too.
In my day I used to buy VHS tapes from a guy in Juiz de Fora, he sold episodes of 90210, Melrose Place and that's how I got to hone my listening skills, using "old school" methods.
Now, this wonder called Internet brings you tons of real audio, video, and everything and still, so many people still have difficulty in listening skills, or what have you.
Well, it's up to us to help show the way, right?
Great blog! I'm glad there are people like you who are available to share knowledge.
=)
You're right, Adir. It's all out there and it's so overwhelming, right?
Anyway, thank you for your kind words.
Luiz, you're absolutely right!! We take students' awareness – or even knowledge – for granted! I guess I've wasted good oportunities being too busy trying to elicit big important chunks and phrasal verbs… =[ I'm definitely going to work on it!! Thanks for sharing!
Excellent!
I am looking to “lexicalise” my Integrating Tech into EFL courses and, with your permission, I would like to use this video plus the version with your subtitles in the session on using online video. Hope it’s ok with you. Of course, the question I can already envisage coming from the participants is How do we focus on / explore these chunks?
LEO
Sure, Leo. No problem. In my original session, the video was only meant to draw teachers’ attention to the kinds of chunks that they themselves tend to ignore. The idea was to enable teachers to notice the “seemingly invisible” lexical phrases so that, in the future, they can prepare their own materials with that kind of awareness. So we didn’t go into noticing activities to be done with students for that video, unfortunately.
Thanks, Luis.
What tool did you use for subtitling?
sorry Luiz
Hi, Leo
Apple’s imovie.
Your way of telling everything in this paragraph is truly pleasant, all be able to easily be aware of it, Thanks a lot.
Thank you!