Optimizing a Lexical Approach to Instructed Second Language Acquisition

Empirically validated techniques to accelerate learners' uptake of 'chunks' demonstrate that pathways for insightful chunk-learning become available if one is willing to question the assumption that lexis is arbitrary. Care is taken to ensure that the pedagogical proposals are in accordance with insights from vocabulary research generally.

FRANK BOERS is lecturer at the Erasmus University College Brussels, Belgium and has over twenty years of experience teaching EFL, EAP and applied linguistics. He obtained a PhD in Cognitive Semantics, but has gradually shifted his research interest to second language acquisition and foreign language teaching. Most of his recent publications focus on vocabulary and phraseology.

SETH LINDSTROMBERG teaches language and methodology courses for non-native-speaking EFL and CLIL teachers and on EFL courses at all levels at Hilderstone EFL college in Kent, UK. He has edited and been a contributor to teacher's resource books for several publishers and is an enthusiastic, albeit somewhat recent, convert to experimental applied linguistics.