Identifying Principles of the Lexical Approach in Some EFL Textbooks: a Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

Many researchers have demonstrated the paramount role of lexis, and in particular of lexical phrases, in language use and learning. The present research focuses on the Lexical Approach by Michael Lewis which is based on such a lexical view of language and seeks to verify whether some of its principles are implemented in ten EFL textbooks of different levels. By using different tables, we aim at verifying the role that multi-word lexical items (i.e. phrasal verbs, collocations and expressions) play in textbooks as opposed to single words as well as the presence of consciousness-raising activities and of the lexicogrammar concept. The results have shown that there is more emphasis on single words than on multi-word lexical items and that there are very few exercises which direct the students’ attention towards the latter. As for the concept of lexicogrammar, we found that it is not present in any of the textbooks analysed. We therefore concluded that the Lexical Approach has not entirely seeped into EFL teaching yet.