Lexical approach in teaching vocabulary to young language learners

Vocabulary knowledge plays a crucial role in foreign language learning process. Using lexical phrases proposed by the Lexical Approach, which accepts the language learning as phrase acquisition is a recent way in English language teaching. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using lexical phrases on the receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge of young language learners. The study was conducted at Haki Yener Primary School. The data were drawn from two groups from the fifth grade students. All students were young English language learners at the beginning level of proficiency. One group was labeled as the experimental group and the other group was the control group. Both groups included 31 students. 14 target words were chosen according to the curriculum for the fifth grade. Before the treatment checklist was applied to both groups in order to be certain of their vocabulary level and in order to choose the target words. Two small reading passages were used and the only difference between the experimental group and the control group was that the target words were presented and practiced as lexical phrases in the experimental group. Target words were taught and practiced individually in the control group. After the treatment, two post tests were applied to the students. The production test was conducted at first, and one week later, the recognition test was given to the students. In order to examine the differences between the groups, T-test was used. The findings of the study indicated that there was a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group. It was seen that a significant treatment effect was found in the treatment-group students for receptive and productive vocabulary learning. It was determined that young language learners in the treatment group improved their vocabulary in English language learning /teaching situation as a result of using lexical phrases.