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TEACHING CHUNKS OF LANGUAGE

Seth Lindstromberg and Frank Boers
Helbling Languages, 2008
176 pages

Teaching Chunks of Language is definitely much more than a book on teaching vocabulary. It is extremely informative, user-friendly and interesting material which throws light on an area which has always proved hard for both students and teachers: putting into practice the principles of the Lexical Approach, which advocates that in order to communicate clearly and fluently in English, one should be able to deal with the so-called chunks of language, i.e. ready-made units of language which sound more natural to native speakers.

The book is organised into four chapters: Chapter 1 offers some theoretical background and briefly but clearly explains the reasons why we should teach chunks in the EFL classroom. It also explains how this task can be accomplished. Chapter 2 has a great number of activities which are aimed at helping mainly pre-intermediate to advanced students notice chunks. Chapter 3 delves deeper into the topic and presents more activities which will help students remember chunks. Chapter 4 aims at consolidating chunks by reinforcing the importance of reviewing so as to learn vocabulary more effectively.

The book also has a section containing photocopiable sheets for most of the activities in Chapters 2, 3 and 4. Furthermore, it is also possible to download extra activities for chunk learning from the publisher’s website.

Teaching Chunks of Language is a book which I gladly recommend as it certainly is a valuable tool and breaks new ground in the learning/teaching of vocabulary.

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