Materials Design in the Paradigm of the Lexical Approach: The Case of State Exam Preparation

The lexical approach, one of the current methods of teaching foreign languages, enjoys popularity among language teachers. It is based on learning the language through word groups of various levels, i.e. collocations, or relatively fixed word combinations, and chunks, or the same word combinations that can be extended. The application of the lexical approach influences the development of receptive and productive skills. Apart from this, the implementation of the approach has a significant impact on the preparation for international exams, such as IELTS or TOEFL, improving learners’ abilities in written and oral sections of the exams by expanding their lexical repertoire. However, the importance of using the lexical approach during the preparation for the Unified State Exam (USE) in the English language remains underinvestigated. Particularly, we need to explore the teaching potential of the approach for improving students’ exam performance. Given this research gap, the present study aims at designing the materials based on the lexical approach that will be further implemented during the preparation for the State Exam. The author carries out a content analysis of the exam’s codifier and the course books to identify possible topics covered in the examination and to make a list of chunks and collocations corresponding to these topics that should be used while completing the exam’s tasks. Further, exercises are designed on the basis of the extracted lexical units for their consolidation and usage during the exam. The results of this research may be valuable for teachers who may employ the designed exercises in their English classroom to consistently enhance students’ performance at the exam, especially in terms of their lexical subcompetence. Keywords: lexical approach, word groups, chunks, collocations, receptive skills, productive skills, lexical repertoire, Unified State Exam (USE), lexical subcompetence