Lexical approaches to language teaching emphasise the importance of vocabulary in language learning. A lexical syllabus is organised according to the vocabulary that is to be taught rather than the grammar or the functions. A large proportion of the language we produce seems to be memorised 'chunks of language', rather than original creations generated through combining our grammatical and lexical knowledge. Examples are the _____er, the _________er (as in the bigger, the better), you must be joking, to cut a long story short.

These 'pre-fabricated chunks' are given various names such as lexical phrases, holophrases, gambits and lexicalised stems. What they are called does not really matter, but it is very useful for the language teacher to recognise and teach these chunks.