Despite the not-so-distant negligence of lexicon in language instruction, it is currently taking on a core role in designing ELT materials. Selection of the lexical content is usually informed by a set of pedagogical and non-pedagogical factors like learnability, usefulness, the level of proficiency targeted, frequency, range, coverage, etc. With the lexical content selected, the next step has to do with adopting appropriate teaching techniques to present it in the most effective way. Despite the well-known pendulum swings of vocabulary learning between explicit and implicit approaches, very little attempt has ever been made as to how lexical content should be dealt with in textbooks. The present study introduces a new three-dimensional framework, namely the "Focus Framework", which is intended to lay down some guidelines both for the presentation and evaluation of the lexical content of the ELT materials.