The Application Of Lexical Chunks To EFL Vocabulary Teaching

With the development of corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics, researchers find that native speakers have a large stock of lexical chunks in memory which can help them generate fluent and idiomatic language production. Some linguists discover that language learners may go through a stage in learning. In this stage, learners make use of a large quantity of unanalyzed chunks in language production. Researches conducted on this area have given many convincing evidences to the above discoveries. Therefore, some researchers suggest teachers should emphasize the importance of learning and using these unanalyzed chunks in language acquisition. The application of lexical chunks in teaching practice also gains popularity in recent years. Corpus linguists (Pawley and Syder 1983; Peters 1983) suggest that a large part of the language is formulaic. They state that a large part of language is not constructed by orthographic word but based on unanalyzed chunks. They find these chunks are very common in language and native speakers store large numbers of unanalyzed chunks in memory which can be retrieved wholly in the language output and make the production more easily. Similarly, some psycholinguists suggest that chunks can be easily retrieved from memory and used without the need to piece single components together through word selection and grammatical sequencing. They believe that theses chunks play a significant role in both First and Second Language Acquisition.Compared with individual words, lexical chunks have the advantage of being easily retrieved from one's memory. They can reduce learners'pressure of composing single words into utterances in the process of language output. They can make learners'recall of relevant expressions more easily. And lexical chunks function a lot in improving the accuracy and idomaticness of learners'language production. This thesis aims to find out whether the approach of lexical chunks inEFL vocabulary teaching could promote vocabulary learning of the students and develop their ability to make correct and idiomatic expressions in English. In addition, the author would also like to find out whether the approach of lexical chunks could develop students'ability to generalize lexical chunks from authentic language materials. So this thesis is going to answer the following questions:(1) Do lexical chunks help students with their vocabulary learning?(2) Does the approach of lexical chunks promote the students'ability to make accurate and idiomatic expressions in English?(3) Can the approach develop students'ability to generalize lexical chunks from authentic language materials?Through studies and experiments with 40 students from the Department of Community Management in Taizhou Vocational and Technical College, the research proves that the approach of lexical chunks applied in the present study can foster the vocabulary learning of students in higher vocational colleges and it has great significance in promoting the students'ability to make accurate and idiomatic expressions.