| Specific requirements of English writing,which is an essential language skill for English learners,have been put forward by compulsory education curriculum standards.However,at present,students’ English writing level in junior high school is generally low,and there are many problems in their English writing,mainly including the lack of basic writing skills,loose discourse structure,inaccurate and unidiomatic expressions and sentence patterns,dull content,and Chinglish.In recent years,lexical chunk approach provides a new teaching idea for English writing.As high-frequency use and fixed or semi-fixed word combinations,lexical chunks can be extracted and used as an entity directly.Lexical Chunk Approach is conducted based on Lewis’ s “observe-hypothesis-experiment” paradigm.Through the continuous learning of lexical chunks,students can skillfully and unconsciously use them.They can express themselves with more accurate and idiomatic expressions.Up to now,there are series of empirical studies on the application of Lexical Chunks Approach to English writing,but mostly taking university or high school students as their research subjects instead of junior middle school students.Those studies mainly concentrated on the improvement of writing level from a macro point of view,few on its specific effect.Moreover,there are fewer to explore the effect of this teaching approach on English writing attitudes.Therefore,based on the theory of lexical chunks and grammar construction,this study tries to explore the effect of Lexical Chunk Approach on students’ English writing in junior middle school,and focuses on the following two questions.(1)Can Lexical Chunk Approach help improve students’ English writing level in junior middle school? If yes,what aspects of writing can be improved?(2)Has Lexical Chunk Approach had a positive effect on students’ English writing attitudes in junior middle school?This study takes 94 students from Class 1 and Class 2 of Grade 9 in a junior middle school in Shaoguan as research subjects,and implements comparative experiment in the two classes,in which traditional method is employed in the Control Class(Class 1)while Lexical Chunk Approach is employed in the Experiment Class(Class 2).The teaching process in EC is designed based on Lewis’ s “observe-hypothesis-experiment” paradigm.Experimental research tools include tests,questionnaires and interviews.The test includes pre-test and post-test.It is scored in terms of content,organization,vocabulary,language and mechanics.Questionnaire includes pre-test and post-test.Interviews are conducted after the experiment.The data collected were analyzed by SPSS 20.0.Result of the pre-test show that English writing level in EC is not significantly different from that in CC.After the experiment,there is significant difference in English writing level between the two classes.Students in EC have made remarkable progress in their writing level,especially in organization,language,and content.However,the English writing level in CC has not improved significantly.Result of the pre-questionnaire show that there is no significant difference in the English writing attitudes between the two classes before the experiment.After the experiment,the data shows that Lexical Chunk Approach has a positive effect on students’ writing attitudes in EC,and most students in EC are satisfied with the new method.However,the English writing attitudes in CC has not changed significantly.Therefore,it is believed that Lexical Chunk Approach has a positive impact on students’ English writing in junior middle school.It can effectively improve students’ writing level,especially in organization,language,and content,and change students’ English writing attitudes.In the end,the author gives some constructive suggestions on the application of Lexical Chunk Approach to English writing instruction in junior middle school,points out the shortcomings of this study and the prospects for further research in the future. |
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