An Investigation On The Use Of Lexical Chunks In Senior High School Students’ English Writing

The use of English words is one of the most fundamental and significant parts in English writing.The New English Curriculum Standard for Senior High Schools（2020）also puts forward definite requirements for the use of vocabulary in senior high school English writing.English lexical chunks can be stored and used as a whole with the advantages of integrating grammar,semantics and context.The use of lexical chunks in writing is conducive in improving the accuracy,fluency,variety and elaboration of writing.Therefore,investigating the use of lexical chunks in senior high school students’ English writing will contribute to senior high school English writing teaching.Based on chunking theory,input and output hypothesis,this study uses the methods of text analysis,questionnaire and interview,and takes high school students as research subjects.We successively collect 227 writing samples and 184 effective questionnaires,and interviews5 teachers and 10 students.Through the statistical analysis of the data,this paper aims to investigate the characteristics of the use of lexical chunks in senior high school students’ English writing and the differences in the use of lexical chunks between the high-level group and the low-level group.This study finds that the use of lexical chunks in senior high school students’ English writing has the following characteristics.In terms of accuracy,students make errors in context,grammar,collocation and spelling.In terms of frequency,poly-words,phrasal constraints and sentence builders are used frequently,and institutionalized expressions are less used in writing.In terms of variety,the use of sentence builders is rich and varied,and the use of poly-words,phrasal constraints is relatively single and lack of changes.Due to the small number of institutionalized expressions,its variety is not noticeable.In terms of elaboration,on the whole,precise and advanced lexical chunks are used less.The single words in lexical chunks are usually simple and general in shortage of advanced expressions.The study also finds that there are significant differences in the use of lexical chunks between high-level and low-level groups.The high-level group performs better than the low-level group in the accuracy,frequency,variety and elaboration about the use of lexical chunks in their English writings.Based on the research results and findings,this paper puts forward suggestions on English lexical chunk teaching,hoping to give some enlightenments on improving senior high school students’ use of lexical chunks and their English writing abilities as well.