The Application Of Lexical Approach To Teaching Of English Writing

Under the influence of the traditional grammar-centered teaching approach and TG grammarians, foreign language learning has long been misunderstood. Since the introduction of Lexical Approach by Michael Lewis(1993) in his great works The Lexical Approach, researchers and scholars began to pay more and more attention to this teaching approach. Lexical Approach breaks the idea held by traditional grammar-centered approach that lexis and grammar are separated, and inherits the merits of communicative approach which stresses actual utility of communicative ability. The approach puts emphasis on the role of lexis and phrases in language learning, and holds that"language is not lexicalized grammar, but grammaticalized lexis"( Lewis,1993). Based on lexical appproach and its basic concept—lexical chunks, this study discusses the present condition of Chinese English learners'ability of using lexical chunks in their writing, and meanwhile, SPSS is used to find out the relationship between writing achievement and lexical chunks. The aim of this study is to explore a new direction to enhance Chinese English language learners'writing ability.This study is a small-scale sample test and the subjects are English and non-English juniors from Changchun Teachers College. By both manual computation and SPSS 14.0, their writing samples are analyzed. The results are as follows: (1) Among the four variables: chunks, sentence number, rate of correct sentences and length of composition, chunks has the strongest positive correlation with writing achievement, followed by rate of correct sentences and length of composition. But sentence number bear no relationship with writing score. (2) It is found, through further analysis, that students use large number of sentence builders in their writing among the four categories of lexical chunks, which also shows strong influence on writing score. (3) Chinese English language learners do not master as sufficient number of lexical chunks as possible to express the same idea. As a result, their writings tend to be monotonous. It is also found that Chinese students'writing is poor in grammar.In the light of the major findings, suggestions are made: Lexical Approach is a new method in language teaching and learning, which can be applied to teaching. Textbooks can be complied in favor of the implementation of Lexical Approach in class. Attention is also paid to the different distribution of chunk categories in textbooks; Teachers can foster students'habits of accumulating and summarizing lexical chunks. Students can be trained to know more characteristics of different styles of writing; Grammar teaching can not be ignored; Attention is paid to the relationship between vocabulary and its related historical roots and cultural knowledge. Only when the input quality of lexical chunks is improved, can ouput ability be promoted.It is a hope that the current study provides a new way for enhancing Chinese students'writing ability and proves a meaningful exploration for teaching vocabulary.