| Writing in English is regarded as a weak point in College English teaching in China. Among the four basic skills in College English learning, writing is viewed as the hardest for learners to acquire, for it not only involves memorizing vocabulary and understanding its meaning, but also requires to internalize what they have learned and then to produce things creatively. Statistics in CET (College English Test) Band 4 & 6 show that although students' overall performance in the tests has a tendency of improving, their writing proficiency is far from satisfactory (Qi Yan, 2005). The result of traditional teaching approach is that students find it hard to produce a good composition even if they have spent a lot of time having stored a large number of words and phrases in mind and learned how to construct an article. They may feel frustrated when asked to write an English article because they are often at a loss as to what words or phrases to choose in situations, or what they have produced does not accord with English usage. It is obvious that understanding a word and outputting a word belong to different processes. Outputting is more active, complicated and thus much more difficult (Shu Dingfang & Zhuang Zhixiang, 1996). Therefore, how to cultivate students' ability to output their thoughts in writing accurately, fluently and efficiently deserves a higher priority in College English teaching.With the rapid development of Corpus Linguistics, lexical chunks have attracted increasing attention in linguistics for their positive effect and role in language acquisition. According to the Lexical Approach theory advanced by Michael Lewis in 1993, language is composed of grammaticalized "chunks" of words prefabricated in the form of collocations, semi-fixed expressions and fixed expressions rather than individual words. The fluent speakers have a vast number of these chunks stored in memory which can be recalled as needed and combined appropriately according to different contexts. For Lewis, the main classroom task is to get as many of these "ready-made" larger chunks into the learners' long-term memory as possible and the aim of the language acquisition is to become so familiar with likely and probable combinations of and between lexical chunks, that learners can produce them effortlessly. These lexical chunks have been the raw data for learners to acquire and retrieve as wholes, and they are crucial to accurate, idiomatic and fluent language production.Although many linguists propose that adopting the lexical approach can make great contribution to second language acquisition (SLA), in comparison with a host of theoretical studies in this field, few empirical ones have been undertaken to investigate the effect of using lexical chunks, especially for College English learners in China. This experimental study, on the basis of the theories proposed by Michael Lewis and some other linguists, is carried out in order to explore the effectiveness of facilitating college students' writing proficiency by incorporating the lexical approach into College English lessons, and propose its pedagogical implications with a hope to provide a new insight into College English teaching.This thesis consists of six parts. Chapter One is an overview of the gist of this study so that a general idea as to what is going to be discussed in this thesis will be presented. Chapter Two provides an overall review of theoretical bases as well as theoretical and empirical findings in the relevant fields. Chapter Three is concerned with the methodology of the study, which gives a detailed account of how the present study was designed and conducted, and how the data were collected and analyzed. 96 sophomores from two natural intact classes in Shandong University at Weihai were chosen as subjects and designated randomly as the experimental group and the control group. With the same College English textbook and under the same consistent guidance of syllabus conducted by the same English teacher, the author carried out an experimental study that lasted 16 weeks. During the process of the experiment, the lexical approach was applied to the experimental group, while the traditional teaching approach to the control group. In the next chapter, Chapter Four, the statistical reports and discussions about the results obtained from the study with the help of SPSS 11.5 is presented and analyzed. The results of the study showed that the experimental group dramatically outperformed the control group, and that the difference between two groups was statistically significant, indicating the treatment of the experiment brought about positive results. The results give support to the author's hypothesis that the lexical approach can effectively improve college students' writing proficiency as well as their chunk competence in the process of writing. Reasons are accounted for in detail at the end of this chapter. Chapter Five puts forward the pedagogical recommendations derived from the present study for both teachers and students. Chapter Six, functioning as a conclusion, comprises the last chapter. It endeavors to conclude the thesis, to summarize the major findings of the study, to point out its limitations and to make suggestions for future research.In summary, the lexical approach, based on the teaching of lexical chunks, is a feasible and effective way to facilitate college students' writing proficiency and at the same time points out a new trend of development for College English teaching.
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