The Effect Of Prefabricated Chunks On The Writing Achievement Of Secondary Vocational School Students

Writing is one of the weakest parts to the secondary vocational school students in Public English Test System (PETS). It is observed that although many students can remember quite a lot of words and phrases and understand the text quite well, it is usually difficult for them to produce a good article, especially when their words and sentences failed to accord with English usage, and they are not able to use proper words and phrases in appropriate situations. This phenomenon illustrates clearly that there lies an obstacle between"input"and"output"in language teaching and learning. Therefore, how to improve vocabulary teaching and learning efficiently to develop their writing ability always troubles teachers and students.Prefabricated Chunks, as a composite of grammar, meaning and context, widen our sight and offer a better teaching path. Becker (1975) thinks that we can make grammatical sentences and produce fluent language to express ideas by manufacturing the Prefabricated Chunks from our brain stock of glossary according to the information to express. In this way, learning and application can be quick, convenient, accurate and fluent, being more advantageous than other teaching methods. Therefore, as an important part in language acquisition and language use and advantages in language input and output, Prefabricated Chunks are sure to be an ideal teaching unit.The empirical study in this thesis attempts to testify the hypothesis that Prefabricated Chunks instruction plays an important role in improving secondary vocational school students'writing achievement. The participants in the study were 60 students in Grade Three from two naturally occurring classes of Tai'an Art School and the experiment lasted 4 months. They were randomly designated as the Control Class and the Experimental Class. In this experiment, the Control Class is taught in the traditional teaching method. In the mean time, various activities and exercises related to Prefabricated Chunks suggested by the Lexical Approach form the basis of classroom practice in the Experimental Class. Through statistical analysis, the results indicate that the participants of the Experimental Class have achieved significant progress in both composition scores and the number of Prefabricated Chunks used in the compositions after the instruction, no matter in comparison with the students in the Control Class or with themselves,which suggests that teachers should use the instructions of Prefabricated Chunks to enhance learners'writing competence. This article believes that teaching and learning Prefabricated Chunks can improve students'writing achievement and enhance students'consciousness and confidence and self-study ability. It is also hoped that the study is able to point out a new direction of English teaching, especially vocabulary teaching for secondary vocational school teachers.