Teaching Vocabulary By Chunks-A Lexical Approach To Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High Schools

Vocabulary is considered to be one of the most important components of a language, and some even argue that it has played a central role in learning a second language. Teachers have become aware of the importance of vocabulary and made every effort to enlarge students'vocabulary. They focus their attention on the spelling and the meaning of the words they teach, trying to help students store and retrieve words in the target language. However, there are still a number of teachers who overlook the method of vocabulary teaching, taking it for granted that students can acquire vocabulary from the context by themselves, so they just present new words as isolated elements. As a result, students develop the strategy of learning vocabulary by rote.Recently, lexical approach has drawn more and more linguists' attention and has been regarded as an alternative to grammar-based approaches. Lexical approach is based on the concept that an important part of language acquisition is the ability to comprehend and produce lexical phrases as unanalyzed wholes, or "chunks". It focuses on developing learner's language ability with words and word combinations. Michael Lewis once said," language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar" (Lewis, M,1993:89). He also insisted that chunks are the focus of language teaching and language use as well, for they help accelerate the speed of language processing, facilitate the L2 acquisition and develop learners'language output. The lexical approach concentrates on developing learners'proficiency with lexis, or words and word combinations. It is based on the idea that an important part of language acquisition is the ability to comprehend and produce lexical phrases as unanalyzed wholes, or "chunks", and that these chunks become the raw data by which learners perceive patterns of language traditionally thought as grammar. The method of teaching vocabulary by prefabricated chunks offers a new way of teaching vocabulary. The essay probes into the application of prefabricated chunks in the teaching of second language vocabulary at senior high school level.The essay starts by analyzing the situation of vocabulary teaching and learning in middle schools in China. Then the essay gives a literature review of the approach of teaching vocabulary and introduces the advantages of chunks to second language vocabulary teaching.In the third part an experiment was made to teach vocabulary by chunks. Data analysis shows that teaching vocabulary by chunks can improve learners'ability of the second language vocabulary learning and enhance the skills of the second language learning.