The Application Of The Prefabricated Chunks To Teaching English Writing In Normal Colleges

Writing, as one of the skills in the English learning, can reflect how good students'comprehensive language ability is. However, it is long neglected in China. Though many approaches have been used to teach English writing, it is still a headache for most students to write good compositions.Prefabricated chunks are"a string of coherent or incoherent words or other meaningful units which are ready-made and stored in the memory"(Wray,2002). In brief, prefabricated chunks, which have features of both vocabulary and grammar, are usually made of several words and have conversational functions. The theory of prefabricated chunks holds that chunks are the basis of internalized knowledge, and it is necessary to master the chunks so that we can use the target language skillfully. The core principle is"language is the grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar"(Lewis,1993). Prefabricated chunks have been put forward and open a new way to teach Normal College English writing.This study tries to introduce prefabricated chunks into Normal College English writing and attempts to prove that chunks can benefit the students by improving the writing skill,fostering their interest in learning English, and forming a good habit of learning English.In the first two chapters, the thesis states the importance of writing and two relevant theories: Connectionism and Chunking Theory. In the third chapter, the details about how to do the research are given. The students involved in the experiment are the students from Suzhou Early Childhood Education College. In the fourth chapter, the results of these tests are analyzed and discussed. The analysis shows that the experimental class have achieved much more improvement in their English writing and learning than the controlled class at the end of the term. The students'confidence and interest of the experimental class in English writing have been greatly enhanced. The research findings show that the prefabricated chunks can be successfully used in English writing in Normal Colleges. Chapter Five draws a conclusion of the whole study and gives some suggestions for the future English writing.