A Correlation Analysis On Chunk-based Teaching And English Majors’ Writing Proficiency

Writing, as one of the five basic abilities for language learners, can accurately reflect their linguistic competence. However, from the author’s observation, even for English majors, their writing ability is still far from being satisfactory. This may be attributed to many different factors, and among other things, the traditional teaching model used by teachers in writing classes is an important one. In traditional writing class, teachers are supposed to train the students’writing ability by providing them with a large number of isolated words and phrases as well as the methods of composing structures; under this teaching model, most of the English majors cannot produce fluent and idiomatic compositions, consequently, their compositions are featured by inappropriate diction, poorly-organized structure and the lack of logicality. In recent years, researches on lexical chunks (also known as formulaic sequences) have gained increasing attention from many linguists and foreign language educators both home and abroad. They have conducted a number of related empirical studies on the correlation between lexical chunks and their effects on promoting both first and second language teaching and learning. These researches, from different perspectives, have proved that applying lexical chunks in language teaching have great effects on helping language learners to better understand and master the target language.Accordingly, we believe that it is of great necessity and probability to introduce lexical chunks into language teaching and learning, especially in English majors’ writing class. Among the previous studies, however, most of them are concerning the correlation between lexical chunks and second or foreign language learners’language ability; only a small number relates to the application of lexical chunks in writing class, and those of studies concerning the lexical chunks and English majors’writing proficiency are quite limited. Therefore, this research attempts to explore the relationship between the application of lexical chunks and English majors’writing proficiency.This study attempts to answer the following two questions:(1) Whether applying the lexical chunks in writing classes can improve English majors’writing proficiency which includes the ability of mastering the language and the ability of organizing the compositions;(2) Among the three groups:high level group, middle level group and low level group, after a time of chunk-based teaching, whether the subjects in middle and low level groups can improve their writing proficiency more notably than those in high level group.The subjects of this study consist of84sophomores in the English Department in Hebei University of Engineering. And based on their scores obtained from both the National Entrance Examination and the writing test of last semester, the subjects are divided into high level group, middle level group and low level group. In the duration of this experiment, the students in three groups are taught by the same teacher and provided with the same teaching materials, which, to some extent, ensures the objectivity of the experiment. The experiment lasts for about five months, including a pre-test and a post-test. The subjects are firstly required to finish a lexical chunks test made up of50items within30mins; and then to write a composition with a given topic selected from TEM4within35mins. After the post-test, they are also required to finish a questionnaire.The major findings of this study are as follows:(1) Applying lexical chunks into writing can effectively promote English majors’writing proficiency, both the language they use and the structure by which they organize their compositions are improved with varying degrees;(2) The improvement of middle and low level students is more notable than that of high level students;(3) Most subjects become interested in the lexical chunks and realize the necessity and significance of employing the lexical chunks to improve their writing proficiency and language competence.It can be concluded form the results of the experiment that introducing lexical chunks into English majors’writing class is quite feasible and effective on the aspect of improving the fluency and idiomaticity of their language use. However, because of the author’s knowledge limitation, this study still needs further perfection and improvement. Nevertheless, the author believes that the application of lexical chunks will bring about certain implication and influence to future foreign language teaching in China.