The Application Of Lexical Chunks To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

As an important part of human language system, vocabulary plays a very important rolein the process of language learning. It is the basis for English listening, speaking, reading,writing and translating, so for learners mastering a certain amount of vocabulary is essentialin the process of language learning and the basis for learning English well. However, for along time, vocabulary has been separated from grammar as its accessory and wasn’t given itsdue attention. What’s more, the vocabulary teaching in some senior high schools consumesmuch time, but achieves little obvious effect. Mainly based on the dictionary or thevocabulary list, traditional vocabulary teaching is isolated form the context, which consumeslots of time and effort but has little effect. Students recited a lot of grammar rules and keep inmind a considerable number of words, but in practice it is difficult for them to output them inthe form of active vocabulary. They can only use simple words, phrases and sentence patterns,but can’t use them flexibly. In terms of this situation, helping students to find effectivevocabulary learning method and improve the efficiency of vocabulary learning has a vital rolein improving their English language skills. Until1980s, the development of corporalinguistics enables linguists and teachers a new insight into vocabulary teaching. It is foundthat in human language there exist large quantities of phrases and sentence structures whichappear in the communication frequently and are more fixed in form and structures. Theseexpressions called lexical chunks are stored in human brain and used as a whole.At present, lexical chunks have gained linguists’ and language teaching experts’ wideattention for the important roles lexical chunks play in English teaching. As the semi-finishedproducts and basic learning units of a language, lexical chunks reduce the learners’ burden ofmemory and play a very important role not only in the acquisition of language but also helpto promote the easy, fluent and idiomatic language production. But most of the studies remainon the level of theoretical discussion, and leave many practical problems unexplored. Even ifthere are some actual teachings of this kind, they mainly focus on college students or Englishmajors, while few on vocabulary teaching and chunk strategy training in senior high schools. Based mainly on the rural high school, this research starts from the requirements and presentsituation of senior high school English vocabulary teaching, and finds the universally existingproblems in high school English teaching, especially vocabulary teaching, by usingquestionnaire and interview analysis. In the experiment, chunk teaching, on the one hand,encourages students to use spelling rules to improve the efficiency of memory; on the otherhand, it emphasizes on cultivating learners’ chunk awareness by mastering the frequentlyappearing fixed phrases, collocation and sentence patterns, therefore integrating theacquisition of vocabulary and grammar and the cultivation of communicative ability. Bymeans of experiment, it is found that lexical chunks can help promote vocabulary teachingand has a positive effect on students’ English learning.The thesis is made up of six chapters. Chapter One introduces the background andsignificance of the research. Chapter Two is literature review, which illustrates the definition,classification of lexical chunks and traces the development of chunk theory and lexical chunkresearch home and abroad. Chapter Three is the theoretical foundation. Chapter Four is themain body of the thesis, in which, the present situation of senior high school Englishvocabulary teaching is presented based on the questionnaire and interview results, and anexperiment is carried out in the experimental class. Chapter Five is about result of analyzingthe experimental data. Chapter Six summarizes the research and its limitations. Somesuggestions for senior high school vocabulary teaching are put forward. The author isconvinced that teachers should fully understand the role that lexical chunks play in thevocabulary teaching of senior high school and guide the students’ chunk learning to improvetheir vocabulary learning efficiency.