The Application Of Lexical Chunk Approach To Teaching English Writing In Junior High School

Writing is considered as an important language skill and a difficult one among the four skills:listening, speaking, reading and writing. After several years of studying, English learners can not produce a good composition which has fluent and accurate language. English learners can only translate Chinese into English word by word. There are many Chinglish sentences in the writing production. Students can not accomplish writing tasks. By and by they lose confidence in writing, and they become bored, even get afraid of English writing, which is worrying most English teachers in China. A suitable and effective approach is urgent to be figured out to improve learners’writing competence and build up students’confidence in writing.The concept of lexical chunk was put forward by Becker in1975. Lexical chunks are high frequent, fixed or semi-fixed, multi-word phenomena. They are easy to be memorized and produced in the form of prefabricated chunks as whole unit. Michael Lewis, Nattinger&Decarrico proposed Lexical Chunk Approach is an effective approach in English teaching and learning. Their study lays a theoretical foundation for Lexical Chunk Approach. Many researchers at home also do much research and they propose that lexical chunk approach can promote learners’writing proficiency and create effective study strategy. Many linguists and English teachers pay more and more attention to Lexical Chunk Approach (LCA).Enlightened by the researches abroad and at home, the author applied this approach to English writing in junior high school to testify whether Lexical Chunk Approach can improve students’writing competence and build up confidence in writing.Two natural classes in Wangwenzhuang Middle School were involved in the experiment. One was chosen randomly as the Experimental Group (EG), the other was the Control Group (CG). The Experimental Group was instructed by lexical chunk approach. The Control Group was still employing traditional approach. After one semester experiment, the Experimental Group made greater progress in English writing competence with the instruction of Lexical Chunk Approach, but the Control Group still remained the same level as before. The results of the test showed that Lexical Chunk Approach promoted the students’ writing proficiency significantly and students’ writing confidence has been built up greatly.