A Study Of The Correlation Of Reciting Input Of Lexical Chunks And College English Writing Ability

Writing, the most complicated output process, is an indispensable part of English capacity and all kinds of English examinations as well. However, for many college students, especially those who are non-English majors, expressing their individual opinions and attitudes appropriately and sufficiently in written language is extremely difficult, even though they have already learned English for more than 10 years. In fact, students’ routine quizzes and writing assignments show that they make a wide variety of errors, which also impede their progress in writing. Besides, for college English teachers, how to improve students’ writing capacity is a heated topic and a persistent issue to resolve.More and more English teachers start to emphasize the significance of the theories of lexical chunks because they have realized that the theories can lead to a fresh approach to teaching and practicing English writing in class. Generally speaking, plenty of English expressions can be considered as the grammaticalized lexis, combining words based on grammatical rules. Besides, these kinds of fixed and semi-fixed lexical chunks can be selected and applied flexibly and directly in writing. Therefore, to a great extent, college students are able to choose words, expressions, or even classic sayings to express themselves more naturally and appropriately in their own writing. Moreover, recitation, one of the most traditional learning and teaching methods, still plays an essential part in language acquisition. Only by transferring the lexical chunks into internalized input through recitation, can college students apply them more flexibly and effectively in writing.This teaching experiment mainly concerns about the following two questions.1. What problems are there in non-English major college students’ English writing?2. What effects does reciting input of lexical chunks have on college students’ English writing ability?The researcher holds the assumption that reciting input of lexical chunks can improve non-English major college students’ writing capacity effectively, which is verified by sixteen weeks’ teaching experiment. Experimental class and controlled class are selected from Zhuhai College of Jilin University. The students are non-English majors and of the same English level. During the entire teaching experiment, pretest and post-test of writing, questionnaires and interview are carried out step by step. In experimental class, the teacher emphasizes the importance of lexical chunks and explains the definition, classification, recognition as well as application of them in daily reading and practicing. Besides, the teacher realizes the essential role of students’ interest, motivation and initiative in learning. Therefore, a large number of attractive class activities concerning the application of lexical chunks are designed. On the contrary, in the controlled class, the same teacher applies conventional writing teaching method in teaching, which simply focuses on vocabulary and grammar separately without any reference to lexical chunks.The data of two writing tests, questionnaires and interview are collected and analyzed respectively after the teaching experiment, through which it can be seen that the essays written by students from experimental class are well done, for the sentences are more logical and coherent. Obviously, they can apply more compound and complex sentence patterns, more precise and accurate words and expressions. According to the relative objective experimental result, the author can reach the conclusion that reciting input of lexical chunks benefits non-English major college students’ writing ability effectively.