Research On The Application Of Lexical Chunks To English Writing In Senior High School

Researchers and specialists have been paying more and more attention tothe application of lexical chunks. Becker put forward the concept of it firstlyin1975. He pointed out that lexical chunks are peculiarities of grammar,semantics and discourse context, which contains fixed or semi-fixedmulti-words or sentences. Besides, lexical chunks can be stored and retrievedas a whole when needed. Therefore, the accuracy and fluency can be ensuredin language’s output.As we know, there are four basic skills in English learning, includinglistening, speaking, writing and reading, while in high senior school Englishteaching, writing plays a very important part in language’s output, which takesup17%in NMET. However, because of the traditional teaching model, writingis always a headache for students and English teachers. In this thesis, theauthor tries to apply lexical chunk theory to English teaching with the aim ofexploring an efficient way to improve students’ writing ability in senior highschools.In order to testify the feasibility of lexical chunk theory and approach,the author carried out an experiment for four months in the two classes thatthe author taught in grade three in Nankang Senior High School. Both of theclasses were tested of the same level before the experiment. During theexperiment, the author adopted different teaching theory and teachingapproaches to the two classes. The author taught Experimental Group (Class8)based on the lexical chunk theory, while the author taught Control Group(Class7) in the traditional way, in which vocabulary and grammar wereattached more importance. After the experiment, both of the classes weretested again, and then the author recorded their scores of compositions and thenumber of their lexical chunks by SPSS. The results are as follows.(1) The input of lexical chunks can improve students’ writing levels andscores efficiently. Students have developed a good habit of accumulating lexical chunks because of their consciousness. Therefore, they can producecompositions of high quality with fluent and native-like language; and theirability of organizing discourse is also improved greatly.(2) The input of lexical chunks makes English writing more easily forstudents, which not only helps reduce students’ anxiety of writing, but alsoarouse their interest in writing and raises their confidence. On the other hand,it also helps English teachers find a more efficient way to teach Englishwriting.