An Empirical Study On The Application Of Lexical Approach In Improving English Writing Skills In Senior High School

Writing ability is a comprehensive reflection of the skills involving listening, speaking and reading. But the current situation of English writing in China’s high schools is unsatisfactory. On the one hand, the syllabus and the college entrance exam instructions put forward more and more demands on writing. On the other hand, the current textbooks and teaching methods fail to effectively promote students’writing skills.With the rapid development of corpus linguistics, chunks are playing a more and more important role in language acquisition and application. There are abundant chunks in natural languages, which have the features of both sentences and vocabulary. They are both fixed or semi-fixed structures of language, and play a very important role in the output of English language. The lexical approach proposed by Lewis attracts extensive research on teaching combined with it. However, the empirical studies on lexical approach in senior high school are seldom made. In this case, the author carries out a research aiming at exploring the feasibility of the application of lexical approach in English teaching and investigating whether the learning of lexical chunks improves students’ writhing skills in senior high school.The research lasted for a term and involved students from two natural classes in a high school of Jiangsu province. One class was set as an experimental group and the other a control group. During the research, the control group received traditional teaching methods for teaching, while the experimental group lexical approach. At the beginning and end of the term, students took part in two municipal experiments. The grades and the number of the chunks were collected and analyzed. What’s more, the students from experimental class were asked to answer a questionnaire before and after the experiment. Meanwhile, they were interviewed. Their opinions on lexical approach and English writing were analyzed. The conclusions show that lexical approach can promote writing ability. The statistics show that lexical approach broadens the lexis of students. But there are differences of lexical chunks between high-rated and low-rated compositions. According to the results based on the questionnaires and interviews, lexical approach can effectively raise senior high learners’interest and increase their confidence in English writing.