The Application Of The Lexical Chunks Approach To English Reading Teaching In Junior High School

In the traditional English teaching methods in junior high schools, lexicalchunks teaching has been confined to recitation of individual words andgrammar rules teaching. In most cases, the students spend most of their timeand energy in reciting, which results in no improvement in their English study.Consequently, applied linguistics proposed the teaching pattern for lexicalchunks.The core principle of lexical chunks approach is that language comprisegrammaticalized lexis rather than lexicalized grammar. As a composite oflanguage form and function, lexical chunk indicates the positive interaction ofsemantics, syntax and pragmatics, and promotes the development of languageutterances; it breaks through the traditional sense of the word and collocation,whose scope has been expanded to sentence or even discourse, which areconducive to discourse comprehension abilities (Lewis,1993). Lexical chunkscan reduce the burden of language processing, speed up the languageacquisition and facilitate language output. The wide existence and importanceof these lexical units in the language teaching have been noticed anddiscussed by a number of linguists in China and abroad.Based on the theory of lexical chunks, this paper is to investigate theefficiency and effect of lexical chunks on junior high school English teaching.The following hypotheses are tested in the paper: lexical chunk approach canimprove students’ reading proficiency; Lexical chunk approach can makestudents have a more positive attitude towards reading. To test the feasibilityof the Lexical Chunk Teaching Method in junior high school English teaching,two intact classes selected from No.2Junior High School in Erenhot arechosen as subjects. The experiment lasts a term. During the experiment,Lexical Chunk Teaching Method is stressed in daily English teaching for the experimental class, while the traditional teaching method is still used incontrol class. The students’ English ability is tested before and after theexperiment. To ensure the reliability and validity of the test, the statistics arecollected from two examinations and are analyzed carefully. And the studentsin the experimental class were asked to have a questionnaire before and afterthe experiment in order to get their views on Lexical Chunk Teaching Methodand analyzed it carefully.It is concluded that Lexical Chunk Teaching Method is beneficial toimproving the students’ English reading proficiency. Lexical Chunk TeachingMethod help the students get higher marks in reading comprehension. LexicalChunk Teaching Method has an obviously positive effect on the students’attitude towards reading comprehension, so Lexical Chunk Teaching Methodshould be paid much attention to in English teaching and learning.