A Study Of The Application Of Lexical Chunks In A Senior High English Writing Class

Many scholars, researchers and foreign language teachers have debated the importance of lexical chunks widely in recent years. Lexical chunk, as the minimal unit of the language input, storage, memory and output, is a particular multiple lexical phenomenon.The aim of this thesis is to study whether lexical chunks applying into English writing teaching in senior high school can improve students’ writing scores and make students have more confidence and interest in English writing. To make sure that the thesis is effective, the researcher choose two parallel classes, 118 students as the research subjects. Pre-test, post-test and interview are used as the research instruments. Quantitative approach and qualitative method are employed together. An experiment is adopted as the quantitative approach, while interview is used as the qualitative method. In the process of experiment, the students from the control class received the traditional teaching approaches of English writing while the students from the experimental class applied lexical chunks into English writing. The researcher divided the experiment into three stages: the first was text reading, which aimed to input lexical chunks; the second was writing process to output lexical chunks; the third was post-writing, which could consolidate lexical chunks. After the experiment, the results of pre-test, post-test and interview were collected and analyzed. Finally, the conclusions were drawn from the results.This thesis is mainly based on the lexical-chunk theory of Lewis(1997). It certifies that lexical chunks can improve the students’ English writing level effectively and students hold a positive attitude towards the application of lexical chunks in English writing. The learning of lexical chunks can increase students’ interest and build their confidence in English writing.