Vocabulary Teaching Based On Lexical Chunk Approach In Junior High School

As one of the basic language materials, vocabulary is very important to English learners. A good mastery of vocabulary is the basis of learning English well. However, the author finds that English vocabulary teaching is barely satisfactory at present and vocabulary learning becomes a problem of many students in junior high school. In daily teaching and learning of English, it takes students most of time to learn vocabulary, but the effect is not very satisfactory. Vocabulary problem has become the obstacle to the improvement of the students’ English ability.Many researches on the vocabulary abroad and at home have found that there are a number of fixed or semi-fixed language structures for both syntactic and lexical dual characteristics in the English language. They are applied in communication in high frequency and defined as lexical chunks. Michael Lewis(1993) is a representative of the lexical chunk theory. He thinks that vocabulary is the heart of language. Language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar. Based on lexical chunk theory proposed by Lewis, this paper will probe into the significance of lexical chunk approach in vocabulary teaching of junior high schools and the effective method to improve junior high school students’ vocabulary competence. The research questions are the followings:1. Does lexical chunk approach have a positive effect on junior high school students’ interest towards vocabulary learning?2. Can lexical chunk approach improve junior high school students’ vocabulary competence?3. Can lexical chunk approach improve junior high school students’ English grades?This research chooses two classes in No. 14 Junior High School of Liaoyang as the experimental participants. They have the same number of students with the similar level of English and the same background. The study conducts experiment respectively in the experimental class and the control class by questionnaires, tests and an interview, and it analyzes the data and the results quantitatively by using statistical software SPSS11.5.The experimental data and the results show that the students in the experimental class, who are taught by lexical chunk approach, become more confident and interested in vocabulary learning and master the better habit and strategy in their vocabulary learning after four-month teaching. The students in the experimental class get significant progress in vocabulary competence test since their scores are higher than those in the control class. And their English grades get higher in the final exam than those in the control class. Therefore, this research draws the conclusion that lexical chunk approach has a positive effect on junior high school students’ interest towards vocabulary learning, it can improve the vocabulary competence and English grades of junior high school students. Hence it is effective and feasible to apply the lexical chunks approach to vocabulary teaching.