An Empirical Study Of The Application Of Lexical Chunk Schema To English Writing Teaching In The Junior Middle School

Recently more and more attention has been paid to the lexical approach in English teaching practice. Lexical chunks, with the integration of the advantages of the lexical and grammatical character, are of great significance to English teaching. However, the lexical chunks have a wide range and coverage. Students can not retrieve and apply lexical chunks effectively if they memorize the chunks at random. In daily teaching, the author also found that although students have accumulated a number of lexical chunks, they are still weak in the application. Especially in English writing, the advanced stage of language output, they made plenty of mistakes, so their writing achievements are not ideal. If the connections and links among lexical chunks can be built, students can store and retrieve the chunks more easily. In other words, compared with random memorization, it will be more convenient for students’memory if the lexical chunk schema can be built according to different topics and linking words. In this way, in the process of English writing, especially under the pressure of time limitation in tests, students can recall relevant lexical chunks and organize the discourse more quickly and enhance the accuracy and fluency in their writing. Furthermore, their writing sores can be greatly improved. Therefore, the author has tried to apply lexical chunk schema into English writing teaching to explore the following three questions:1. What effects does the lexical chunk schema approach have on the English writing achievements of junior students?2. What effects does the lexical chunk schema approach have on the use of lexical chunks in the English writing of junior students?3. What effects does the lexical chunk schema approach have on the English learning of junior students?The author carried out an experiment in two classes in Junior Grade Two from Nanya Middle School by means of two questionnaires to find out the problems existing in their writing. From the survey, the author found that most of the students lack interest in English writing. They don’t have good habits, learning strategies, or the awareness of lexical chunks. Based on the survey data, the author conducted a teaching experiment for one semester. In the experiment class, lexical chunk schema was applied to the teaching of each unit while in the control class the teacher only emphasized lexical chunks with normal English teaching.After the experiment, the following conclusions have been drawn from the analysis of the interviews, questionnaires and the results of the pre-test and the post-test:1) After the experiment, both the experiment class and the control class made progress in their English writing achievements, but the progress made by the experiment class is much larger than that of the control class, which indicates that lexical chunk schema approach is of help for junior students to improve their writing achievements.2) Compared with the control class, the students in the experiment class used more accurate and varied lexical chunks in their compositions, indicating that the lexical chunk schema approach is helpful for students to recall and apply more relevant lexical chunks in their English writing.3) The lexical chunk schema approach has a positive effect on the English study of junior middle school students. The students of the experiment class have showed greater interest in their English study after the experiment. Their learning confidence and initiative have been improved greatly. What’s more, they gradually formed the habit of accumulating lexical chunks to build their own lexical chunk schema.The author has found that in the textbooks of the junior middle school, there are a large number of useful lexical chunks. English teachers should guide the students to accumulate lexical chunks both in and out of class so that they can rebuild and consolidate their lexical chunk schema. Junior middle school students are still at the starting stage of English learning, so cultivating their awareness of lexical chunk schema can help them learn English well and lay a foundation to form a good thinking habit in English learning.