An Empirical Study On The Impacts Of Lexical Chunks On The English Writing Proficiency Of Art Students In Senior High School

English writing is an essential language skill that learners need to acquire in Chinese senior high school, and it is becoming an increasingly important part in English teaching and learning in senior high school. English writing is not only a method of testing learners’ overall language proficiency, but also a vital way to improve the students’ thinking and expressions in English. Although the New Curriculum Standard has been implemented for a long time, most English teachers still teach students in the traditional way that they just explain the grammar points and eventually make students lose their interests in English. Recently, with the development of social culture and economy in our country, the ratio of art students in ordinary high school is also continuously upgraded. But the English foundation of these art students is rather weak and the abilities of these students’ English writing are more worrying, which have negative impacts on the overall quality of English teaching in senior high school.As we all know, English writing cannot do without vocabulary, the quantity and quality of vocabulary that students master may affect their writing level directly. Studies of lexical chunks abroad and at home have proved that the application of lexical chunks can improve the efficiency of English learning and the ability of language output. Lexical chunk is the composite of syntax, semantics and context. Its form is relatively fixed and can be used as a whole and stored in the memory. Lexical chunks can also be extracted directly and used in the writing and communication, which not only help students complete the English writing successfully, but also can improve the fluency and accuracy of English writing so as to enhance the students’ English writing performance.In this paper, the author applies the lexical chunks to English writing. The aim of applying the lexical chunks to English writing is to explore the promotional role of lexical chunks in the teaching of English writing for art students in senior high school. The author designs the pre-test and post-test, questionnaire and interview for art students in Xiongyue Senior High school of Yingkou. Eighty students in two classes are divided into experimental class and control class. In the experimental class the author applies the lexical approach to English writing for three months while the lexical chunks are not paid much attention in the control class. In this experiment, the author guides the students to recognize, grasp, and accumulate the lexical chunks based on the text; students apply these chunks to the composition that is designed in advance; and then students modify the chunks according to the discussion between students and evaluation of the teacher; finally they recite the model essay in order to consolidate these chunks. The author also uses lexical chunks to connect the“input” and “output” of language and improves the students’ English writing ability.Based on the results from students’ writing scores of pre-test and post-test, the number oflexical chunks in writing, questionnaire and interview, the author makes the following findings: firstly, the achievements in the post-test and the number of lexical chunks used in the composition increases significantly in the experimental class; secondly, the accuracy and fluency of language also improve a lot in the experimental class. However, there is no significant difference between pre-test and post-test on English writing achievements in the control class. The results show that the application of lexical chunks in English writing of senior high school in China is feasible and lexical approach could promote the level of art students’ English writing in senior high school. Although there are limitations in this research,the author hopes that it can provide some inspirations for art students’ English writing learning and teaching in senior high school.