A Study On The Effect Of Lexical Chunks On English Writing Competence Of Middle School Students

According to The New Curriculum Standard of Junior English for China (2012 Edition), language skills include listening skill, speaking skill, reading skill and writing skill and the comprehensive capability of all four skills. Writing, as an important productive skill, has been paid more attention in junior English classes. It has shown more flexibility and creativity in senior high school entrance examination paper. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to lexical chunks and the lexical approach. Michael Lewis pointed out that language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar. Lexical chunks, as prefabricated language units, are stored in human’s memory system as a whole. The language learning with the help of lexical chunks can effectively develop the proficiency of memorization and understanding. It also accords with the cognitive laws of humans and helps to improve language competence thus leading to idiomatic expression. However, the application of lexical approach to English beginners of compulsory education period is rarely covered.This thesis aims to research on the effect of lexical chunks on English writing competence of middle school students, and it’s based on the lexical approach of Michael Lewis.30 students from Class 5, Grade 8 that the writer serves as a teacher were listed as experimental subjects in a 5-month experiment. The experimental group where the lexical approach was employed with the help of the teacher previewed and identified lexical chunks before class, was trained to use lexical chunks in class, and consolidate them after class. The control group adopted the traditional teaching method. Comparing the experimental class that the writer serves with the control group that other teacher serves, a pre-test and two after-tests were conducted to study the influence of lexical approach to writing skills of middle school students. The writing scores and individual data are collected and analyzed using the SPSS 19.0.The experimental results verify the two hypotheses in experiment design:(1) The lexical approach can effectively level up English writing competence of middle school students.(2) The lexical approach has positive impact on all four standards of writing skills that senior high school entrance examination requires. Among all, it influences fluency and accuracy in writing most.Due to the limits of theoretical level and experiment condition, this thesis still has some shortcomings, such as the sample size, and the experimental period, which needs further improvements.