The Application Of The Lexical Chunk To The Teaching Of English Reading In Junior High School

Lexical chunk, which has drawn many experts and scholars’ attention since it was put forward in the 1970 s, has become a hot topic of linguistics research in the1990 s. Not only the theoretical research, but also the empirical study harvests a lot.And the most popular research is in the areas of lexical chunks and the second language acquisition.Reading is one of the most important four skills among listening, speaking,reading and writing, and it is an important way of obtaining information. At the same time, no matter in what English exam, the reading comprehension takes up a considerable proportion. It is said that people who is good at reading can get good grades. Therefore, teachers and students all have attached great importance to English reading. Then, the Lexical Chunks Approach combines form and meaning together provides a new method to teach and learn English reading. At present, however, we found that most teachers, when they teach English reading with the Lexical Chunk Approach, have paid more attention to the four levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: memory, understanding, use and analysis. And they cared less about the higher levels of evaluation and creation of the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives of Bloom. As we all know, the New National English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education has pointed out that we should attach great importance to the practicality and applicability of language learning. This means students should learn to to use language in different context creatively.From the perspective of the Lexical Chunk Approach, the research explores the possibilities of covering all six levels of bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives in English reading teaching, that is memory, understanding, use, analysis, evaluation and creation in junior high school. During the research, two issues are included. The first is the present situation of teaching English reading with the Lexical Chunk Approach. The second is whether the Lexical Chunk Approach covering all six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives can improve the junior high school students’ English reading competency. In order to testify the effectiveness of the experiment, the author conducted an experiment study in No.2 Middle School of Zhengzhou Zhongyuan District. Class three, grade nine was the controlled class, and class four, grade nine was the experimental class. During the experiment, the experimental class was taught by the Lexical Chunk Approach, which was under the guidance of the Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, on the contrary, the controlled class was still taught under the present teaching approach. In addition,other elements are the same in both classes. Before the experiment, the questionnaire was done among the teachers and students separately to know the teaching situation of the Lexical Chunk Approach in English reading. The pre-test was carried out in the two classes separately to prove that the reading level of the two classes was same.This way can help the author make sure that the two classes are comparable and the research is meaningful and convincing. After the experiment, the post-test is implemented in the both two classes to verify the effectiveness of the research.The experiment results proves that under the guidance of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives to teach English reading, the Lexical Chunk Approach can enhance junior high school students’ English reading competency.