Study On Lexical Approach In Improving The Non-English Major Students' Oral English Proficiency

It is easily understood that lexical chunks play an important role in second language acquisition. By the chunk-based teaching method—lexical approach, the researchers analyzed that English language should be combined with stable chunks. The stability and the predictability of the structure and semantics of the chunks can reduce the difficulty of language acquisition and application. Therefore, lots of researchers and scholars become interested in the study of the application of lexical approach in oral English teaching.This thesis aims to testify the effectiveness of applying lexical approach to oral English teaching in improvement of fluency and accuracy of speakers' oral English. So, the research questions of this thesis are1) Can lexical approach help to improve the fluency of non-English majors' oral English? 2) Can lexical approach help to improve the accuracy of non-English majors' oral English? Based on Levelt' s model of speech production and oral English input and output, the study focuses on whether the application of lexical approach can improve the fluency and accuracy of students' oral English or not. 60 sophomores, who are non-English majors in university, are involved in the experiment. The lexical approach is applied in experimental class, while the traditional approach is applied in control class. All participants take part in the pre-test and the post-test at the beginning and at the end of the experiment, and two questionnaires and an interview are also used. Data collected from both tests are processed by SPSS 17.0. At last, by analyzing the results, participants in experimental class are found to have made greater progress than those in control class in fluency and accuracy of oral English.The whole thesis includes six chapters.Chapter one is the introduction part, including research background, purpose, significance, and organization of the thesis.Chapter two is the literature review. At first, the author gave an overview of oral English skills, then the definition, classification and functions of lexical chunks, and lexical approach. At last the author had a look-back on the researches at home and abroad.Chapter three is theoretical basis. It includes oral English input and output, as well as Levelt' s model of speech production.Chapter four is research methodology, describing the research questions, subjects, instruments, design of the experiments and the ways of data collection and analysis.Chapter five is results and discussion of the data. In the chapter, the results were analyzed and the dataobtained from the experiments was discussed. There are some tables and graphs to help clarify the data.Chapter six is the conclusion part, which not only concludes the findings, teaching implications and limitations of the whole research, but also suggestions for the future research.