The Application Of Lexical Chunk Approach To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

As we all know, English vocabulary teaching plays a major role in SLA.Foreign language teaching views vocabulary as basic element of language.Grammar has been regarded as the core of language and language teaching for a long time. And currently English teachers mainly put focus on grammatical structures and individual words or sometimes a few fixed structures, which is far from satisfaction. So vocabulary learning becomes a big problem of senior high school students. Teachers are facing the challenge of helping students to learn vocabulary effectively. This paper aims to apply the Lexical Chunk Approach to English vocabulary teaching to solve the common problems during the process of students' vocabulary learning.Lexical chunks were proposed by the linguist Michael Lewis. Their appearances have solved the current problems of traditional teaching methods on English vocabulary teaching. Lexical chunks blend with vocabulary,grammar, semantic and context, which can better show the basic characteristics of language. And at the same time, they don't deny the positive role of grammar while emphasizing the important role of vocabulary and lexical phrases in learning language and offer a new angle and way for English teaching. The so-called lexical chunks refer to the language units,they are bigger than words, which not only have several different words but also involve various factors, such as syntax, semantics and languages environment.etc. Lexical chunks' forms are more fixed, usually featured by integrity while their usages are simpler than words. Under the guidance of related theories of Lexical Chunks, the thesis applies Lexical Chunk Approach to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school. There are two hypotheses in this thesis. The first hypothesis: Lexical Chunk Approach canpromote students' interest in learning English vocabulary. The second hypothesis: Lexical Chunk Approach can improve vocabulary teaching effects.This research was conducted in two Senior One classes in Arongqi No.1Senior High School. The duration of the experiment was four months and involved 100 Students. The experimental class was taught by Lexical Chunk Approach and the controlled class applied the traditional teaching method.And then analyzed the data collected from the two classes.There are totally five chapters in the thesis. Chapter one involves the background and the significance of the research. Chapter two is literature review, related concepts of lexical chunks and Lexical Chunk Approach,theoretical foundations of the thesis and studies of Lexical Chunk Approach home and abroad. Chapter three is the research methodology. Chapter four is the results and discussion, which consists of the results and discussion of questionnaires and tests. At the same time, before-after comparative analysis in experimental class and controlled class are also presented. The data of the research were analyzed by SPSS 17.0. After the analysis of the collected data,we can know the Lexical Chunk Approach not only can promote students' learning interest but also improve vocabulary teaching effects. Chapter five is the final chapter, the major findings, implications, limitations and suggestions are shown.