The Application Of Schema-based Lexical Chunks Approach To English Writing In Senior High School

With the implementation of English new curriculum standard, the training of writing ability is getting more and more prominent among four basic skills. However, according to the previous researches, it is found that there are still many problems in English writing teaching, such as grammar mistakes, lexical collocation mistakes, lack of convergence logic and so on.Based on above problems, the author takes the students in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as the research subjects, and applies schema-based lexical chunks approach to English writing in senior middle school.Lexical chunks is a combination unit which has complete grammatical structures and clear semantic meaning, with fixed or semi fixed two words or more than two words, including phrases, clauses and sentence structures(Lewis,1997). It integrates the advantages of grammar, semantics and context.The application of the approach can improve the appropriateness and coherence of students' expressions, also can promote the acquisition and output of language. For schema, it is the positive organization of experience or the reflection of past, which is defined as the necessary ideological expression in the process of discourse, that is to say, the whole knowledge of human's brain and the specialized knowledge of a particular field. Combinedwith the domestic and abroad studies, the author applies the schema-based lexical chunks approach to English writing teaching, hoping to do a little help.In this study, the author puts forward the following three hypotheses:1) Schema-based lexical chunks approach can improve students' English writing scores.2) Schema-based lexical chunks approach can improve the use numbers of lexical chunks in students' English writing.3) Schema-based lexical chunks approach can make the writing more cohesive and coherent.In order to test the above hypotheses, the author takes Inner Mongolia Hang Tian middle school for example, selects Grade two, Class three and Class four, 98 students, as the research subjects. The experiment lasts about four months, from September 15 in 2015 to January 17 in 2016. Control group adopts traditional teaching approach, and experimental group applies schema-based lexical chunks approach. The study will take Unit 3 of Book 6“A Healthy Life” in PEP as teaching material. The procedure of the approach can be divided into two phrases: schema-based lexical chunks input stage and output stage.The author applies pretest, post test and interview to test the above hypotheses. The study results indicate that schema-based lexical chunks approach can improve the use numbers of lexical chunks, make English writing more cohesive and coherent and improve students' Englishwriting scores. Meanwhile, through the interview, it is also found that students hold positive attitudes to this approach. Finally, the author also puts forward some implications and suggestions of the approach and discusses some limitations of the study.