On The Lexical Approach To English Vocabulary Teaching

It is universally acknowledged that vocabulary is a vital part of the language system and second language acquisition. A well-known British linguist, Wilkins(1987) held the opinion that people can sometimes communicate without grammar but can't interact at all without vocabulary. Nevertheless, memorizing a word doesn't mean one is able to apply it properly in real context for the fact that the output of language is a more complicated process. Moreover, the quantity and quality of one's vocabulary have great influence on the learning efficiency and the development of pragmatic and communicative competence.However, the sorry fact is that, in English teaching practice, vocabulary teaching costs plenty of time and energy but achieves a little. The present situation is caused by the following factors. For a long period of time, as for teachers, imparting grammatical knowledge is highly emphasized but the vocabulary teaching is given little attention. Under the guidance of the traditional method, English teachers conduct vocabulary teaching like this:reading, explaining, translating, and taking dictations but concentrate little on facilitating students' pragmatic abilities. Some hold the misconception that there is no need to spend too much time on vocabulary as long as students can memorize the new words and have less obstacles in reading. The problem is that teachers present vocabulary in an isolated way rather than giving instructive and effective learning strategies to students. As a result, for the lack of effective vocabulary learning instructions, most students just learn the new words in isolation and memorize spellings mechanically. Even though students have learned quantities of vocabulary, when they come across the same or similar expressions and collocations used in different contexts, they are still terribly confused. Consequently, finding a feasible way of vocabulary presentation and consolidation should be given the highest priority.In the 1980s, the corpus linguistics developed has rapidly, which provides a new understanding in vocabulary teaching. Linguistic studies suggest that there are quite a few fixed or semi-fixed language structures, namely, language chunks (or prefabricated language), which are considered the ideal units in language acquisition for the fact that chunks can reduce the memory burden and help accumulate plenty of useful expressions. Since then, the importance of prefabricated language is acknowledged and becomes popular, which provide a new approach for vocabulary teaching.Accordingly, as an indispensable part of language teaching, vocabulary is supposed to be attached great significance. The teachers should present the vocabulary effectively and help students develop vocabulary learning strategies in order to enhance learning efficiency and promote students' overall language capabilities and cross-cultural communicative competence.In order to achieve some effective and evident results, the author raised three hypotheses testify the effect of the lexical approach.1. Can lexical approach enhance students' interest and passion in English vocabulary learning?2.To what extent, can lexical approach improve the authenticity, accuracy and fluency of language output? In other words, can students make evident progress in their English performance?3.How to effectively apply lexical approach to English vocabulary teaching? What are the feasible approaches?The author conducted the research with a series of instruments to prove the hypotheses, namely the pre-test and pre-questionnaire and the post-test, the post-questionnaire and the face-to-face interview after the teaching experiment. First of all, the research aims at introducing some basic concepts about lexical chunks to the students in an attempt to arouse students' awareness of the significance of lexical chunks. In addition, as opposed to the traditional way of single-word teaching and learning, it will not only offer students a easier and more efficient way of memorizing vocabulary but also provide a more feasible and desirable way of vocabulary presentation and consolidation for teachers. As a result, it will help strengthen the accuracy, authenticity and fluency of language output.On the basis of lexical theory, the author conducted a contrastive experiment for a period of four months in Senior One in Xi'an Binhe Middle School, where she works. First and foremost, at the very beginning of the term, the author introduced some basic knowledge about chunks for students in hope of arousing their awareness of lexical chunks. Additionally, in contrast with the traditional vocabulary teaching method, the experiment aims to prove that the lexical approach can provide an efficient and feasible method for vocabulary presentation and consolidation, which will in return enhance the accuracy, authenticity and fluency of learners' language output.For the purpose of acquiring more valid information, the author implemented pre-test, pre-questionnaire, post-test, post-questionnaire, interview with teachers and so on to collect data from different aspects. Trough a four-month experiment, the students in experimental class outperformed the students in controlled class, which again testify the success of the experiment and the hypotheses proposed before the experiment. In other words, the author get the expected results.Taking Xi'an Binhe Middle School as an example, the thesis aims at implementing lexical theory into high school English vocabulary teaching so as to improve the teaching efficiency, strengthen students' pragmatic and communicative competence, which will pave a steady way for their future study.