Lexical Chunk Theory And English Writing Teaching In Junior Middle Schools

Lexical chunks present both form and function of language. It combines grammar, semantics and context, and thus has a wide application prospect in the teaching of English writing. It has become one of the areas of linguistic study and is gaining more attention. For secondary school students, if they could skillfully master and use the lexical chunks, they may not only overcome the influence of native language but also write more accurately, fluently and idiomatically.At present, most Chinese students write by direct translation, and this Chinese thinking mode impedes their improvement of writing skills. Thus, applying lexical chunks in the teaching of English writing is a method worth trying. Currently, research on lexical chunks at home and abroad is still in its initial stage. There are fewer studies about feasible classroom teaching strategies and most of them focus on college and high school students. This thesis took secondary school students (grade eight) as subjects since studies exoloiting this kind of experimental object and method are quite few.To solve this problem, this thesis takes the No.16 Middle School students (who are taught by the writer) in Cangshan District, Fuzhou as objects, using questionnaire, writing tests and individual methods as the main research method. The statistic analysis lasted a whole semester from Sept. to Dec. in 2015, and the writer aims to prove the function of lexical chunks in English writing. Furthermore, based on the theory of lexical chunks and students'text book, the thesis tries to lead the students to learn, to master and to review the chunks and to help the students to apply lexical chunks in English writing.The main research questions are:(1) Does the teaching of lexical chunks improve the writing skills of secondary school students? Can they improve the awareness of using lexical chunks?(2) What is the relationship between the following factors, i.e. the quantity of chunks, the quality of chunks and the level(excellent, favorable and accepted) of students?The result of the study proves that the teaching of lexical chunks improves English writing skills of secondary school students to some extent. And the effect on excellent and favorable students is more significant than accepted students. On the contrary, due to the lack of basic English knowledge, and the influence of non-intellectual factors, the writing performance and lexical awareness of the accepted students do not improve.