The Application Of Lexical Chunks To The Teaching Of Writing In Junior Three

According to the research of second language acquisition,people whose mother tongue is English usually master thousands of words and phrases,and are capable of using them skillfully.Native speakers communicate with others on the basis of words and phrases.However,people who learn English as a second language or a foreign language use it on the basis of syntax.When they use the second language,they tend to pay more attention to syntactic rules,which more often than not make them neglect the functions of words and phrases in communication.Since they master fewer words and phrases than native speakers,they have to rely on syntactic rules to make sentences.This tendency may result in pragmatic errors and inappropriate use of words.Many students are afraid of writing.Some of the students do not know how to write,some of them do not know how to improve writings.This thesis applies Michael Lewis' s(1993)lexical chunk theory to writing teaching research in Grade Three of a junior high school.Twenty-two students participate as the experimental class,and twenty-seven students,as the controlled class.During four months' experiment,the experimental class employed lexical chunks in class while the controlled class employed the traditional English teaching.The present research makes the following major findings:(1)The teaching of lexical chunks can improve ninth graders' English writing scores effectively.(2)The teaching of lexical chunks can improve ninth graders' ability of using chunks.(3)The teaching of lexical chunks stimulates ninth graders' self-study in learning chunks.The research findings demonstrate that applying lexical chunk theory to writing teaching in ninth graders contributes to improving students' English writing,and as a result their writing scores became significantly higher.