Application Of Lexical Approach To English Writing Teaching In Rural Middle Schools

This thesis is an experimental research on the application of lexical approach to English writing teaching in rural middle schools.For a long time,second language learning is deeply influenced by structural linguistics.Students spend lots of time in expanding vocabulary and grammar.As a result,students have accumulated enough words but can not use them properly;students have mastered grammar points but can not make idiomatic sentences.There are still some problems about students' basic knowledge and abilities.However,the four skills--listening,speaking,reading and writing penetrate the whole process of English learning.For most of students,writing is the most difficult in this process.It is significant to improve students' grades and their writing abilities in English teaching.However,in rural areas,writing teaching is still the way in which teachers provide samples according to teaching materials or make students translate Chinese into English.For students,they write compositions by repeating samples automatically or translating Chinese thoughts.Thus,their English writing is not idiomatic.Moreover,the way of incorrect output makes students lose interest and confidence in English.Especially for students in rural middle schools,their basic abilities are low because of limited teaching resources and language environment.Recently,lexical approach is given much attention by researchers,especially in English teaching in colleges and high schools,but there are fewer studies on lexical approach to English writing teaching in rural middle schools.Considering the situation and according to the textbook,this research explores the effect of lexical approach based on psychological linguistics and second language acquisition to English writing teaching in rural middle schools.It is hoped that this research can provide new ideas and thoughts about English writing for both students and teachers.This research focuses on the following questions:(1)What effects does the application of lexical approach have on students' grades?(2)What changes are there about students' attitudes towards English writing? In order to explore these questions,the author took students in Grade 9 in Linqi NO.1 Middle School as subjects and adopted interview survey,comparative analysis approach and questionnaire survey.The author referred to Zhao Yi's,Ma Kecai's,Yao Cuihong's and Wu Changgui's questionnaires.Differently,the subjects were students in Grade 9 in Linqi NO.1 Middle School and the teaching material was Go for It printed by People's Education Press in the experiment,so,the author adapted them according to the reality.And the pre-test and post-test were organized by Linzhou Education Department.Before the experiment,the author had a pre-questionnaire about students' attitudes towards English writing,their interest in English and their writing methods and knowledge about lexical phrases.To make sure the reliability and validity of the experiment,there was a pre-test in the experimental class and the control class.The result of pre-test showed that the Sig.(2-tailed)of Independent Samples T-test was 0.121(p>0.05),which meant that the experiment could be implemented.After that,the author applied lexical approach in writing class in the experimental class,but the traditional way of writing teaching was still adopted in the control class.After a term,the author had a post-questionnaire and post-test in EC and CC.The points system used percentile and the data analysis used SPSS 20.0.After implementing lexical approach in English writing in the experimental class for a term,the author found that:(1)Compared with pre-questionnaire,students' attitudes towards English writing in the experimental class became more positive.More than 60% of students always or often did writing exercises.29% of students thought English was more interesting.More than 50% of students felt confident that their English writing could be improved.(2)Compared with the pre-test,the average score of post-test increased by 0.44 in the experimental class and the average score of post-test in the control class increased by 0.07.After lexical approach was applied in the experimental class,the average score of EC was higher than that of CC by 1.56 and the Sig.(2-tailed)of post-test between EC and CC in the Independent Samples T-test was 0.038.It was lower than 0.05.Therefore,there were significant differences between EC and CC.The author made the following conclusions:(1)Through the analysis of pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire,the author found that students in the experimental class felt more confident about English writing and had more interest in English.(2)Through analyzing the data of pre-test and post-test,the author found that there were some obvious differences between the experimental class and the control class,which showed that students' grades were improved after the author applied lexical approach in the experimental class.At the same time,the author put forward some suggestions for the application of lexical approach to English writing teaching in rural middle schools.