A Study On The Influence Of Lexical Approach On The Students' English Academic Achievements In A Senior High School

"Lexis" in Lexical Approach put forward by Lewis differs from the concept of "words" in traditional teaching approaches,traditional teaching approach holds that a word,which is a combination of pronunciation and meaning,is the smallest language unit and can be used independently.However,Lexical Approach argues that language consists of grammaticalised lexis,not lexicalized grammar,and that vocabulary is the core of language,not grammar.Besides a single word,Lexical Approach extends the concept of vocabulary to the chunks such as collocations and fixed expressions,which are the chunks of relatively complete meanings and fixed structures.Lexical Approach applies chunks as main teaching contents,highlights the input of authentic language materials and inputs chunks via various resources.When exposed to the real and authentic language materials,students are likely to acquire authentic language efficiently and naturally.What's more,the study of Lexical Approach helps teachers learn and adopt more teaching approaches.Thus,teachers can select the teaching approach which fits themselves best from mountainous approaches to develop their classes easily and effectively.In recent years,some researchers have studied the influence of Lexical Approach on college students' English academic achievements,while the empirical studies on the Lexical Approach in middle school English teaching are few.This study aims to offer a reference in order to better the English teaching through students' comments on the application of Lexical Approach and an experimental study which tries to research and reveal the influence of Lexical Approach on the students' English academic achievements,thus offering advice on the English teaching in senior high schools.In order to find out the influence of Lexical Approach on the students' English academic achievements,a term-long teaching experiment has been carried out among 84 students in two natural classes of a certain high school in Rugao,Jiangsu,which are labelled as controlled class and experimental class.The experimental group is taught with Lexical Approach while the controlled group with the traditional grammar-translation teaching method.In accordance with the study purpose,two research questions are addressed below:(1)What effects does Lexical Approach have on the students' academic achievements?(2)What comments and suggestions do the students make about the application of Lexical Approach in the English teaching in a high school?After the careful study and analysis,the main findings of the study are summarized as follows: First,compared with the traditional teaching approach,Lexical Approach can effectively better the students' academic achievements of English.Judging from the performance of two classes,it can be found that there is a great difference between the two classes' performances.Obviously,the academic achievements of the experimental group are much higher than that of the controlled group,which indicates that Lexical Approach has a unique advantage in English teaching and that applying Lexical Approach in teaching can effectively improve the students' English learning.In addition,through the class observation,the English learning interest of the students in the experimental class is stronger than that of the students in the controlled class.Second,the results of the questionnaire show that students like Lexical Approach a lot,thinking that Lexical Approach can benefit their English learning,correspond to their learning regulation,and help improve their language learning.The findings of the study enlighten the English teaching and teachers can adopt various teaching approaches in their teaching,the Lexical Approach included.When teaching English,teachers should lay special emphasis on the teaching of chunks,emphasizing grammaticalised lexis,not lexicalised grammar.