The Application Of Lexical Chunk Approach To Promoting English Writing In Junior High School:an Action Research Report

According to Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standards(2011),junior high school graduate are required to reach the fifth level.However,for most students,their compositions are far from being logic coherent and interesting.In recent studies,it is found that lexical chunk,which can integrate grammar and meaning together,has character of generativity and stabilization.Lexical chunk is believed to be the ideal unit for learners in language teaching,because it is ready-made and can be stored as a unit in our memory.Thus,it can also speed up language processing and promote language accuracy and idiomaticity.It is important for the students to promote their vocabulary,and to improve the fluency and authenticity of language.So it is a meaningful attempt to teach English writing through lexical chunks.The purposes of this action research are:1.To raise the students aware of the importance of lexical chunks and improve their knowledge and use of lexical chunks in writing.2.To enable the teacher to apply more effective method to English writing teaching The methods of this action research are:On the basis of Nattinger&Decarrico,Lewis and Ma Guanghui's lexical chunks classification,in this action research report,the current situation of students' writing in junior middle school is analyzed and the lexical chunk approach is introduced as a new way to improve junior English writing.Based on the action research model of"plan-action-observation-reflection",this project had 3 cycles.The subjects are the students of Grade 9 in Tianjin Muzhai Middle School.The adopted research approaches include questionnaire,interview,pre-test,medium-test and post-test compositions.The experiment is conducted within seventeen weeks.The lexical chunk approach was applied to the reading and writing class.The findings of this action research are:1.The application of lexical chunks in the English writing has improved the students'writing ability to a certain extent.2.After a certain amount of input and output exercises of lexical chunks,the participants in the experimental class tend to use lexical chunks more accurately and skillfully.They have learned to use different genres of lexical chunks.The use of collocations,discourse device and sentence constrains makes their articles more fluent and authentic.3.Most students hold positive attitude toward lexical chunks.The results of questionnaire suggest that they improve in the aspects of their writing in content and organization.They get advances in the number of lexical chunks and genres of lexical chunks.However,the students of lower English proficiency still need the teacher 's guidance and further practice.