An Experimental Study On The Effect Of Topic-based Lexical Approach On English Writing Of Junior High School Students

Writing,as a significant productive part of language learning,has been paid more and more attention to junior high school English classes.The New English Curriculum Standards(2011)and senior high school entrance examination(SHSEE)have raised a higher requirement,but some serious problems still exist in English writing of junior high,especially in those rural areas,such as Chingish,habitual collocation errors,writing anxiety and so on.All the writing troubles have been a great cause for people's concern.In the last few years,the theory of lexical chunk provides us with a new perspective to enhance the teaching effect of English writing.The lexical chunk is a combination of grammar,semantics and context.They can be retrieved and accessed easily,and help student improve the accuracy,logicality and idiomaticity of expression in writing.With the development of English teaching,people find it better to learn English by creating topics which makes multiple skills develop well at the same time.Although there have been some researches on topic-based lexical approach,little has been conducted on rural junior high school students.In this thesis,the experimental study is carried out under the theoretical framework of lexical chunk theory and the affective filter hypothesis with the view to testify the effect of topic-based lexical approach in English writing teaching in rural junior high schools,and answers two research questions:1.Can topic-based lexical approach improve students' writing ability in rural junior high school?2.Can topic-based lexical approach reduce students' writing anxiety in rural junior high school?Based on the understanding mentioned above,two paralleled classes of Grade Nine took part in this four-month experiment.Each class included 40 subjects,and they were chosen at random as experimental group and control group respectively.The experimental group(EG)was given the instruction on topic-based lexical approach while the control group(CG)was given the traditional English teaching.The instruments used in the experiment were pre-test,post-test,questionnaires(SLWAI),and an interview.After the experiment,all of the data was collected and analyzed by SPSS 22.0.The findings from the experiment show that both the subjects of EG and CG have improved their writing performance,but the writing scores of EG have increased more.Also,the writing anxiety of EG has greatly reduced.Based on the study,pedagogical implications can be provided as follows.First,teachers should help learners develop the habit of accumulating lexical chunks autonomously.Second,teachers should help students consolidate lexical chunks through contextual exercise.Third,teachers should take advantages of topic-based lexical approach to improve students' writing performance by reducing their writing anxiety.In a word,the conclusion can be drawn that it is feasible to apply topic-based lexical approach to the teaching of English writing in rural junior high schools.