A Study Of Effects Of Lexical Chunk Approach On The Accuracy And Complexity In Senior High School Students’ English Writing

Writing is a significant part of the ability of students’ comprehensive language application since it is an expressive skill of a learner’s language skills.With the formal implementation of new editions of textbooks for ordinary senior high schools in the classroom,a growing number of educators are concentrating their efforts on the investigation of writing teaching modes in order to improve high school students’ writing skills.The accuracy and complexity of the writing language were given a high priority in the writing assessment of new textbooks,which serves as an essential basis for measuring learners’ writing proficiency.The English composition writing standards for the college entrance examination states“Accurate and adequate application of grammar structure and lexical items.” However,there exist many defects in high school students’ English writing due to lack of context and opportunities for practice,such as errors in collocation,insufficient rich expressions,lack of proper cohesive between sentences in paragraphs.In recent years,much attention has been attracted to the lexical chunk approach by many scholars.It is still relatively underdeveloped in Northwest China,as evidenced by the lack of empirical research into the impact of this teaching method on the degree of accuracy and complexity in the learners’ writing.In this paper,the author takes two natural classes in No.XX Middle School in Urumqi as the research objects.Furthermore,the two classes are divided at random into two classes: an experimental class（EC）and a control class（CC）,conducting a 12-week empirical study of lexical chunks teaching.During this period,the experimental group was taught the lexical chunk approach,while the control class received traditional English teaching.The text analysis and collection on the six compositions are implemented in two classes,and SPSS software is used for data analysis,aiming to explore the influence of lexical chunk approach on the accuracy and complexity of writing in the Grade one of senior high school.At the same time,the writing scores of the EC and CC are compared before and after the test,and the correlations between accuracy and complexity,the number of lexical chunks used and writing score have been examined.The author discovered the following via the analysis and collection of data from the pre-and post-tests of the students’ 120 compositions,as well as the text analysis of the 360 writing assignments:（1）The writing teaching based on the lexical chunk approach can help senior high school students to improve their writing accuracy and complexity.（2）The writing teaching based on the lexical chunk approach can help them to improve their writing scores.（3）This teaching experiment confirms the accuracy and complexity of students’ writing,and the number of lexical chunks used by students in the writing process,as well as the students’ writing scores are positively correlated.Additionally,the design concept and practice method of the lexical chunk approach in senior high school is practiced,where teachers establish a teaching model based on reading for input lexical chunks,writing process for output the lexical chunks,after writing for consolidate lexical chunks to improve students’ writing proficiency.The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the efficacy of the lexical chunk approach on the accuracy and complexity of English writing in senior high school,as well as to generate new teaching ideas and pedagogical implications.Although the experimental condition was limited,as was the author’s personal research ability,it is required to do further study in order for the lexical chunk strategy to be more extensively employed in students’ English learning.