An Application Of Lexical Approach To Teaching Vocabulary In The Foreign Language Context Of China

Quite recently, computer analysis of the English language has revealed a widespread occurrence of lexical patterns in language use. Some researchers call them 'lexical phrases' or 'lexical items', others prefer the term 'multi-word chunks' or just 'chunks' of language. Whatever the term, they are an important feature both in language use and language acquisition and offer advantages for language teaching.The purpose of the present study is to deal with the following problems: 1. Analysis of the use of multi-word chunks in students' written production. 2. How does a teacher help his or her students to learn about chunks and to use the right chunks, help them to speak and write real English such as might have been spoken and written by an educated English native speaker.To reach the goal of the study, two groups of EFL language learners at intermediate language proficiency level were randomly assigned to a control group and an experimental group. Both groups received instruction on vocabulary through a 10-week period of instruction. However, only the experimental group received the instruction on multi-word chunks during the course of the semester. The training model used was based on the framework for direct multi-word chunks instruction proposed by researchers.The results of the study showed that learners need to acquire a wide repertoire of multi-word chunks, and explicit multi-word chunks training has a significant positive effect on the vocabulary learning of EFL students.