Surveys And Studies On The High Block The Ability Of The New Words And Word Blocks Learning Strategies

Vocabulary is one of the three basic components of a language and it plays a vital part in the process of language learning. Without a good command of vocabulary language learners can't improve any of the skills--listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. However, vocabulary teaching wasn't paid enough attention to for a long time and it was also separated from grammar teaching in English teaching. With the development of corpus linguistics in the 1980s, English researchers have a new insight into vocabulary teaching. Researchers found that there existed large quantities of fixed or semi-fixed expressions (i.e. lexical chunks) that have the features of syntax in English natural speech. They are stored, retrieved and used as a whole part. The existence of these prefabricated expressions or lexical chunks can help speed up the language processing and has the great importance in fostering not only language acquisition but also in easy, fluent and idiomatic language output.In recent years, studies on lexical chunks begin to accumulate, most of which however remain on the level of theoretical discussion while leaving many practical problems unexplored, especially for the vocabulary teaching in middle schools. By means of investigation, this thesis tries to put forward some constructive suggestions concerning how to teach and learn vocabulary in current English teaching and learning in high school.The thesis is composed of five chapters. In Chapter one, we mainly discuss the problems we are facing in vocabulary teaching and why these phenomena happen. Chapter two is literature review, which traces the development of vocabulary teaching and lexical chunk research home and abroad. Chapter two is theoretical foundation which first illustrates the definition, classification, and functions of lexical chunk, and then discusses lexical chunks in relation to vocabulary acquisition and language teaching respectively. Chapter three concerns the research methodology, in which we presents the research objectives, subjects, instruments and procedures of the survey and as well as the limitation.Chapter four is the main body of the thesis. In this section, we embark on the analysis and discussions of the data elicited from the two questionnaires and also the relationship between students'lexical chunk competence and learning strategies. As is revealed in the survey, most of the testees'chunk competence stays at a relatively high level and they are able to produce deviated chunks in language production. Chunk input frequency is significantly correlated with chunk competence. There also exists obvious correlation between their academic achievement and chunk competence. And among the five learner strategies, cognitive strategy and metacognitive strategy seem to be most favored by the students. But much attention should be fixed on other strategies, such as determination strategy and social strategy. Based on the results of these two questionnaires, chapter five sums up the implications of the present investigation and also puts forward some suggestions to promote the quality of English vocabulary teaching and learning in high school.