The Application Of Lexical Chunks To Promote English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

With the Criterion of the New English Curriculum issued, it places a higher requirement on the writing ability of senior high school students. Not only should we pay much attention on the spellings of words, the use of punctuations or the accuracy of grammars but also we should combine the writing content, the writing attitudes of the writer, logical expressions and the writer’s creativity to make an assessment on the writer’s writing ability. Therefore, it is more important to cultivate the students’ writing ability in senior high schools. In our teaching practice, we found most senior high school students have limited vocabulary. Even though they have accumulated quantities of English words and sentences made by them are grammatically right, problems still arise in the process of language input to language out. The expressions in their writing are less authentic and vivid. Hence, it turns out that students are still weak in writing. For this reason, the thesis is a tentative probe into the teaching of writing by introducing lexical approach to promote EFL students’writing proficiency.Lexical chunks are the combinations in a language, which once acquired and stored in the human brain, can be retrieved and used automatically as wholes. By combining the theories of grammar on the one hand with the theories of communication on the other hand, the lexical approach shows its unique advantages in language teaching in terms of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Much research has been conducted and it is shown that lexical approach has significant influence on EFL teaching.By reviewing the previous research home and abroad on lexical approach, the thesis seeks to investigate the effect of lexical chunks on EFL teaching. The author has proposed a hypothesis that lexical approach might be a better way to improve senior high students’English acquisition.An experiment was conducted in Huairou NO.1Senior High School among76students.38students from an art class in the experimental class received guidelines of lexical approach, whereas,38students from a science class in the control group followed the traditional way of teaching.After an experiment with the length of4months, the students in the experimental class made rapid progress in their English writing, which proves that lexical approach is a very effective way in English writing in senior high school.