On Application Of Lexical Approach To The Teaching Of Senior One English Writing

Traditional vocabulary teaching centers on mastery of grammatical rules, ignoring language use in context. On the contrary, a growing number of researchers are aware of an undeniable fact that language output is not a static procedure. Meanwhile, language use does not completely rely on grammatical rules according to which words and words are pieced together in a mechanical way. In1993, Michael Lewis develops the idea that language consists of grammatical lexis instead of lexicalized grammar (15), which becomes the theoretical basis of Lexical Approach. Lexical Approach emphasizes a point that language output is a process of retrieving words units ready for use in forms of fixed or semi-fixed lexical chunks from learner’s mind, instead of piecing individual word together under the control of the rules of grammar. In recent decades, researches on the application of lexical chunks in language acquisition have aroused so much attention. Due to different research angles and theoretical basis, which lead to various definitions of lexical chunks themselves, a growing number of linguists put forward valuable views according to their studies. Although differences exist, linguists come to an agreement that lexical chunks play an active and positive role in improving language learners’competence. With the implementation of the National English Curriculum in our country, a more advanced and specific requirement has been presented, both language teachers and students in senior high schools seem to face a tough mission. On one hand, the teachers try to make the best use of every second in limited class hours to help students do get something from the class while ignoring the output of students themselves in most cases. As a result of that, students have little awareness of what lexical chunks are. Moreover, the testing method of students’output ability, such as writing, is deficient, which reflects on students’unsatisfying performance in timed writing.Although Lexical Approach has been paid attention to and then focused on gradually by researchers, little empirical studies are done setting Chinese senior school students as the research participants on their English writing. Additionally, most such researches are conducted among undergraduates from theoretical perspective on oral English or CET and TEM exams. Returning to the participants of this thesis, a majority of senior-one students suffer from vast gaps in higher level education, compared with their junior high school English learning, such as the enormous amount of vocabulary and specific requirements of timed writing. Writing, as one of the testing units in senior high, gives a vivid reflection of a student’s integral language competence as well as a mirror of teacher’s instruction itself, while it does not gain enough attention in learning and teaching process. Taking the importance of writing for senior-one students and the problems exist into consideration, both language teachers and students are eager to find a way to improve.Based on the above understanding, the author adopts Lewis’s theory, conducting a half semester’s experiment setting senior-one students as the research participants. Putting forward the presupposition that applying lexical approach in teaching senior-one students English writing can have a positive effect, the author designs the experiment, collects and analyses the data. There are two hypotheses at the very beginning of the experiment, one of which is whether applying Lexical Approach in teaching writing can arouse senior-one students’awareness of recognizing, collecting and using lexical chunks. The other hypothesis is whether student’s writing accuracy improves with the Lexical Approach teaching. The author set the scores in writing section of mid-term and final exams as the pretest and posttest data respectively. By comparing the data of a pretest and posttest, the author verifies her presupposition, and gains the conclusion that applying Lexical Approach in teaching senior-one students English writing does improve students’writing accuracy as well as raise students’awareness of lexical chunks.