An Investigation Of Lexical Usage In English Writing At Senior High School

Since the concept of lexical chunks was put forward in the 1970 s,lexical chunks have become a hot topic in the field of second language acquisition.The lexical chunks are considered to be the most ideal teaching units,for its combination with grammar and chunks can make up for the weaknesses of the students’ vocabulary comprehension and compiling skills caused by traditional vocabulary teaching.In current English teaching,educators and researchers advocate lexical chunks into English teaching in order to enable students to better learn,master,and use English vocabulary in English output aspect,especially writing.And they have achieved some progress.However,the theory of lexical teaching is not complete.For example,teaching methods and strategies lack specific explanations and most studies on lexical chunks focus on high-level English education.The research about English lexical chunks in senior high school is mostly based on theoretical and teachers’ perspectives.There are few researches with the use of lexical chunks and learning situations about high school students.It is significant for teachers to teach these student as the main body of teaching activity in the way of learning and using chunks,which is beneficial to chunks teaching for high school students.Therefore,the situation of students using chunks and the cause of it are the key issue to research,which are assisted with students for chunks learning and writing skills.Based on the lexical chunk theory of Nattinger & Decarrico,this research divides lexical chunks into Sentence builders,Poly words,Institutionalized expressions,and Phrasal constrains.Using the method of comparative analysis,first of all,40 high and low group compositions(a total of 80)in a key high school English test paper are used as the research corpus.The usage of different types of lexical chunks by high and low group students is expounded and the differences in use are found.Then,200 questionnaires were issued to students of high and low scores to explore the reasons for the differences in the use of lexical chunks and the general problems of the students were found.Finally,through the analysis of the reasons,we provide teachers with reference for teaching advice from lexical chunks.The study found that in the use of lexical chunks of high school students,firstly,the use frequency of lexical chunks of high group students was significantly higher than that of low groups.Secondly,the proportion of lexical chunks in high group compositions was higher than that of low groups,and the use distribution of four types of words in high and low group texts was different.Thirdly,by T test there are differences between sentence construction and phrasal constrains in terms of usage characteristics.Through the analysis of the questionnaire,it can be found that not only the use of lexical chunks is low,but also there is a lack of scientific lexical learning strategies in low groups.Besides,the selection of memory strategies,cognitive strategies and unit cognitive strategies is different from high groups,which shows the difference with high groups in the use of lexical chunks.On the other hand,it is worth affirming that teachers have a certain sense of lexical chunks in teaching,but the teaching of lexical chunks is a conservative and adopt the passively instilling and emphasize the awaking of old knowledge,ignore the cultivation of students’ lexical initiative learning and the expansion of the depth of lexical chunk knowledge.On the whole,students have weak awareness of lexical chunks,and the input and output of lexical chunks cannot be balanced.Teachers are the leading power in promoting the teaching and learning of English lexical chunks.In order to improve the effectiveness of English lexical chunks learning and teaching,teachers should first promote the lexical awareness,expand the channels of students’ lexical learning.Secondly,scientifically train students’ to use lexical chunks with an interesting way,high school students should improve the science and initiative of English lexical chunks learning.Finally,teachers should pay attention to cultivating students’ ability of text output combined with lexical chunks,and unblocking the input and output channels of lexical chunks.Theses not only meets the requirements of the new English course standards,but also plays a key role in boosting students’ English writing grades.