A Study Of The Effects Of Teaching Lexical Chunks To Grade 4 Students

Vocabulary is one of the three major elements of language(speech,vocabulary,grammar),also the basis for mastering language skills.Vocabulary teaching has always occupied a core position in English teaching of primary school.The traditional vocabulary teaching method is more used in practical teaching.Take the direct translation as a general use strategy,without emphasizing memory and association with lexical chunks.In the past two or three decades,chunking approach method is one of the hot-spots of research.The research on chunking approach has developed rapidly in the past ten years in China.However,most of the research objects related to lexical chunks are mostly for college students and middle school students,and rarely for primary school student.This study mainly aims to understand the impact of lexical chunks approach on English scores of primary school students through empirical research as well as its impact on students interest in learning English.The research design includes the research questions,instruments,subjects,procedures and the analysis of the collected data.Two research questions of this study are addressed below:(1)What effects does Lexical Approach have on grade four students' English scores?(2)What effects does Lexical Approach have on the retention of grade four students'interest in English learning?In this study the author adopts empirical research,questionnaires,interview and classroom observations to see if this approach can improve students' academic achievements and raise their interest in and attitude towards English.At first,both classes did the questionnaire on attitudes and interest,and their scores on a previous test were also collected to make sure they were on the same level.During the 5-month experiment,the author adopted vocabulary teaching method and lexical chunks approach respectively and handed out questionnaires again.They also took a test whose scores were collected.The author also sorted out notes made during class observations and interviews with the students.The author conducted pre-test and post-test on two-class students,and statistically analyzes and summarizes the data with SPSS 16.0.Through the research and analysis of the data,the following results can be obtained:firstly,compared with the traditional teaching approach,the chunking approach can improve the English scores of students.After the experiment,there is a significant difference between the control class and the experimental class,and the scores of the experimental class are obviously improved.Through the comparison of questionnaire data,classroom observations data and interviews between the beginning and the end of the two classes,the author finds that experimental students who implement the chunking approach can continue maintaining interest in learning English,and most students are more interested than before.The results of this study have certain implications for English vocabulary teaching of primary school.The lexical chunking approach does not fully reflect the student's subject status.What's more,the lexical chunks approach also puts forward requirements for the teacher that teacher should have a full understanding of the lexical chunks.In the teaching,teachers have to try to avoid misidentifying the lexical chunks.