An Empirical Study On The Effects Of Lexical Chunk Approach On Junior Students' Lexical Application In English Writing

In recent years,lexical chunk approach has been widely applied in the classroom.Some studies have shown that learners' lexical competence is a very important component of their writing ability.However,most researches focus on the influence of lexical chunk approach on students' attitude,interest,the number of lexical chunks,language ability of English learners and so on.Moreover,subjects are mostly college students and high school students.Therefore,this study intends to explore the influence of lexical chunk approach on junior students' lexical application in English writing.This study is conducted primarily through the following three questions under the guidance of the chunks theory,Krashen's input hypothesis and information processing theory:1)What is the impact of lexical chunk approach on lexical accuracy of English writing?2)What is the impact of lexical chunk approach on lexical density of English writing?3)What is the impact of lexical chunk approach on lexical diversity of English writing?In this study,the author conducted a three-month experiment.The experimental class adopted the lexical chunk approach while the controlclass adopted the traditional teaching method.The lexical accuracy,lexical density and lexical diversity in two classes were tested and compared before and after the experiment.Finally,Range 32,AntConc3.2.1 and SPSS 21.0 were used to collect and analyze the data.The major findings are as follows:1)Lexical chunk approach has a positive impact on lexical accuracy in English writing.In the experimental class,lexical chunk approach can improve the accuracy of frame-like chunks,but has little impact on the accuracy of phrase-like chunks and spelling.2)Lexical chunk approach has little impact on lexical density.There is no significant changes in both classes before and after the experiment.3)Lexical chunk approach has a positive impact on lexical diversity in English writing.Lexical diversity in both classes has been changed.But lexical diversity in the experimental class has increased more significantly.The results show that lexical chunk approach has a positive impact on junior students' lexical application in English writing.However,the experimental time is only three months,and the sample size is not large enough.Therefore,the experimental results have certain limitations.