A Study On The Application Of Lexical Chunk Approach To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

Vocabulary is the cornerstone of language learning.To learn a language well,it’s vital to master a certain amount of vocabulary.In the current situation of vocabulary teaching in high school,most teachers still explain vocabulary literally,leading vocabulary teaching is out of context.Additionally,frequent examinations and overloaded practices urge students to memorize words mechanically and passively,which makes students cannot understand rich connotative meaning of words.Students invest a lot of time and energy in vocabulary learning and result in lower efficiency of vocabulary learning.Therefore,it is urgent for teachers to seek a more effective way in vocabulary teaching and guide students in vocabulary learning.In the monograph of Lexical Approach,Lewis puts forward the lexical chunk approach,different from the traditional vocabulary teaching methods.He finds that in daily communication and interaction,there are a large number of lexical chunks with combination of grammar,semantics and pragmatics.Learners can take it as a smallest learning unit,wholly extract and use it without temporary combination and processing,increase the fluency and accuracy of language expression,thus improve the efficiency of vocabulary learning.Based on the theory of lexical chunks and combining with the relevant knowledge of lexical chunk approach,this study applies lexicalchunk teaching approach into English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools and raises the following three questions:(1)Can the lexical chunk approach increase students’ learning interest?(2)What is influence of applying lexical chunk approach on students’ vocabulary memory?(3)What is influence of applying lexical chunk approach on students’ academic performance?Based on the questions mentioned above,81 students from class 12 and class 13 of senior 2 in Guiyang No.9 High school participate in the study.The controlled class of class 13 adopts the traditional teaching method and the lexical chunk approach is used in experimental class of class 12.Then the experimental results are collected through questionnaires and tests and then analyzed by SPSS software.After a semester’s experiment,the following conclusions can be drawn:(1)Lexical chunk approach can increase students’ vocabulary learning interest.(2)Lexical chunk approach improves students’ vocabulary memory.(3)Compared with traditional teaching,vocabulary teaching based on lexical chunk approach can enhance students’ academic performance and it is beneficial for students’ vocabulary learning.In order to better apply the lexical chunk approach to high school English vocabulary teaching,the author proposes that teachers should changetheir teaching concepts and strengthen their learning through constantly updating professional knowledge and teaching skills.At the same time,teachers are supposed to respect and trust students,attach more attention to the creation of context and connect vocabulary teaching with other teaching to cultivate students’ comprehensive English ability.Finally,the author hopes to effectively apply the lexical chunk approach to vocabulary teaching,so as to provide some references for future lexical chunk teaching and lexical chunk research.