The Application Research Of Language Chunk Teaching Method Based On Mind Map In Junior High School English Writing Teaching

The new curriculum standard clearly points out that the task of English courses in basic education is to enable students to master certain basic knowledge and skills,and form a certain comprehensive language application ability.Writing,as one of the basic skills,reflects students’ ability to comprehensively use English knowledge for written expression,and occupies an important position in English teaching.However,the current situation of English writing teaching in junior high schools is not ideal.Some students have nothing to say when writing and there are lots of errors and mistakes in their composition.Most of the teachers adopt the traditional writing teaching method.This method focuses on the writing result,but ignores the writing process,which will cause students to lose interest in writing,and make it difficult for students to improve their writing skills.In the process of English writing,mind mapping can integrate the knowledge related to the writing topic to establish a clear logical structure.Lexical chunks are multi-word combinations with semantic and grammatical functions.They can be stored in the brain as a whole,and easy to memorize and extract.Based on the information processing theory and the knowledge visualization theory,this study applies lexical chunks based on mind mapping to the teaching English writing to explore its effectiveness.The study lasts for a semester to answer the following three questions:1.What is the influence of teaching writing with lexical chunks based on mind mapping on students’ English writing proficiency,and what are the specific manifestations?2.Which level of the students(high,middle or low)is most affected by teaching writing with lexical chunks based on mind mapping?3.What is the students’ attitude towards teaching writing with lexical chunks based on mind mapping?The participants of this study are students from two parallel classes from a middle school in a county.One is the control class and the other is the experimental class.These two classes have same teaching content and teaching progress.The experimental class is taught with lexical chunks based on mind mapping,while the control class is still taught in a traditional way.The research instruments include writing tests,composition text analysis and questionnaires.Before the experiment,the author used SPSS software to analyze the English composition scores of the two classes in the final exam last semester and found that there was no significant difference in the writing level between the two classes.At the same time,the pre-questionnaire survey was conducted in these two classes to know students’ current writing situation,writing attitude,and their knowledge about mind map and lexical chunks.After the experiment,the post writing test was offered to the two classes,and a post questionnaire survey was conducted in the experimental class.The results of the study are as follows: 1.After the experiment,the writing length of the experimental class students increased significantly,but the control class did not.It shows that the use of lexical chunks based on mind mapping enables students to have something to say when writing,and their language production ability has been improved to a certain extent;Before the experiment,the average mean of cohesive chunks of the experimental class was only 0.11 lower than that of the control class.However,after the experiment,the average mean of cohesive chunks of the experimental class was 2.54 higher than that of the control class,which shows that this writing teaching,to some degree,can enhance the logical coherence of students’ compositions.Students are able to use cohesive chunks and their language organization ability has been improved;After the experiment,the total number of lexical chunks in the experimental class was significantly higher than that in the control class.The use of multiple lexical chunks has improved the richness of students’ language expression to a certain extent.Their ability to use complex languages has been improved;After the experiment,the accurate usage rate of chunks in the compositions of the experimental class was 17.18% higher than that of the control class,which indicates that the accuracy of language expression has been improved.After the experiment,the average writing score of the experimental class is1.82 higher than that of the control class,which shows that this writing teaching is helpful for English writing.2.After the experiment,three levels of the students in the experimental class have improved their English writing proficiency to varying degrees.However,middle-level students’ proficiency improved most in terms of the length of their compositions,the logical coherence of their compositions and the richness of their language.And their writing score increased most.It indicates that teaching writing with lexical chunks based on mind mapping has the greatest impact on middle level students.3.By analyzing the post questionnaire,it is found that the students in the experimental class are satisfied with this writing teaching.The results of this study have a certain guiding effect on English writing teaching in junior high schools,but there are also some shortcomings,which need to be further improved in future researches.