A Longitudinal Study On The Development Of Lexical Chunks In Middle School Students’ English Writing

English writing has been considered as a vital part in middle school English learning.In the meanwhile,the national English syllabus also puts forward higher requirements for students’ English writing.At present,the language proficiency of middle school students in China is relatively low,and they still have much difficulty in using the English language.The misuse of chunks is a case in point.However,lexical chunks are closely relevant to English writing.In light of this,quite a few researchers have carried out related studies in order to improve the students’ writing skills,but there is little research on the development of middle school students’ lexical chunks and proper chunks input could improve the students’ writing.Thus,this paper takes the English compositions of 138 junior high school students across five semesters as research materials,and probes into the developmental changes of lexical chunks in junior high school students’ English writing based on the specific classifications of the lexical chunks.The research findings are:(1)The proportion of poly-words in the writing of junior high school students demonstrates an increasing tendency in the beginning,which is followed by a stable development.The students tend to use more poly-words across these five semesters.They gradually learn the poly-words which are often used to express ideas or to start or summarize their writings.(2)The number of institutionalized expressions remains stable across these five semesters and takes up the smallest proportion.Students gradually accumulate the institutionalized expressions and learn to utilize some proverbs as time goes by.(3)In terms of the number,phrasal constraints display a rising tendency in the beginning,which is followed by a slight drop.These chunks account for the largest proportion and are closely related to the students’ writing contexts.Across the five semesters,students grasp more verb phrases and learn to compare the present and future by using the adverbial of time.(4)When it comes to the proportion and the number,sentence builders exhibit a declining tendency in the beginning,which is followed by a steady development.The use of sentence builders does not show much change in students’ writing.Students frequently use specific sentence patterns to construct sentences.Based on the findings,the author puts forward several feasible implications for the teaching of English writing based on the current situation of the lexical chunks.