Action Research Of Lexical Chunks On English Listening Teaching In Junior High School

As one of the four major language skills,listening is of great significance in English teaching.However,the poor English listening ability is the main obstacle for learners to achieve normal communication in China.Especially in junior high school in China’s rural areas,listening teaching mainly focuses on the grammatical analysis of English,and ignores the process of “listening”.As a result,students do not pay much attention to listening studies.This study mainly takes 44 students in Class 2,Grade 3 of a school in L City as research object and lexical chunks was applied to the listening teaching in junior high school through an action research method.Before the action research,students’ difficulties in listening learning were identified by means of questionnaires,interviews and test paper on listening,and accordingly formulated research questions:(1)How to change students’ learning attitude through the application of lexical chunks?(2)How to cultivate students’ listening habits through the application of lexical chunks?To address the key problems in this study,the author has implemented the first round of action research combined with lexical chunks.The implementation plan of this round of action is mainly divided into the theoretical input course of knowledge about lexical chunks and the specific listening teaching process based on lexical chunks.After the first round of action,the author reflected on the teaching based on the journals and the interview results,then concluded the main problems existed during the first round of action:1.Lack of test for listening comprehension and listening materials;2.The poor atmosphere with the teacher as a guide in the listening teaching course;3.Difficulty in memorizing long sentences.In response to the above problems,the author adjusted the teaching programme and started the second round of action research: 1.Add listening practice about senior high school entrance examination;2.Enhance students’ subjectivity;3.Strengthen the listening practice of long sentences;4.Increase extracurricular listening materials and other visual teaching activities.After the two rounds of action,the author compared and analyzed the questionnaires and test data before and after the action to test the effect of action research.The results of the study found that: 1.Listening teaching based on lexical chunks can help students develop the habit of actively retrieving chunks in the listening process;2.Different ways can stimulate students’ interest in listening learning to some extent,such as theoretical input course of knowledge about lexical chunks in the pre-listening stage,task hierarchy in the while-listening stage and rich visual activities in the post-listening stage.Based on the above investigations,actions,observations,reflections and improvements,this action research explores the practice of English listening teaching in junior high school through the application of the lexical chunks,aiming to follow the direction of the new English Curriculum Standards for compulsory Education,provide a new listening teaching mode for teachers in junior high school to improve the effectiveness of junior high school English teaching.