A Study On The Effects Of Memetics-based Lexical Chunk Teaching On Junior High School Students’ Writing Ability

As an important productive skill,writing contributes to learners’ promotion of comprehensive competence in English.However,the teaching and learning of English writing in junior high schools is facing challenges at present.On the one hand,conventional writing teaching neglects the cultivation of language skills in the process of writing,thus making the teaching results far from satisfactory.On the other hand,students are more likely to memorize words and grammar rules in isolation and produce unidiomatic expression,failing to ensure accuracy and fluency of language expression.To solve the above problems,some scholars advocate that lexical chunk teaching should be incorporated into writing teaching to facilitate students’ idiomatic and fluent expression.Besides,Memetics holds that language transmission is the process of replicating language memes.Lexical chunks can be seen as memes,and can be considered as desirable candidates of strong memes because of their advantages.In view of the above-mentioned facts,this study takes Memetics and Chunking Theory as the theoretical foundation,applying memetics-based lexical chunk teaching following the life cycle of memes.It attempts to examine the effects of memetics-based lexical chunk teaching on junior high school students’ writing ability,and addresses the following research questions:(1)What are the effects of memetics-based lexical chunk teaching on the frequency of lexical chunks used in students’ writing?(2)What are the effects of memetics-based lexical chunk teaching on students’ writing achievements?(3)What are the effects of memetics-based lexical chunk teaching on students’ writing performance in terms of complexity,accuracy and fluency?The three-month experiment is implemented in two parallel classes of Grade 9 in Baiyin No.11 Junior High School.Then the two classes are randomly assigned as Experimental Class(EC)and Control Class(CC).The author applies memetics-based lexical chunk teaching in the experimental class,in which main teaching procedures include the following stages: input lexical chunks,memorize lexical chunks,apply lexical chunks and interact with students,which are in accordance with the four stages of assimilation,retention,expression and transmission in the life cycle of memes.In the control class,the author uses product-oriented writing approach without emphasizing lexical chunks.The subjects take tests before and after the teaching experiment.The data is calculated and analyzed by L2 SCA and SPSS 24.0.By analyzing the collected data,this thesis has drawn three conclusions as follows:(1)Memetics-based lexical chunk teaching can develop the frequency of lexical chunks in junior high school students’ compositions;(2)Memetics-based lexical chunk teaching can improve junior high school students’ English writing achievements;(3)The influence of memetics-based lexical chunk teaching on three indicators of performance is different.To be specific,it has significantly improved the accuracy and fluency of students’ writing,but has no significant effect on the complexity of writing.Memetics-based lexical chunk teaching can serve as a reference for future writing teaching.Teachers should lead students to pay attention to diversified lexical chunks and raise their awareness of lexical chunks.What’s more,teachers are suggested to design various activities or exercises about lexical chunks to help students master the lexical chunks they have learned in class.There are still some limitations in the study such as the duration of teaching experiment is too short and the sample size is too small.Some suggestions for future studies are made at the end of the thesis.