语块教学对雅思学术类写作能力影响的个案研究

发布时间：2016-05-12 08:43

Chapter One Introduction 

With the globalization of economy and culture, English has become an important tool for self-expression and mutual communication as evidenced by the over 1500 million English speakers globally. In China, English education is paid great attention to all over the country. Students’ academic study is accompanied with English skill training from elementary school to college. In the past, English reading is always the most important skill to students. Although in colleges and universities English writing has  become  a  compulsory  course,  the  teaching  of  writing  still  lays  emphasis  on English vocabulary, grammar and structure, while paying less attention to the practice of  writing  as  a  whole  including  the  process  of  planning,  generating  and  the organization.  In the early  years of 1980s, English teaching  in China  focus on the  input of grammatical  knowledge  and  reading  which  results  in  students’  limited  ability  in English writing and speaking. Nowadays, with further research of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and relevant development in theory, the effect of applying lexical chunks in second language teaching has aroused a wide concern. Many linguists and teachers doing research on foreign language teaching are trying to find an effective way to improve students’  foreign  language acquisition especially  foreign  language writing competence via applying lexical chunks. Reciting of the sentence patterns and imitating of English classic model paragraphs have reduced the incidence of syntactic and lexical error in writing, while there still exist some problems in the process of transferring  from  language  input  to  language  output.  With  the  development  of cognitive  linguistics  and  modern  psychology  theories,  SLA  research  has  seen  a noticeable increase of interest in lexical chunks, thus the approach of employing the lexical chunks to teaching was put forward. The approach of teaching English writing by  chunks  offers  a  new  way  of  solving  the  problems.  Since  lexical  chunks  are common  in  language,  it  might  be  assumed  that  they  will  naturally  and  easily  be acquired. Many experts and educators have been doing research on lexical chunks, finding that chunks play an important role in our everyday communication, making contributions to the ease, accuracy and fluency  in  listening, speaking, reading and writing. 
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1.1 Research Background 
During the middle age of twentieth century, lexical chunks were first proposed by  Becker who  found  that  there  is a  special  “multi vocabulary  phenomenon” in English.  Becker  (1975) then  first  put  forward this  opinion  that  lexical  chunks  are particular multi-words. Nattinger & Decarrico (1992), who also defines lexical chunks as  “multi-word  lexical  phenomena”,  argue  that  these  chunks  are  ready-made multi-word expressions. Many experts and educators have  been doing research on lexical  chunks,  finding  that  chunks  play  an  important  role  in  our  every communication, making contributions to the ease, accuracy and fluency in listening, speaking, reading and writing. What’s more, lexical chunks are an effective way to improve students’ English writing in foreign language acquisition. After that, in 1990s, Lewis proposed “lexical approach” which is based on the idea that language is made up  of  grammatical  lexis  instead  of  lexicalized  grammar,  and  an  important  part of language  acquisition  is  the  ability  to  comprehend  and  produce  lexical  chunks  as unanalyzed  wholes,  while  these  chunks  are  the  raw  data.  It  makes  a  distinction between vocabulary and lexis which concentrates on developing students’ proficiency by using lexis, or word combinations (Lewis, 1997). 
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Chapter Two Literature Review 

2.1 Theories on Lexical Chunks 
During the late nineteen century, there has been an increasing concern about the linguistic study in China and abroad. Many linguists, scholars and teachers devote themselves to language teaching and learning. Among these approaches, introduction of  lexical  chunks  during  teaching  process  has  been  advocated  and  employed  to language  acquisition.   There  have  been  different  definitions  of  lexical  chunks. Becker (1975) first put forward his opinion that lexical chunks are those particular multi-words or sentences, which are usually in the form of fixed or semi-fixed chunks and share the common characteristics of traditional grammar and lexis. And, Nattinger &  Decarrico(1992),  who  also  defines  lexical  chunks  as  “multi-word  lexical phenomena”, arguing that these chunks are ready-made multi-word expressions. They think  that  these  phrases  are  “collocations  that  are  assigned  pragmatic  functions”, which  differs  them  from  other  multi-word  units  like  idioms  or  collocations.  It  is necessary to make clear the conceptualizations of lexical chunks in order to delineate a precise boarder for present study. Therefore, in the following part, the definition of lexical chunks, its classification and functions will be discussed. 
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2.2 Theories on Lexical Approach
Lexical approach  is put  forward by  Michael  Lewis (1993) who suggests that lexis is the basic unit of language instead of grammar and single words, and they play a central role in language acquisition. According to Lewis (1993), the key principle of a lexical approach is that “language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar.” (p.36). He suggests that it is necessary to put pedagogical chunking as a lesson activity in a high frequency, in order to develop the awareness of language learning. He has written two books The Lexical Approach (1993) and Implementing the  Lexical  Approach:  Putting  Theory  into  Practice  (1997).  These  two  books introduce lexis-focused theories and how to apply lexical chunks to language teaching, and  they  have  received  interest  in  the  language-teaching  field  since  they  were published.  The  Lexical  Approach  which  developed  by  Michael  Lewis,  has  gained popularity  and attention  in recent  years. It develops the  fundamental principles of Communicative  Approach.  Although  it  has  similarities  with  the  Communicative Approach, the differences are obvious too. Such as it increased understanding of the nature of lexical chunks in naturally occurring language, and it contributes to enrich language pedagogy potentially. The fundamental principle of the Lexical Approach is language consists of grammaticalized lexis, note lexicalized grammar (Lewis, 1993). In other words, lexis plays a central role in creating meaning of sentences or texts, while  grammar  is  subservient.  It  means  that  more  language  generative  power  is offered by lexical chunks than grammar. In summary, relative fixed expressions occur frequently in language output rather than originally created sentences, the same as well in English writing.  
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Chapter Three Research Methodology...... 20 
3.1 Research Subjects & Questions....... 20 
3.2 Research Design......... 21
3.3 Research Procedures ......... 22 
3.3.1 Pretest.... 22 
3.3.2 Instruction..... 23 
3.3.3 Posttest......... 29 
3.4 Data Analysis Procedure.... 29 
Chapter Four Results and Discussion........ 32 
4.1 The Relevance Between Using of Lexical Chunks and the Score....... 32 
4.2 The Impacts of Mastering of Lexical Chunks on Written Discourse......... 34 
Chapter Five Conclusion..... 36 
5.1 Major Findings.... 36 
5.2 Pedagogical Implications and Suggestions........ 38 
5.3 Limitations of the Study.... 39 

Chapter Four Results and Discussion 

4.1  The  Relevance Between  Using  of Lexical  Chunks  and  the Score of Subjects’ IELTS Academic Writing

It can be seen from Table 3.3.1 that there is a significant difference between EG and  CG  after  comparing  the  data  for  pretest  and  posttest  in  the  percentage  for coherence and lexical resources: the proportions of the score of coherence &cohesion and lexical resources in pretest are similar (for coherence &cohesion 0.240≈0.237; for lexical resources 0.246≈0.240), but the proportions are higher in EG than those   in CG (for coherence &cohesion 0.265>0.246; for lexical resources 0.257>0.244). From the data comparison, it can be figured that the scores of the EG are higher than those of the CG in post test, despite of the similar level of the subjects’ writing ability which shows in the pretest before the instruction. The main reason why the percentages of coherence and lexical resources in EG are higher than those of in CG in posttest is that a large number of lexical chunks which play a structural role are used in EG. It is those functional chunks that make the compositions more logical, as a result, the percentages of coherence are higher than those  in  CG.  For  example,  the  subjects  in  EG  could  use  sentence  builders  as framework such as: Those who…… tend to present the following reasons. To begin with,  …….  In  addition,  …….  What’s  more,  …….  However,  other  people  may examine/explore  this  issue  from  another  angle.  For  one  thing,  …….  For  another thing, ……. Furthermore, ……. As it can be seen from Table 3.3.3, for the proportion of  each  type  of  lexical  chunks,  the  quantity  in  high  level  is  larger  than  that  of intermediate level(0.96%>0.93%; 0.37%>0.29%; 1.87%>1.64%; 1.96%>1.78%). In comparison, the quantity of each type of lexical chunks in intermediate level is greater than  that  of  low  level  (0.93%>0.69%;  0.29%>0.28%;  1.78%>0.97%). 

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Conclusion 

This chapter is the concluding part. A brief conclusion of the major finding of the study is given first, and then followed by suggestions which tend to bring implication for IELTS teachers to promote academic writing teaching methods in China. At last, the limitation of current study and possible directions of further study are presented to end this thesis. The study focuses on the impacts of input lexical chunks on the quality of IELTS academic writing, to examine whether the subjects of EG could efficiently use lexical chunks  which  were  input  in  the  teaching  process  by  various  activities,  to  make comparison between EG and CG about the quantity of lexical chunks used by subjects, to  explore  the  specific  aspects  of  IELTS  writing  ability  according  to  the  four evaluation  standards.  Finally,  the  impacts  of  quantity  of  lexical  chunks  input  on students’ mastering of lexical chunks on written discourse are discussed. Based on the data collected and results, the major findings are going to be listed in the following parts: A positive  impact of  lexical  chunks  input can be  found on the quality of IELTS learners’ task accomplishment in academic writing. In the present experiment, the subjects in EG could recognize more lexical chunks during the input process, and they  could  use  more  lexical  chunks  efficiently  compare  with  the  subjects  in  CG. Meanwhile, during the output of language, the subjects who had input lexical chunks sufficiently could retrieve those chunks by conscious. Consequently, it is the lexical chunks that promote a higher quality of composition during the task accomplishment. While the subjects in CG did not grasp target lexical chunks as much as those in EG, therefore the improvement of the quality of composition from lexical chunks is not that obvious. 
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The reference (omitted)

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