[Paper Keywords] advantages and disadvantages of chunk English writing teaching

Abstract: This paper introduces the definition, characteristics and classification of lexical chunks, points out the advantages and disadvantages of applying lexical chunks to English writing teaching, and puts forward some suggestions.

[Fund Project]: This paper is the research result of the 2008 scientific research project "Emotional Deficiency and Coping Strategies in Multimedia English Teaching" of Engineering and Technology College of Hubei University of Technology. (ProjectNo.: J2008Y2)

Corpus linguistics rose in the middle and late 20th century. A survey by corpus linguists Pawley and Syder( 1983) found that native English speakers have mastered thousands of chunks and can use them freely in communication. Sinclair( 199 1) found that fluent users can use a large number of chunks. Domestic scholars have similar research. According to the above conclusions, foreign language teaching researchers believe that lexical chunks are the most basic part of language teaching and play an important role in foreign language writing teaching.

Basic concepts of I chunks

Chunks are a multi-word lexical phenomenon, which are stored in the brain as a whole and extracted directly from memory when used. They are fixed or semi-fixed and patterned language structures without grammar generation and analysis (Becker, 1975). Lexical chunks have four basic characteristics: (1) consists of two or more words; (2) The word * * * frequently appears together; (3) syntax; (4) Semantic integrity. According to the size of lexical chunks, lexical chunks can be divided into five categories: (1) compound words, such as femininity and transportation; ; (2) Multi-words, if mentioned by the way, are upside down and completely fixed in form; (3) High-frequency collocation, such as community service and absolute conviction, in which the word * * * appears frequently; (4) institutionalized idioms, such as: I'll get it; We'll see; That will do; If I were you …; You want to ...? It belongs to commonly used function expressions; (5) Sentence frame, sentence frame, sentence head and text frame. The former is, for example, that's not what you think ...; For example, in this article, we have explored ... First ...; Secondly ...; Finally ... form the frame structure of the text.

Advantages of Second Language Chunks in English Writing Teaching

In empirical research, many scholars at home and abroad have affirmed the advantages of lexical chunks in English writing (Biber et al., 2008; Guo Xiaoying et al, 2010; Qi Yan, 2005); In teaching practice, English teachers will also help students summarize some lexical chunks, such as aggregation words, high-frequency collocations, idioms, sentence boxes, quotations and so on. Generally speaking, there are three advantages:

2. 1 helps to improve the fluency of written expression. Lexical chunks are stored in memory as a whole, which is a block structure with grammatical rules and complete semantics. When learners express themselves in writing, they can extract them from memory as a whole without further processing and analysis, which makes the language more fluent.

2.2 helps to improve the authenticity of written expression. Aggregative words, high-frequency collocations and idioms in lexical chunks are high-frequency language units. Using them in writing will make the language more authentic and accurate. You can avoid improvising or combining words according to grammatical rules and avoid a lot of Chinglish.

2.3 help to improve the language building power. The use of sentence frames and quotations in writing can make language expression more flexible and rich; The use of text structure can make the text clear and coherent, connecting the preceding with the following.

The Application of Tri-chunks in English Writing Teaching

Although using lexical chunks has many advantages, there are still some problems in practice:

3. There are five categories of1lexical chunks (classified as above), and there are thousands of commonly used lexical chunks. For example, NTC's American Dictionary of Everyday Expressions lists more than 7,000 fixed expressions, while BBI English Word Combination Dictionary lists more than 9,000 basic word collocations. Chunks are from words to sentences to texts. Theoretically, for learners of different ages and language proficiency, their practical values are different. However, many writing teachers and learners don't know which kind or types of lexical chunks are their own teaching difficulties, showing great randomness and randomness.

3.2 The same word has many high-frequency collocations, which are the real high-frequency collocations and which are the key high-frequency collocations of this word? Every textbook and reference book, every teacher has his own point of view. Many of them are based on personal intuition, teaching experience or published textbooks. However, the consequence of doing so is the lack of scientific basis and data proof, which is bound to weaken the scientific nature of teaching content.

3.3 In order to examine students' writing ability, many English proficiency tests have designed composition questions, such as the first part of CET-4 and CET-6. However, many students don't pay attention to their usual writing practice, and place their hopes on reciting some composition templates before the exam, and use and apply them mechanically during the exam. Doing so often leads to word collocation and grammatical errors in sentences outside the composition template, a large number of Chinglish, lack of ideas, and the application of sentence frames that are not in line with the context.

In view of the above problems, this paper puts forward three suggestions for teachers and students to refer to in English writing teaching in the future.

Four, four teaching suggestions

4. 1 For beginners, it is suggested that compound words, aggregate words, idioms, sentence boxes and quotations should be the key and difficult points in writing teaching; For middle and senior scholars, it is suggested that high-frequency collocation and text structure should be the key and difficult points. Because beginners and advanced learners have their own advantages and disadvantages in chunk decomposition, reorganization and memory. Some studies have also pointed out that lexical collocation, fixed expression/semi-fixed expression and idioms should be taught in the order of idioms, fixed collocation/semi-fixed collocation and lexical collocation (Hsu Jeng-yih, 2006: 370), which is in line with learners. Compound words, aggregate words, high-frequency collocations, idioms, sentence frame quotes and text structure are also continuum from completely fixed expression to semi-fixed expression, so it is also suggested to teach completely fixed expression first, and then semi-fixed expression, that is, from idioms and sentence frame quotes to high-frequency collocations, aggregate words and compound words.

4.2 Involving the same word. There are many common collocations, so it is required to choose a real high-frequency collocation. There are two main methods. Firstly, the most commonly used and practical chunks are retrieved based on corpus. Writing teachers and learners can use large corpora, such as British National Corpus (BNC), Contemporary American English Corpus (COCA) and Internet Online Corpus (Webcorp) to search for high-frequency collocations and idioms of a word. It should be noted that frequency and range in the corpus are important selection criteria. Corpus retrieval is very scientific and has statistical basis. Second, teachers and learners read a lot of real languages. As Krashen said, reading is the only effective way to learn a language. Through reading, the practical value of words is tested in reading practice, but this method is limited by everyone's English level.

4.3 When applying lexical chunks to writing practice, both teachers and students should not exaggerate the role of lexical chunks, especially sentence frame quotation and text structure. Because overemphasizing them will cultivate learners' lazy attitude, learners think that as long as the "raw materials" are filled into the "mold", articles can be automatically generated without bothering to express their ideas and thoughts. In writing teaching, it is suggested that in addition to teaching some text structures, more high-frequency collocations should be taught to make learners' written expressions more authentic, which has been mentioned before, because the language production ability of intermediate and advanced learners is already very high.

In a word, scholars at home and abroad have verified the advantages of using lexical chunks in writing practice, but there are still some problems. To solve these problems, its teaching design includes syllabus, teaching content, teaching activities, roles of teachers and students, teaching materials and so on. Further exploration is needed to make it more perfect and scientific. In addition, how to cultivate learners' comprehensive communicative competence through vocabulary teaching needs further study.

refer to

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[4] Pauli, A. & ampf. West Germany. Two difficult problems in linguistic theory: natural selection and natural fluency. At J. Richards & ampr. Schmidt. (editor. ) language and communication [C]. London: Longman, 1983.

[5] Sinclair, J. Corpus, Index, Collocation: Describing English Language [M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 199 1.

[6] Guo Xiaoying, Mao Hongmei. An experimental study on the influence of chunk teaching on English writing ability [J]. Shandong Foreign Language Teaching, 20 10/0,31(3): 52-9.

[7] Qi Yan. Prefabricated Chunks and College English Writing [J]. Shandong Foreign Language Teaching, 2005, 108(5): 64-6.

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