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摘 要:随着经济和国际交流的快速发展,高职高专英语教学被赋予了以职业应用性为导向的新要求。英语应用文写作,作为该要求中必不可少的一部分,对于高职院校学生既是非常重要的学习内容同时又是英语学习中的难点。本论文中的实证研究试图验证在英语应用文写作课上运用Michael Lewis提出的词块法对于提高高职生英语应用文写作能力有积极影响的假设。实验结果表明在高职的英语应用文写作课上应用词块法并强调相关知识有助于提高学生的写作成绩并对其写作质量有积极影响。
关键词:词块法;高职学生;英语应用文写作;写作产出;实证研究
一、The Preface
It is an undeniable fact that teaching and learning English play an important role in vocational college education in China. Yet an awkward situation is that some students who have studied English for almost 10 years always feel at a loss of making English output. Although most of them have passed some vital exams, they still cannot write or speak English appropriately. Their articles in English sometimes seem ridiculous to native speakers and even lead to misunderstandings. That’s partly because that writing is the hardest one among the four basic skills in foreign language learning for a language learner to acquire. It is much more complex and demanding than other language skills for it involves not just memorizing vocabulary and understanding the meaning but also needs to internalize what one have learned and then produce them creatively. However, Basic Requirements of Vocational College English Curriculum in 2000 prescribed that English courses of vocational colleges should focus on cultivating students’ English practical competence in daily life and future working environments. Yet, the fact is that most vocational college students achieved lower marks in the College Entrance English Examination than undergraduate students due to some reasons, such as their deficient language knowledge or lack of learning interests and confidence in English. Since they labored to pass the Entrance Exam and hadn’t received enough training in practical English during their schooling years, their insufficient knowledge of practical English doesn’t meet the requirement. Consequently, their practical English writing ability is far from satisfactory. The emphasis being put on learners’ competence of practical English is no less than a challenge to most vocational college students. Thus the current situation is in urgent need of effective teaching and learning approach to enhance learners’ competence of practical English. Therefore, exploring and applying effective methods to improve students’ writing proficiency of practical English is quite necessary.
The author has been engaged in vocational college English teaching for 8 years. During her teaching period, she found that there existed a large amount of terms, phrases, collocations and sentence structures in practical English readings and writings for vocational college students. They seem to be learning obstacles for students because most students don’t know the exact meanings of some terms and collocations. Neither can they use some sentence structures correctly and appropriately. Most students have no choice but to recite those collocations or sentence structures word by word. Both teacher and students haven’t found a better way until the Lexical Approach is practiced. Michael Lewis (1993) put forward the term lexical approach in his classical book the Lexical Approach. The lexical approach concentrates on developing learners’ proficiency with word combinations. “The important part of language acquisition is the input, comprehension and production of large amount of lexical phrases or lexical chunks which become the raw data by which learners perceive patterns of language” (Lewis, 1993:95). He summarizes his theory in the following words: “The lexical approach makes a distinction between vocabulary- traditionally understood as a stock of individual words with fixed meanings-and lexis, which includes not only the single words but also the word combinations that we store in our mental lexicons” (Lewis,1997:212).According to the approach, lexical chunks can be classified into four groups, polywords, collocation, fixed expressions and semi-fixed expressions (Lewis, 1997).
Because of the importance of learning lexical chunks or phrases and of the urgency of improving vocational college students’ practical competence in English, the purpose of the study is to examine whether inputting knowledge of chunks in practical English will improve students’ achievement of practical writing. Although some researchers have proposed effective teaching techniques to help learners developing their knowledge of lexical units, no previous study provides a detailed research on how lexical chunks correlate with practical English writings and how to present them efficiently in teaching practical English writings, especially among vocational college students. The paper aims to have some answers of the above questions.
二. the Experiment
(一) the design of the experiment
The author’s two undergraduate classes of Grade 2007 from Beijing Union University took part in the experiment. One class labeled as the Experimental Class (hereafter EC) is made up of 35 students (32 males and 3 females), the other labeled as the Controlled Class (hereafter CC) is made up of 35 students (33 males and 2 females). All the participants are sophomores who have passed the College Entrance Examination, and have learned English in schools for at least six years and in college for one year. All of them come from different districts of Beijing with their ages ranged from 19 to 21.The two natural classes were chosen as EC and CC because they were similar in composing number, sexual structure and language level which was based on their average scores of the College Entrance Examination for English (EC, 75, CC, 72 with 150 as total scores) and final English test of last term (EC, 65.8, CC, 65.8 with 100 as total scores). Other factors such as personality and family background were not taken into consideration.
A pre-test of practical English writing in the form of writing parts in PRETCO A was held at the same time and same place for the EC and the CC in mid-September. As for the types of writing being tested, letter including e-mail, notice, announcement and advertisement have been chosen for their high frequency of appearance in PRETCO and importance in teaching. As PRETCO requires that writing part with 25 scores as the total scores which include one type of writing should be finished within 25 minutes, thus two letters, an announcement and an advertisement will be tested within one hour and half with 100 as total scores. In order to prevent the participants from reciting model essays beforehand, nothing about the test had been mentioned before it was held except when and where it would be held. At the beginning of the test, the author announced that no reference books or e-dictionary was allowed to be used for the purpose of avoiding cheating. The author carefully invigilated the whole test that lasted for one hour and half. After the pre-test, a teaching experiment have been run for four months, in which the lexical chunks was applied in teaching EC’s practical writing, while traditional approach of grammar-translation was applied in teaching CC’s practical writing. The author held a post-test at the end of January, which was similar with the pre-test in writing types (also notice, letters and advertisement )and testing process but different in content from the pre-test. Since most of the letters, notices and advertisements in the pre-test and the post-test have been chosen from real PRETCO which haven’t been revealed to the participants, the credibility of the test can be guaranteed to a certain degree. As some possible variables in the two tests, ex. participants, testing process and forms have been controlled, the validity of the test can be guaranteed to a certain degree. Therefore, it can be predicted that the test result can reflect the two classes’ practical writing abilities and qualities more or less. Both the pre-test and post-test will be aimed at making preparations for the following data collection and analysis.
(二) the Teaching Process
The author was responsible for the teaching process that had been run for less than five months with six teaching hours a week for each class. In intensive reading classes, both the EC and CC received the instruction of practical English writings with the same teaching materials, and same teaching hours but different emphasis in teaching methods and homework. In order to be in contrast with the EC, the CC received traditional grammar-translation approach in which teacher placed emphasis on the meaning of words and grammatical rules. Some difficult sentences were analyzed into syntactic structures and translated into Chinese without figuring out some prefabricated language phenomena. During the teaching process of the CC, the instruction of new words was limited to pronunciation, spelling, providing corresponding Chinese meanings, especially the literal meanings. Students of the CC learned these discrete words mainly by means of bilingual word lists and rote-learning. In the CC, many activities, such as reading text in class, blank filling, matching Chinese words with their English meaning, translation from English to Chinese and writing compositions are the same with those of the EC, except those closely related with lexical chunks. Homework of the CC included words recitation, grammatical rules memorizing, multiple-choice grammatical exercises, sentences translation and writing assignments. All CC’s homework, which was not related to lexical chunks, was no less than mechanical drills of words and grammatical rules. Generally speaking, the key distinction lies in different teaching approach and emphasis applied for the CC and the EC.
The following is some examples of teaching complaint letter to the CC and the EC, which showed the difference of teaching emphasis.
1. Teaching method for the CC: the CC was required to notice meanings of some key words and to analyze long sentences of complaint letter according to grammatical rules under the teacher’s guidance, ex. order (v.订购, n.订单), standard (n.标准), consignment (n.货物) and claim (v.声称, n. 抱怨, 投诉). We regret to inform you that we haven’t received the ordered consignment yet (He, 2005). (The main sentence is “We regret to inform you” which is in present simple tense and the underlined part being in present perfect tense is accusative clause guided by “that” with “inform” as predicate.)We have to make a claim on you for your goods which are not up to the standard(He, 2005).(The underlined part is attributive clause which modifies antecedent “goods”.)Teaching method for the EC: the EC was required to recognize some key lexical chunks of complaint letter under the teacher’s guidance, ex. ordered consignment (已定货物), up to the standard (达到标准), make a claim on(投诉), We regret to inform you that…(我方遗憾地告知你方,…)(ibid).
2. Exercising activities for the CC: the CC was required to translate the underlined words and sentences in a complaint letter from English into Chinese. Ex. We’re obliged to return the shipment which we received from you today. (我们迫不得已将今天从你方处收到的货物予以退回) We have examined the shipment carefully and, to our disappointment(失望), found that they didn’t match the requirements (要求)of our company. Their poor quality made us feel that a mistake has been made in placing the order(其低劣的质量使我方怀疑下订单过程中出现了错误). We have no choice but to ask you to take the materials back and replace them with materials of the quality we ordered.(我方只能要求退货并换回订单要求的货物) If so, we are prepared to allow the agreed delivery(交货) time to settle the claim(索赔)(Xu,2003).
Exercising activities for the EC: the EC was required to translate the underlined lexical chunks in a complaint letter from English into Chinese. Ex. We’re obliged to (迫不得已) return the shipment which we received from you today. We have examined the shipment carefully and, to our disappointment (令我们失望的是), found that they didn’t match the requirements (符合要求)of our company. Their poor quality (低劣的质量) made us feel that a mistake has been made in placing the order(下订单). We have no choice but to (别无选择只能)ask you to take the materials back(退回) and replace them with (换回)materials of the quality we ordered. If so, we are prepared to (准备去)allow the agreed delivery time (协商的交货时间)to settle the claim(解决索赔)(ibid).
3. Homework for the CC: the CC was required to memorize the learned words and sentences and find some new ones of complaint letters in Extensive Reading books of NCEIC and then use them to write a complaint letter.
Homework for the EC: the EC was required to memorize the learned lexical chunks and find some new ones of complaint letters in Extensive Reading books of NCEIC and then use them to write a complaint letter.
(三) Data Collection and Analysis
For the purpose of guaranteeing grading objectivity, writings of the two classes were scored according to PRETCO composition scoring standards by another teacher who has taken part in PRETCO composition grading works for several times. The same teacher also scored the post-test according to the same standards. The compositions of the two classes were given to the scorer at random and the information of students was covered. Thus, the scorer didn’t know which class a student belonged to when doing grading works. In this way, the compositions could be more justly marked. Thus the two classes' composition scores of the pre-test and the post-test can be taken as the measurements of their practical English writing competence before and after the experiment.
For the purpose of describing the testing results clearly and conveniently, the pre-test scores of the experimental class is abbreviated as EC1, and the post-test scores, EC2.Accordingly, CC1 refers to the pre-test scores of the controlled class, and the post-test ones refers to as CC2.Thus, during the experiment, between-group comparisons (that is, EC1 vs. CC1, EC2 vs. CC2) and within-group comparisons (that is, EC1 vs. EC2, CC1 vs. CC2) can be made. Statistical analysis will be carried on for EC1 and CC1 to see whether they are significantly different in practical English writings. If not, it can be inferred that the two classes are at the same level at the beginning, which is the prerequisite to continue the experiment. If in between -group comparisons, finding comes that EC2 and CC2 are significantly different but EC1and CC1 are not, or if in within-group comparisons, a significant progress of EC2 when comparing with EC1 after the experiment but not such a case from CC1 and CC2 appears, conclusion can be drawn that the lexical-chunk approach benefits their practical writings in using words and phrases appropriately and efficiently.
After getting the scores of all the compositions before and after the experiment, all the lexical chunks in each composition were manually picked out by the author according to the lexical category of Lewis and the number of each category was counted. Then the chunk numbers together with the composition scores were entered into the computer and processed by spss 11.5. By doing so, between -group comparisons and within-group comparisons can be made in terms of using lexical chunks, and whether correlation exists between their use of lexical chunks and their quality of practical writings that are shown in scores can be testified. The following tables present the results of data analysis.
As is shown in Table 3.1, the EC performed almost the same with the CC in the pretest with a 0.0857 point discrepancy in the mean score. The EC and the CC did not differ significantly in the pretest, since t=0.034, Sig. (2-tailed) =0.973, and P>0.05.These results clearly indicate that the EC were not significantly different in practical English writing with the CC at the beginning of the experiment. The post-test which was held after five-months teaching experiment shows that the mean score of the EC is 4.6000 higher than that of the CC. The analysis data also presents that t=-2.020, Sig. (2-tailed) = .047, P<0.05, which means that there are significant difference between the composition scores of the two classes. It can be inferred that after the teaching experiment, the EC have achieved more progress in writing level than those of the CC. Because of the other variables being controlled, the prominent improvement of the EC can only be attributed to the lexical-chunk approach applied in the whole semester.
In this table, at the end of the semester, the EC’s mean score increased by 5.66, and t=-9.909, and Sig. (2-tailed) =. 000 P<0.05.At the same time, the mean score of the CC2 also got 1.14 higher than that of the CC1, and t=-2.238, and Sig. (2-tailed) = .032 P<0.05. That is to say, both classes have made significant improvements after the whole semester’s teaching and learning. However, comparison of t and mean values of the CC (t=-2.238. mean=-1.14) and the EC (t=-9.909, mean=-5.66) shows that the significant level of the EC is higher than that of the CC. In other words, as far as the composition scores were concerned, both groups got improvement to some extent though they received different teaching approaches, while the progress of the EC was more significant.
After pre-test and post-test, all compositions were collected and all possible lexical chunks in them were manually picked out by the author according to Lewis’ category of lexical chunks. Then the data was analyzed by spss11.5 for revealing how the two classes were aware of lexical chunks.
Table 3.3 shows that chunk application of the EC and the CC in the pre-test were not significantly different with all sig.>0.05 (sig. =.683, .867, 1.000, .976). It also shows that polywords, collocations and semi-fixed expressions applied in the post-test were significantly different with all sig. <0.05 (sig. =.016, .016, .000). Only numbers of fixed-expressions used by the two classes in the post-test were not significantly different with sig. =1.000>0.05. Then, 2-related Sample Tests of Nonparametric Tests were held in order to see whether numbers of lexical chunks used by the CC and the EC before and after the experiment differ significantly.
Table 3.4 clearly shows that comparison of chunk numbers used by the CC was not significantly different before and after the experiment with all sig.> 0.05.But those of the EC differed significantly before and after the experiment with all sig. < 0.05. From table 3.1-3.4, conclusion can be drawn that the EC and the CC was not significantly different in the pre-test before the experiment but significantly different in the post-test after the experiment with the EC using more lexical chunks in the post-test than the CC did. In statistical analysis of chunk’s category, semi-fixed expressions differed the most and the fixed- expressions, the least after the experiment in the EC’s compositions. The collocations and polywords’ degree of difference ranked the second and the third place.
Since quality of writing was reflected in composition scores, analysis of correlation was applied to test whether numbers of lexical chunks was correlated with composition scores or composition quality after the experiment.
Table 3.5 shows that the numbers of polywords, collocations and semi-fixed expressions are all correlated with composition scores of the CC and the EC in the post-test after the experiment with all sig. (2-tailed) <0.01. In terms of correlation coefficient, semi-fixed expressions account for the highest (CC2, .804**; EC2, .820**) .Only fixed-expressions are not correlated with composition scores of the CC and EC after the experiment with two sig.> 0.01. It can be concluded that numbers of most lexical chunks are correlated with scores or quality of writing. Only fixed-expressions are not very correlated with scores or quality of writing possibly due to their deficiency in numbers.
(四) Major Findings
It can be concluded that there is a close positive relationship between lexical chunks and practical English writing performance. Lexical chunks play an important part in learning practical English writings for the reason that students’ mastering of sufficient lexical chunks and using them appropriately may lead to better language output, such as fluency, accuracy and idiomaticity, thus achieving better scores. The statistical analysis of chunks’ category revealed that in degrees of contributing to written output, semi-fixed expressions ranked the first place, collocations and polywords ranked the second place and fixed-expressions, the third place. All the findings provide some useful pedagogical implications.
三、Pedagogical implications for vocational college English teaching and learning
The above findings prove that language learners need to acquire a wide repertoire of lexical chunks, and attempt should be made to teach lexical chunks to facilitate learners’ written output.
First of all, raising students’ awareness of lexical chunks and developing their ability to use chunks by means of emphasizing lexical chunks in activities of input and output is a crucial aspect of lexical chunk instruction. Only when the learners realize how important lexical chunks are in language acquisition and have a general picture of what lexical chunks are, they can make full use of those learned chunks. Therefore, much teaching emphasis should be laid on consciously raising students’ awareness of lexical chunks and helping them developing good learning strategies. Some innovative ways of incorporating lexical chunk instruction into the language syllabus should be developed and more ample opportunities for practicing the learned both in classrooms and self-learning should be provided.
Secondly, emphasis of teaching and learning English should be shifted from memorization of isolated words and drilling grammatical rules to teaching and learning words in phrases or larger chunks and drilling constructing these lexical units into meaningful discourse. Vocabulary is not stored as individual words but as larger chunks, which can be retrieved from memory as a whole, thus reducing processing difficulties. By shifting their attention from grammar to features such as relevance, coherence, and appropriateness, learners are able to produce coherent and meaningful writings.
Thirdly, one of the important teaching methods when dealing with practical English writings is to teach certain lexical chunks within a theme framework of certain practical English writings. Some lexical chunks are context bound and have situational meanings. Their high frequency of occurrence in certain themes provides natural recycling of such chunks. Being recurrently associated with a certain context, learners are able to recall these chunks in similar situations (Huang and Hatch, 1978). Frequency of occurrence and context association make lexical chunks highly memorable for learners and easy to retrieve. Students’ puzzles of how to select words and sentences to fit different written situations can be solved by retrieving appropriate context-associated lexical chunks. It is quite important to help students grasp those thematic linking wording and expressions by means of contextualized teaching.
Fourthly, different type of lexical chunks should be attached with different teaching emphasis because they enjoy different degrees of variability and flexibility. As depicted by the statistical analysis, semi-fixed expressions and collocations have high frequency of occurrence in students’ writings. This is partly due to its usefulness as macro-organizers and micro-organizers in practical writings and also easy accessibility for the students. Teachers should emphasize their discourse organizing functions and semi-fixed quality. Teaching emphasis should be cultivating students’ ability of flexible application and collecting those chunks by self-learning. However, polywords and fixed-expressions should be dealt with differently by emphasizing their fixed quality. Teachers should apply their fixed quality in teaching certain terms in practical English writings, such as letter of credit, long time no see, etc. The teaching emphasis should be routine pattern drills in class and guided memorization after class.
Finally, recycling memorization as traditional learning method is still useful for lexical-chunk acquisition. It is quite helpful to memorize some essential chunks, especially for vocational college students with low proficiency level. In order to write native and fluent practical writings, it is very necessary for students to recite idiomatic or prefabricated materials instead of isolated words, and this could minimize collocation errors and enable students to devote more time and efforts to chunks. Later, in the constant use of those chunks, students will become more familiar with those materials, and finally it is likely that something new based on those old ones can be created.
Last but not least, improvements in students’ written performance require changes in at least three aspects: teachers’ teaching ideas, teaching methods, and students’ learning strategies. All these three factors co-exist in classroom practice and have effects on each other either explicitly or implicitly. Teaching methods chosen with or without awareness result from teachers’ teaching ideas. Instructed by the teacher with a certain teaching ideas, the students’ studying strategies will also be more or less influenced. The lexical approach enables teachers to reconsider their present teaching philosophy and make some changes in teaching methods by developing innovative ways to incorporate lexical chunks instruction into the language syllabus.
[References]
[1]Lewis, M. (1993). The lexical approach. London : Language Teaching Publication
[2]Lewis, M. (1997). Implementing the lexical approach: Putting theory into practice. London:
[3]Language Teaching Publications.
[4]He Fang[何芳]等人,2005,高等学校英语应用能力考试历届真题试卷解析A级,中国宇航出版社,2005年5月第一版
[5]Xu,X.Z. [徐小贞] 等人,2003,新世纪高职高专英语综合教程学生用书1,2,3册,上海外语教育出版社,2003年7月第一版
关键词:词块法;高职学生;英语应用文写作;写作产出;实证研究
一、The Preface
It is an undeniable fact that teaching and learning English play an important role in vocational college education in China. Yet an awkward situation is that some students who have studied English for almost 10 years always feel at a loss of making English output. Although most of them have passed some vital exams, they still cannot write or speak English appropriately. Their articles in English sometimes seem ridiculous to native speakers and even lead to misunderstandings. That’s partly because that writing is the hardest one among the four basic skills in foreign language learning for a language learner to acquire. It is much more complex and demanding than other language skills for it involves not just memorizing vocabulary and understanding the meaning but also needs to internalize what one have learned and then produce them creatively. However, Basic Requirements of Vocational College English Curriculum in 2000 prescribed that English courses of vocational colleges should focus on cultivating students’ English practical competence in daily life and future working environments. Yet, the fact is that most vocational college students achieved lower marks in the College Entrance English Examination than undergraduate students due to some reasons, such as their deficient language knowledge or lack of learning interests and confidence in English. Since they labored to pass the Entrance Exam and hadn’t received enough training in practical English during their schooling years, their insufficient knowledge of practical English doesn’t meet the requirement. Consequently, their practical English writing ability is far from satisfactory. The emphasis being put on learners’ competence of practical English is no less than a challenge to most vocational college students. Thus the current situation is in urgent need of effective teaching and learning approach to enhance learners’ competence of practical English. Therefore, exploring and applying effective methods to improve students’ writing proficiency of practical English is quite necessary.
The author has been engaged in vocational college English teaching for 8 years. During her teaching period, she found that there existed a large amount of terms, phrases, collocations and sentence structures in practical English readings and writings for vocational college students. They seem to be learning obstacles for students because most students don’t know the exact meanings of some terms and collocations. Neither can they use some sentence structures correctly and appropriately. Most students have no choice but to recite those collocations or sentence structures word by word. Both teacher and students haven’t found a better way until the Lexical Approach is practiced. Michael Lewis (1993) put forward the term lexical approach in his classical book the Lexical Approach. The lexical approach concentrates on developing learners’ proficiency with word combinations. “The important part of language acquisition is the input, comprehension and production of large amount of lexical phrases or lexical chunks which become the raw data by which learners perceive patterns of language” (Lewis, 1993:95). He summarizes his theory in the following words: “The lexical approach makes a distinction between vocabulary- traditionally understood as a stock of individual words with fixed meanings-and lexis, which includes not only the single words but also the word combinations that we store in our mental lexicons” (Lewis,1997:212).According to the approach, lexical chunks can be classified into four groups, polywords, collocation, fixed expressions and semi-fixed expressions (Lewis, 1997).
Because of the importance of learning lexical chunks or phrases and of the urgency of improving vocational college students’ practical competence in English, the purpose of the study is to examine whether inputting knowledge of chunks in practical English will improve students’ achievement of practical writing. Although some researchers have proposed effective teaching techniques to help learners developing their knowledge of lexical units, no previous study provides a detailed research on how lexical chunks correlate with practical English writings and how to present them efficiently in teaching practical English writings, especially among vocational college students. The paper aims to have some answers of the above questions.
二. the Experiment
(一) the design of the experiment
The author’s two undergraduate classes of Grade 2007 from Beijing Union University took part in the experiment. One class labeled as the Experimental Class (hereafter EC) is made up of 35 students (32 males and 3 females), the other labeled as the Controlled Class (hereafter CC) is made up of 35 students (33 males and 2 females). All the participants are sophomores who have passed the College Entrance Examination, and have learned English in schools for at least six years and in college for one year. All of them come from different districts of Beijing with their ages ranged from 19 to 21.The two natural classes were chosen as EC and CC because they were similar in composing number, sexual structure and language level which was based on their average scores of the College Entrance Examination for English (EC, 75, CC, 72 with 150 as total scores) and final English test of last term (EC, 65.8, CC, 65.8 with 100 as total scores). Other factors such as personality and family background were not taken into consideration.
A pre-test of practical English writing in the form of writing parts in PRETCO A was held at the same time and same place for the EC and the CC in mid-September. As for the types of writing being tested, letter including e-mail, notice, announcement and advertisement have been chosen for their high frequency of appearance in PRETCO and importance in teaching. As PRETCO requires that writing part with 25 scores as the total scores which include one type of writing should be finished within 25 minutes, thus two letters, an announcement and an advertisement will be tested within one hour and half with 100 as total scores. In order to prevent the participants from reciting model essays beforehand, nothing about the test had been mentioned before it was held except when and where it would be held. At the beginning of the test, the author announced that no reference books or e-dictionary was allowed to be used for the purpose of avoiding cheating. The author carefully invigilated the whole test that lasted for one hour and half. After the pre-test, a teaching experiment have been run for four months, in which the lexical chunks was applied in teaching EC’s practical writing, while traditional approach of grammar-translation was applied in teaching CC’s practical writing. The author held a post-test at the end of January, which was similar with the pre-test in writing types (also notice, letters and advertisement )and testing process but different in content from the pre-test. Since most of the letters, notices and advertisements in the pre-test and the post-test have been chosen from real PRETCO which haven’t been revealed to the participants, the credibility of the test can be guaranteed to a certain degree. As some possible variables in the two tests, ex. participants, testing process and forms have been controlled, the validity of the test can be guaranteed to a certain degree. Therefore, it can be predicted that the test result can reflect the two classes’ practical writing abilities and qualities more or less. Both the pre-test and post-test will be aimed at making preparations for the following data collection and analysis.
(二) the Teaching Process
The author was responsible for the teaching process that had been run for less than five months with six teaching hours a week for each class. In intensive reading classes, both the EC and CC received the instruction of practical English writings with the same teaching materials, and same teaching hours but different emphasis in teaching methods and homework. In order to be in contrast with the EC, the CC received traditional grammar-translation approach in which teacher placed emphasis on the meaning of words and grammatical rules. Some difficult sentences were analyzed into syntactic structures and translated into Chinese without figuring out some prefabricated language phenomena. During the teaching process of the CC, the instruction of new words was limited to pronunciation, spelling, providing corresponding Chinese meanings, especially the literal meanings. Students of the CC learned these discrete words mainly by means of bilingual word lists and rote-learning. In the CC, many activities, such as reading text in class, blank filling, matching Chinese words with their English meaning, translation from English to Chinese and writing compositions are the same with those of the EC, except those closely related with lexical chunks. Homework of the CC included words recitation, grammatical rules memorizing, multiple-choice grammatical exercises, sentences translation and writing assignments. All CC’s homework, which was not related to lexical chunks, was no less than mechanical drills of words and grammatical rules. Generally speaking, the key distinction lies in different teaching approach and emphasis applied for the CC and the EC.
The following is some examples of teaching complaint letter to the CC and the EC, which showed the difference of teaching emphasis.
1. Teaching method for the CC: the CC was required to notice meanings of some key words and to analyze long sentences of complaint letter according to grammatical rules under the teacher’s guidance, ex. order (v.订购, n.订单), standard (n.标准), consignment (n.货物) and claim (v.声称, n. 抱怨, 投诉). We regret to inform you that we haven’t received the ordered consignment yet (He, 2005). (The main sentence is “We regret to inform you” which is in present simple tense and the underlined part being in present perfect tense is accusative clause guided by “that” with “inform” as predicate.)We have to make a claim on you for your goods which are not up to the standard(He, 2005).(The underlined part is attributive clause which modifies antecedent “goods”.)Teaching method for the EC: the EC was required to recognize some key lexical chunks of complaint letter under the teacher’s guidance, ex. ordered consignment (已定货物), up to the standard (达到标准), make a claim on(投诉), We regret to inform you that…(我方遗憾地告知你方,…)(ibid).
2. Exercising activities for the CC: the CC was required to translate the underlined words and sentences in a complaint letter from English into Chinese. Ex. We’re obliged to return the shipment which we received from you today. (我们迫不得已将今天从你方处收到的货物予以退回) We have examined the shipment carefully and, to our disappointment(失望), found that they didn’t match the requirements (要求)of our company. Their poor quality made us feel that a mistake has been made in placing the order(其低劣的质量使我方怀疑下订单过程中出现了错误). We have no choice but to ask you to take the materials back and replace them with materials of the quality we ordered.(我方只能要求退货并换回订单要求的货物) If so, we are prepared to allow the agreed delivery(交货) time to settle the claim(索赔)(Xu,2003).
Exercising activities for the EC: the EC was required to translate the underlined lexical chunks in a complaint letter from English into Chinese. Ex. We’re obliged to (迫不得已) return the shipment which we received from you today. We have examined the shipment carefully and, to our disappointment (令我们失望的是), found that they didn’t match the requirements (符合要求)of our company. Their poor quality (低劣的质量) made us feel that a mistake has been made in placing the order(下订单). We have no choice but to (别无选择只能)ask you to take the materials back(退回) and replace them with (换回)materials of the quality we ordered. If so, we are prepared to (准备去)allow the agreed delivery time (协商的交货时间)to settle the claim(解决索赔)(ibid).
3. Homework for the CC: the CC was required to memorize the learned words and sentences and find some new ones of complaint letters in Extensive Reading books of NCEIC and then use them to write a complaint letter.
Homework for the EC: the EC was required to memorize the learned lexical chunks and find some new ones of complaint letters in Extensive Reading books of NCEIC and then use them to write a complaint letter.
(三) Data Collection and Analysis
For the purpose of guaranteeing grading objectivity, writings of the two classes were scored according to PRETCO composition scoring standards by another teacher who has taken part in PRETCO composition grading works for several times. The same teacher also scored the post-test according to the same standards. The compositions of the two classes were given to the scorer at random and the information of students was covered. Thus, the scorer didn’t know which class a student belonged to when doing grading works. In this way, the compositions could be more justly marked. Thus the two classes' composition scores of the pre-test and the post-test can be taken as the measurements of their practical English writing competence before and after the experiment.
For the purpose of describing the testing results clearly and conveniently, the pre-test scores of the experimental class is abbreviated as EC1, and the post-test scores, EC2.Accordingly, CC1 refers to the pre-test scores of the controlled class, and the post-test ones refers to as CC2.Thus, during the experiment, between-group comparisons (that is, EC1 vs. CC1, EC2 vs. CC2) and within-group comparisons (that is, EC1 vs. EC2, CC1 vs. CC2) can be made. Statistical analysis will be carried on for EC1 and CC1 to see whether they are significantly different in practical English writings. If not, it can be inferred that the two classes are at the same level at the beginning, which is the prerequisite to continue the experiment. If in between -group comparisons, finding comes that EC2 and CC2 are significantly different but EC1and CC1 are not, or if in within-group comparisons, a significant progress of EC2 when comparing with EC1 after the experiment but not such a case from CC1 and CC2 appears, conclusion can be drawn that the lexical-chunk approach benefits their practical writings in using words and phrases appropriately and efficiently.
After getting the scores of all the compositions before and after the experiment, all the lexical chunks in each composition were manually picked out by the author according to the lexical category of Lewis and the number of each category was counted. Then the chunk numbers together with the composition scores were entered into the computer and processed by spss 11.5. By doing so, between -group comparisons and within-group comparisons can be made in terms of using lexical chunks, and whether correlation exists between their use of lexical chunks and their quality of practical writings that are shown in scores can be testified. The following tables present the results of data analysis.
As is shown in Table 3.1, the EC performed almost the same with the CC in the pretest with a 0.0857 point discrepancy in the mean score. The EC and the CC did not differ significantly in the pretest, since t=0.034, Sig. (2-tailed) =0.973, and P>0.05.These results clearly indicate that the EC were not significantly different in practical English writing with the CC at the beginning of the experiment. The post-test which was held after five-months teaching experiment shows that the mean score of the EC is 4.6000 higher than that of the CC. The analysis data also presents that t=-2.020, Sig. (2-tailed) = .047, P<0.05, which means that there are significant difference between the composition scores of the two classes. It can be inferred that after the teaching experiment, the EC have achieved more progress in writing level than those of the CC. Because of the other variables being controlled, the prominent improvement of the EC can only be attributed to the lexical-chunk approach applied in the whole semester.
In this table, at the end of the semester, the EC’s mean score increased by 5.66, and t=-9.909, and Sig. (2-tailed) =. 000 P<0.05.At the same time, the mean score of the CC2 also got 1.14 higher than that of the CC1, and t=-2.238, and Sig. (2-tailed) = .032 P<0.05. That is to say, both classes have made significant improvements after the whole semester’s teaching and learning. However, comparison of t and mean values of the CC (t=-2.238. mean=-1.14) and the EC (t=-9.909, mean=-5.66) shows that the significant level of the EC is higher than that of the CC. In other words, as far as the composition scores were concerned, both groups got improvement to some extent though they received different teaching approaches, while the progress of the EC was more significant.
After pre-test and post-test, all compositions were collected and all possible lexical chunks in them were manually picked out by the author according to Lewis’ category of lexical chunks. Then the data was analyzed by spss11.5 for revealing how the two classes were aware of lexical chunks.
Table 3.3 shows that chunk application of the EC and the CC in the pre-test were not significantly different with all sig.>0.05 (sig. =.683, .867, 1.000, .976). It also shows that polywords, collocations and semi-fixed expressions applied in the post-test were significantly different with all sig. <0.05 (sig. =.016, .016, .000). Only numbers of fixed-expressions used by the two classes in the post-test were not significantly different with sig. =1.000>0.05. Then, 2-related Sample Tests of Nonparametric Tests were held in order to see whether numbers of lexical chunks used by the CC and the EC before and after the experiment differ significantly.
Table 3.4 clearly shows that comparison of chunk numbers used by the CC was not significantly different before and after the experiment with all sig.> 0.05.But those of the EC differed significantly before and after the experiment with all sig. < 0.05. From table 3.1-3.4, conclusion can be drawn that the EC and the CC was not significantly different in the pre-test before the experiment but significantly different in the post-test after the experiment with the EC using more lexical chunks in the post-test than the CC did. In statistical analysis of chunk’s category, semi-fixed expressions differed the most and the fixed- expressions, the least after the experiment in the EC’s compositions. The collocations and polywords’ degree of difference ranked the second and the third place.
Since quality of writing was reflected in composition scores, analysis of correlation was applied to test whether numbers of lexical chunks was correlated with composition scores or composition quality after the experiment.
Table 3.5 shows that the numbers of polywords, collocations and semi-fixed expressions are all correlated with composition scores of the CC and the EC in the post-test after the experiment with all sig. (2-tailed) <0.01. In terms of correlation coefficient, semi-fixed expressions account for the highest (CC2, .804**; EC2, .820**) .Only fixed-expressions are not correlated with composition scores of the CC and EC after the experiment with two sig.> 0.01. It can be concluded that numbers of most lexical chunks are correlated with scores or quality of writing. Only fixed-expressions are not very correlated with scores or quality of writing possibly due to their deficiency in numbers.
(四) Major Findings
It can be concluded that there is a close positive relationship between lexical chunks and practical English writing performance. Lexical chunks play an important part in learning practical English writings for the reason that students’ mastering of sufficient lexical chunks and using them appropriately may lead to better language output, such as fluency, accuracy and idiomaticity, thus achieving better scores. The statistical analysis of chunks’ category revealed that in degrees of contributing to written output, semi-fixed expressions ranked the first place, collocations and polywords ranked the second place and fixed-expressions, the third place. All the findings provide some useful pedagogical implications.
三、Pedagogical implications for vocational college English teaching and learning
The above findings prove that language learners need to acquire a wide repertoire of lexical chunks, and attempt should be made to teach lexical chunks to facilitate learners’ written output.
First of all, raising students’ awareness of lexical chunks and developing their ability to use chunks by means of emphasizing lexical chunks in activities of input and output is a crucial aspect of lexical chunk instruction. Only when the learners realize how important lexical chunks are in language acquisition and have a general picture of what lexical chunks are, they can make full use of those learned chunks. Therefore, much teaching emphasis should be laid on consciously raising students’ awareness of lexical chunks and helping them developing good learning strategies. Some innovative ways of incorporating lexical chunk instruction into the language syllabus should be developed and more ample opportunities for practicing the learned both in classrooms and self-learning should be provided.
Secondly, emphasis of teaching and learning English should be shifted from memorization of isolated words and drilling grammatical rules to teaching and learning words in phrases or larger chunks and drilling constructing these lexical units into meaningful discourse. Vocabulary is not stored as individual words but as larger chunks, which can be retrieved from memory as a whole, thus reducing processing difficulties. By shifting their attention from grammar to features such as relevance, coherence, and appropriateness, learners are able to produce coherent and meaningful writings.
Thirdly, one of the important teaching methods when dealing with practical English writings is to teach certain lexical chunks within a theme framework of certain practical English writings. Some lexical chunks are context bound and have situational meanings. Their high frequency of occurrence in certain themes provides natural recycling of such chunks. Being recurrently associated with a certain context, learners are able to recall these chunks in similar situations (Huang and Hatch, 1978). Frequency of occurrence and context association make lexical chunks highly memorable for learners and easy to retrieve. Students’ puzzles of how to select words and sentences to fit different written situations can be solved by retrieving appropriate context-associated lexical chunks. It is quite important to help students grasp those thematic linking wording and expressions by means of contextualized teaching.
Fourthly, different type of lexical chunks should be attached with different teaching emphasis because they enjoy different degrees of variability and flexibility. As depicted by the statistical analysis, semi-fixed expressions and collocations have high frequency of occurrence in students’ writings. This is partly due to its usefulness as macro-organizers and micro-organizers in practical writings and also easy accessibility for the students. Teachers should emphasize their discourse organizing functions and semi-fixed quality. Teaching emphasis should be cultivating students’ ability of flexible application and collecting those chunks by self-learning. However, polywords and fixed-expressions should be dealt with differently by emphasizing their fixed quality. Teachers should apply their fixed quality in teaching certain terms in practical English writings, such as letter of credit, long time no see, etc. The teaching emphasis should be routine pattern drills in class and guided memorization after class.
Finally, recycling memorization as traditional learning method is still useful for lexical-chunk acquisition. It is quite helpful to memorize some essential chunks, especially for vocational college students with low proficiency level. In order to write native and fluent practical writings, it is very necessary for students to recite idiomatic or prefabricated materials instead of isolated words, and this could minimize collocation errors and enable students to devote more time and efforts to chunks. Later, in the constant use of those chunks, students will become more familiar with those materials, and finally it is likely that something new based on those old ones can be created.
Last but not least, improvements in students’ written performance require changes in at least three aspects: teachers’ teaching ideas, teaching methods, and students’ learning strategies. All these three factors co-exist in classroom practice and have effects on each other either explicitly or implicitly. Teaching methods chosen with or without awareness result from teachers’ teaching ideas. Instructed by the teacher with a certain teaching ideas, the students’ studying strategies will also be more or less influenced. The lexical approach enables teachers to reconsider their present teaching philosophy and make some changes in teaching methods by developing innovative ways to incorporate lexical chunks instruction into the language syllabus.
[References]
[1]Lewis, M. (1993). The lexical approach. London : Language Teaching Publication
[2]Lewis, M. (1997). Implementing the lexical approach: Putting theory into practice. London:
[3]Language Teaching Publications.
[4]He Fang[何芳]等人,2005,高等学校英语应用能力考试历届真题试卷解析A级,中国宇航出版社,2005年5月第一版
[5]Xu,X.Z. [徐小贞] 等人,2003,新世纪高职高专英语综合教程学生用书1,2,3册,上海外语教育出版社,2003年7月第一版