A Study on the Use of Lexical Chunks by Chinese EFL Learners in Writing

Abstract

Lexical Approach put forward by Michael Lewis (1993) is widely acknowledged in EFL teaching and lexical teaching is very important development in the evolution of language teaching (Lowe, 2003). For about thirty years of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in China, more and more teachers have realized the importance of teaching and encouraging learners to use ready-made lexical chunks. However, the present study focuses on the overuse of lexical chunks in learners’ writings in a high stake national test (College English Test Band 6 – CET6). The corpus-based data analysis will be done to find the most commonly used lexical chunks by Chinese EFL learners and demonstrate what is meant to be the overuse of lexical chunks. Furthermore, the reasons for misuse and overuse of lexical chunks will be discussed. The findings drawn from structural and functional analysis of lexical chunks also have some pedagogical implications.