Session after session, I combine a “phrase of the day” into my classes for college kids so as to add to their notebooks. I clarify what the phrase means, present examples of its use, and job them with utilizing it that day. However I just lately questioned whether or not it could be higher to show a “lexical chunk of the day” as an alternative, as they have a tendency to have a better impression than remoted phrases. Additionally, college students gravitate to those fastened expressions and are all the time asking what they imply. Certainly, well-known language educator Scott Thornbury helps this strategy in Chunk-Recognizing–A Consumer’s Information: “the possession of a memorized retailer of chunks permits extra fast processing, not just for manufacturing but additionally for reception. It’s faster to course of a number of phrases at a time relatively than every phrase individually.”
What’s a piece?
The time period “lexical chunk” refers to a hard and fast unit of two or extra phrases typically discovered collectively, similar to collocations, idioms, and customary phrases. And right here’s a startling statistic: Lexical chunks make up 70% of what we are saying in English. It stands to cause, then, that it is necessary for college kids to have the ability to establish and work with chunks to develop their abilities. For extra info, see the weblog submit by Grade College, a web based self-study facility for English academics and a part of the Cambridge Schooling Centre.
It’s straightforward to provide you with examples off the highest of our heads :
- Boundless vitality; waste of vitality
- Peer strain; strain to do one thing
- Hold a secret; preserve quiet
- A heated argument
- Analysis to help this
- Sounds good to me
- I’m unsure
- I’ll cross on the broccoli, however please cross the salt
- What’s it like on the market?
- There’s a hidden message
- I’ll get again to you.
And I might go on and on…
What are the advantages?
Fluency and idiomaticity
There may be rising proof to help the constructive results of lexical chunks on fluency and idiomaticity. Scott Thornbury does a pleasant job of outlining a few of these advantages and the research that help them in his article “Studying Language in Chunks.” Additional, Hong and Chunling studied the results of the chunking method on a pupil’s studying over two years and by the top of that interval, the scholar had doubled his vocabulary and elevated his studying accuracy and pace.
Grammar abilities
Analysis additionally reveals that chunk studying builds grammar proficiency, significantly with younger learners, who prescribe which means to an entire phrase sequence versus a person phrase. Whereas adults don’t make the identical innate psychological associations as younger kids, it is sensible that the extra college students of all ages study to establish and use the fastened expressions that dominate our language, the extra they are going to acknowledge the grammatical patterns embedded in them (e.g. singular and plural markers, subject-verb settlement, gender, and syntax).
How do I combine chunks into the classroom?
There are a lot of choices right here. Consider actions that enable college students to establish lexical chunks (readings and gap-fill workout routines) and follow them (dialogues and position performs). One other concept is to have college students use a journal to jot down the phrases they’ve realized whereas using on the subway, watching TV, studying the newspaper, and so forth.
Additionally, you will discover studying actions within the above weblog post by Grade College and Thornbury’s “Studying Language in Chunks.”
I’m excited to check out these actions and to discover a extra “chunk-centred” strategy with my college students. It feels good to forged off the outdated “phrase of the day” and change it with one thing new and improved. On the very least, I hope I’ve given you some meals for thought. See what I imply? We use them on a regular basis.
Jennifer Hutchison
I’m Jennifer Hutchison and I educate EAP and communications at George Brown School in Toronto. I’ve additionally taught programs in sociolinguistics within the English Basis Program at Toronto Metropolitan College. In my spare time, I write brief tales, learn, train, and bake (the final two are codependent).
Educating English is my ardour. I’m curious concerning the world round me and really feel lucky to have that world delivered to me each day within the classroom. However, I took a circuitous route to find this ardour. After my undergraduate diploma in French and translation, I labored as a translator after which veered off into writing and enhancing, which I did from house whereas I raised my kids (4 of them!). In none of those positions (besides, presumably, childrearing) was I serving to anyone, so I returned to high school, launched my ESL profession, and have by no means appeared again. I stay up for working with you and sharing experiences and techniques on the Weblog!