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Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages
APPLICATION OF CHUNK THEORY IN TEACHING COMPREHENSIVE
CHINESE COURSES
Qin Jiawen
Master of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages,
Confucius Institute at SamSIFL
Abstract
. In recent years, with the fermentation of "Chinese fever", the development of
Chinese teaching has been promoted, and exploring new teaching methods has also become a
new research hotspot, and "chunk teaching" is one of them. "Chunk" teaching was first
introduced into English language teaching, and then relevant scholars gradually conducted
feasibility research on the application of chunk theory to Chinese as a second language teaching.
Through teaching empirical research in the past decade, scholars have found that chunk theory
teaching can bring good teaching results when teaching Chinese.
Keywords
: chunk; teaching method; Chinese comprehensive course
Chapter 1 Chunk Theory
I. Definition of Chunk
There is still no unified definition in the academic community for the relevant research on
the interpretation and definition of "chunk". Since the two scholars Miller and Selfridge
proposed the concept of "chunk" in the 1950s, there have been conceptual definitions such as
"chunk", "lexical phrase", "idiom" and "plate structure". Because scholars have different research
purposes and research angles, there are different definitions. From the above definition of
"chunk", we can see the main characteristics of "chunk":
1. Words are the basic units that constitute chunks. They are composed of two or more
words. It is a language structure with strong integrity and formalization. The components of
chunks cannot be divided again, otherwise the complete chunk meaning cannot be expressed in
the process of use.
2. The semantics, form and pragmatics of chunks are unified and fixed. Since chunks have
conventional meanings, the rules of formal use are fixed, and the generative theory of grammar
is weakened in chunks, the learning difficulty of learners is reduced in the learning process.
2. Characteristics of chunks
(I) Structural integrity
As the name implies, the structural integrity of a chunk means that the chunk is structurally
indivisible and expresses the specific meaning of the chunk as a whole. Since the basic unit of a
chunk is a word, and the internal components are at least two words, each word that makes up
the chunk cannot be missing or split or replaced, such as "not in a hurry", "scallion and tofu -
clear and innocent", "borrow and return, it is not difficult to borrow again", etc. Because the
chunk maintains the characteristics of integrity when used, it can be output as a whole in specific
teaching, avoiding some difficult grammatical analysis.
(II) Fixed form
As a whole, a chunk is structurally indivisible. The so-called fixed form means that a chunk
is used frequently and appears frequently, and its meaning is formed in a socially agreed
environment. Finally, the corresponding corpus is regarded as a fixed language unit or a semi-
fixed sentence structure that can be filled in according to the change of conditions. For example,
"Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea - Each Showing Their Magical Powers", "Sending Charcoal
in the Snow", "Treat a Dead Horse as a Living Horse", etc. These idioms as chunks will not
change their form easily during use.
In addition, the order of each word that makes up the chunk will gradually become fixed
during use. If the order in the chunk is changed, the meaning expressed will no longer be the
content of the original chunk. For example, "Because...so...", "Not only...but also...", etc. The
order of words in these chunks is fixed after grammatical refinement. When Chinese teachers
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teach this part, students often make mistakes by changing the order of the components in the
chunk. Therefore, we should realize the fixedness of the form of language chunks, input and
practice them as a complete div continuously and repeatedly, and strengthen the output of the
use of language chunks, which will increase the effectiveness of Chinese teaching.
(III) Ease of communication
Linguistic psychologists believe that the generation and use of language chunks are related
to the way language is stored in the brain, and the amount of language chunk information stored
in the learner's memory will directly affect the learner's proficiency in communication and the
learner's mastery of grammatical rules. This is also the psychological mechanism that learners
will produce during learning. Since the language chunk will not undergo structural changes
during use, the word order of the vocabulary within the language chunk is also fixed and will not
change, and the language chunk is input and output as a whole, avoiding the secondary
processing of the content or grammatical analysis of more complex content, saving the brain
time for language information processing, and reducing the burden of working memory.
Therefore, the psychological mechanism of language chunk information storage is conducive to
improving students' comprehensive Chinese language ability, and the ease of extraction of the
communicative function of Chinese language chunks is the product of learners' language
learning psychological mechanism.
Chapter 2 Chunk teaching and its role in Chinese teaching
In the overall teaching process, chunk teaching mainly focuses on chunks that appear in the
textbooks, allowing students to master a large number of phrases in the learning process without
further processing during use. For Chinese teachers, chunks are integrated into the teaching
process through new words, texts, and comprehensive annotations and exercises in the text,
encouraging students to memorize chunks and use chunks more to complete the corresponding
teaching tasks. Through a large number of chunk inputs and consolidation exercises, students'
chunk thinking is gradually cultivated. From the content arrangement of Chinese teaching, it can
be seen that vocabulary, phrases and grammar are important components, and chunks are closely
related to them. For actual Chinese teaching, enabling learners to speak Chinese fluently and
accurately is its ultimate teaching goal. Therefore, combined with previous research results on
chunks and learners' learning effects, with the application of chunk teaching in writing, reading,
listening and speaking teaching, chunk teaching has also had a positive impact on Chinese
teaching, thereby promoting the renewal of Chinese teaching methods.
1. Chunk teaching can improve learners' fluency in language expression
Chunk teaching is to improve Chinese learners' ability to understand language, so that they
have a good sense of language and can use Chinese in real communication. Chinese is a
language that uses function words and word order to express meaning. Even advanced learners
may make errors in language communication due to inappropriate language collocation in
language expression. Because in Chinese, the composition of some words, phrases or sentences
has certain social conventions or requires grammatical analysis, even Chinese people cannot
explain why they say it this way. For foreign learners, when they learn a word, they often use the
known words according to the structural form of the word to cause language errors. For example,
"all aspects" may have the language phenomenon of "partial division"; "unreasonable" may have
the error phenomenon of "reasonable". Therefore, in the actual teaching of Chinese
comprehensive courses, chunk teaching can avoid the analysis of grammar when teaching
grammar. The knowledge of grammar points in the text is taught as a chunk as a whole, which
can reduce learners' anxiety and pressure in learning grammar. In the elementary Chinese
teaching, the teaching of language blocks allows Chinese teachers to avoid excessive analysis of
the structural characteristics and grammar of language blocks, so that learners can extract
language blocks as a whole for communication, which to a certain extent reduces the language
encoding ability of the learner's brain, so that they can finally speak Chinese fluently.
2. Language block teaching can promote learners' language expression to be more
appropriate
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After a period of contact and learning of Chinese, the vocabulary library owned by learners
is no longer a series of independent words. When encountering a certain context, they will
extract the corresponding communicative language blocks according to the actual language
needs. Since the communicative characteristics of language blocks have advantages in this
regard, this has a positive effect on improving the appropriateness of learners' language
expression. In Chinese, there are many conventional collocation language blocks. These
language blocks need to have a certain context to be used. If learners are only familiar with the
language meaning of this word in the process of learning, but do not know how to use it, this
may lead to the wrong use of language blocks. Therefore, chunk teaching is to teach learners
directly what kind of context the commonly used chunks are suitable for. Each chunk has its
corresponding pragmatic function. Learners need to extract the corresponding Chinese chunks
according to specific communicative factors such as the actual context and the object of
communication.
3. Chunk teaching can enhance learners' enthusiasm for learning Chinese
For Chinese learners, the study of comprehensive Chinese is a Chinese course that learners
think is more difficult, especially for learners at the elementary stage. After a period of study, the
input and output of chunks allows learners to avoid being at a loss when matching words by
themselves as much as possible, thereby improving the fluency and appropriateness of
expression, reducing the occurrence of errors, eliminating the aversion to learning, building self-
confidence, and making learners more active in learning Chinese. In addition, from the
perspective of Chinese comprehensive courses, some of the content of chunk teaching is
determined according to the teaching environment and learning needs of learners. The timeliness
of the content makes Chinese classes more interesting. Therefore, chunk teaching reduces the
pressure of learners and reduces the boredom of learning. In summary, the role of chunk teaching
in Chinese comprehensive courses is positive and obvious, and improving learners' Chinese
language skills and language communication skills is the teaching demand of Chinese
comprehensive courses. Chinese teaching is not just a comprehensive course, but the teaching of
comprehensive courses is an important part of it. Therefore, the importance of chunk teaching is
self-evident.
Chapter 3 Teaching Strategies of Chunk Teaching in Comprehensive Chinese Courses
The teaching of chunk theory has not been used in Chinese teaching for a long time. The
relevant theoretical basis is to directly adopt Western teaching theories. From the current
situation of Chinese teaching, chunk theory is not widely used in Chinese teaching. Due to the
language characteristics and cultural connotations of Chinese, Chinese teachers do not further
process the chunks that appear in the textbooks. Especially in comprehensive Chinese courses,
the teaching time distribution of vocabulary and grammar in the textbooks is not very even.
When chunk theory penetrates into the teaching of comprehensive courses, the teaching effect
and influence it produces are both beneficial and opposite. Therefore, Chinese teachers need to
use chunk theory reasonably in teaching according to the actual local teaching situation in actual
teaching practice, so as to summarize the teaching strategies that meet the needs of chunk
teaching.
(I) Use the cultural meaning contained in chunks to assist chunk teaching
Among fixed-structure chunks, idiom chunks have a strong Chinese cultural background.
The two-part allegorical sayings and idioms in idioms need to rely on the language environment
for communication. For the teaching of idiom chunks, teachers need to find appropriate teaching
methods to teach. Although the distribution of such chunks is not very concentrated in the
textbooks, in chunk teaching, the relevant cultural context factors are combined in teaching to
reduce the boredom of students in learning, so that students can reduce the mistakes in actual use.
The charm of Chinese lies in the cultural connotation behind the characters. The
understanding of Chinese culture is also the motivation for students to learn. Therefore, in chunk
teaching, the appropriate addition of cultural context factors can reduce the boredom of students.
For example, "He who has not been to the Great Wall is not a true man", "There is no silver
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here", "Ye Gong likes dragons", etc. The ultimate goal of language teaching is to apply the
learned language knowledge to communication. Therefore, in idiom chunks, the penetration of
cultural knowledge is conducive to foreign students' understanding of the language environment
and pragmatic functions of Chinese idiom chunks. This is an effective way to teach idiom
chunks well. Moreover, as students' Chinese proficiency improves, the teaching of relevant
culture is from less to more, from simple to complex. The teaching of cultural factors should be
carried out simultaneously with language teaching.
(II) Strengthen the output of chunk awareness and improve the intensity of chunk practice
Learners' mastery and storage of chunks are closely related to their subsequent language
communication ability and grammar learning. It can be found from actual teaching classes that
learners will use relatively simple chunks to communicate during the learning process, but once
they leave the teaching classroom, they rarely use more complex chunks. On the one hand, it is
because teachers do not have a strong sensitivity to chunks and do not collect and memorize the
relevant chunks involved in this lesson as a whole. On the other hand, if during the
implementation of the classroom link, teachers do not use the sentence structure and new words
learned in this lesson, students will hardly use the chunks of this lesson to participate in related
teaching activities. Therefore, in actual Chinese teaching, for overseas Chinese teaching in non-
Chinese contexts, Chinese teachers should strengthen the awareness of chunk teaching,
strengthen the awareness of chunk use, and increase the frequency of chunks.
For example, in the learning of frame structure blocks, the emergence of blocks such as
"V/Adj+
起
", "V+
什么
", "V+
得了
/
不了
", "V/Adj+
下去
" is based on the expansion of directional
complements, and has certain grammatical components. In actual teaching, these blocks are
learning contents that tend to be grammatical points, and these four blocks are concentrated in
one lesson, so to a certain extent, the students' learning tasks are increased. When teachers are
teaching such blocks, they must first list these blocks in the form of blackboard writing by
explaining the text, and then practice them repeatedly in combination with the after-class
exercises in the textbook to deepen the memory and consolidation of the blocks.
(III) Combining grammar with chunk theory and weakening grammatical analysis
In modern Chinese, word order and function words are one of the characteristics that
distinguish it from other languages. This is also the key and difficult point of Chinese teaching.
Take sentence structure chunk teaching as an example, such as "who... all/also...", in the teaching
of this chunk, it should be taught as a whole, so that students can remember this structure as a
whole, and then use examples to indicate affirmation. As the understanding of the chunk deepens,
add negative structure components on the basis of the original structure, that is, "who... all/also +
no/no...", and then deepen memory through corresponding consolidation exercises, so that
students can complete the output of chunk content on the basis of mastering the chunk structure
form, so as to maintain the overall fluency and correctness of Chinese.
Chapter 4 Inspiration of Chinese Comprehensive Course Teaching under Chunk Theory
(I) Establish and strengthen chunk awareness
At present, in Chinese teaching, teachers also have a certain sensitivity to chunks, but in
actual teaching, the chunk teaching model is not used for a long time, and the role of chunks in
Chinese teaching has not been truly reflected. It is very important to cultivate and improve
teachers' chunk teaching awareness. Once teachers have a strong sense of chunk teaching and
input chunk knowledge to students, students will also learn new Chinese knowledge based on the
chunks they have mastered.
In actual classroom teaching, teachers not only need to improve their own awareness of
Chinese chunk teaching, but also need to let students establish and strengthen chunk awareness,
so that students can independently collect chunks for after-class learning. Teachers continuously
deepen students' sensitivity to chunks in classroom teaching activities, constantly remind
students to pay attention to the chunks that appear in the text when they are learning, and let
students use the newly learned chunks for the entire teaching activity through teaching design.
Since in Chinese teaching, the effectiveness of Chinese teaching is mostly concentrated in
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classroom teaching, once students return to their native language environment, the teaching
effect of classroom teaching will be weakened to a certain extent. Therefore, in local Chinese
teaching, how to enable students to learn independently after class is also what Chinese teachers
need to pay attention to.
(II) Adhere to the parallel development of chunk teaching and traditional teaching methods
Among the people who learn Chinese, different learners have different requirements for
learning Chinese and different learning conditions. Teachers need to choose appropriate teaching
methods when conditions permit. We can adopt a variety of Chinese teaching methods, and we
must also choose a learning method suitable for learners in combination with the actual teaching
situation of local schools. Moreover, in the current Chinese teaching, there is no clear dividing
line between chunk teaching and traditional Chinese teaching methods. Sometimes chunk
teaching is infiltrated on the basis of traditional Chinese teaching. Therefore, the relationship
between the two is complementary. We cannot rely solely on chunk theory for teaching, nor can
we ignore the advantages of traditional Chinese teaching methods.
(III) Pay attention to the linkage between textbooks and make rational use of chunk theory
With the current reform of Chinese textbooks, it can be found that in the series of textbooks,
the recurrence rate and life of vocabulary, grammar points and text themes will be emphasized.
Teachers must consider students' language communication ability and students' needs for
communication when designing teaching. Therefore, the characteristics of chunks can allow
learners to avoid reprocessing the information they have received, allowing students to output
paragraphs effectively and appropriately when communicating. Because of this connection, after
students receive chunk theory teaching in comprehensive courses, they will transfer this learning
method to other types of courses, consciously accumulate the chunks they encounter, and when
students take oral courses, they can output the accumulated chunks, thus gaining a sense of
accomplishment in the entire Chinese learning process.
In the relevant language teaching research, the time for studying Chinese teaching is not
very long, and the use of chunk theory for comprehensive Chinese teaching is an innovative
teaching method. When chunk teaching is introduced into Chinese teaching, the academic
community has certain doubts about whether chunk teaching is suitable for Chinese teaching.
When the author searched for relevant information on CNKI, he found that some relevant
scholars have begun to involve the field of chunk teaching, and with the development of Chinese
teaching, more and more students or people in society have begun to learn Chinese, and
traditional Chinese teaching methods are no longer suitable for current Chinese teaching.
Therefore, chunk teaching has room for implementation in actual Chinese teaching.
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