An Empirical Study on the Chunk Writing Approach Based on the Perspective of Memes

Reforming college English writing instruction is crucial to promote students' comprehensive English proficiency. This paper integrated theories of memes and prefabricated chunks to redesign college English writing class. It established teaching procedures according to the life cycle of linguistic memes: assimilation, memory, expression, and transmission. Combining input and output theories, the teaching experiment adopted a combined reading and writing approach and incorporated various prefabricated chunks into the instructional content. During the 30-week experimental period, students from two classes of the same major in one university, with 30 students each, undertook the chunk writing instruction. Significant improvements in teaching effectiveness were demonstrated. It was summarized that the chunk writing approach yielded significant results, enhancing students' writing and lexical abilities in language expression and text-construction. Students with lower scores demonstrated a much greater progress in both writing and lexical tests. Given the varying improvement in students' mastery of four categories of prefabricated chunks, further improvements would be proposed to promote the acquisition of all categories of chunks in English classes.