【正文】摘  要:在外语学习中词汇教学已成为一门热门的话题。教师与学生都意识到词汇的重要性。一方面，词汇教学是贯穿英语教学的一个必不可少的环节。另一方面，学生的词汇应用能力不仅直接影响交际的效果,而且还制约着学生听、说、读、写、译技能的发展,因此词汇教学不容忽视。而目前的一些教学方法把词汇从上下文脱离出来，忽略了科学的学习策略。教师在教学过程中，只注重以教师为主体的教，而忽视了学生的学和学生的主体地位。同时，忽略记忆规律。从长远看，不仅不利于学生语言能力的发展，反而使他们失去了对英语的兴趣。本文指出了目前中学英语词汇教学存在的这些问题，指出了改善现状提高教学质量的相应措施，从而提高教学效果，学习效率。
　　关键词: 词汇教学； 问题； 以学生为主体的教学模式
　　Abstract: The study of vocabulary has been heatedly discussed in the foreign language teaching. Both teachers and students have realized the importance of vocabulary. On one hand, vocabulary teaching is an essential part of English language teaching. On the other hand, students’ ability of applying vocabulary not only negatively affects communicative effect but also hinders the development of the listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation skills. So vocabulary teaching cannot be neglected. But at present some teaching methods isolate the words from the context or break away from the scientific rules. In the process of teaching, the teachers only pay attention to the teacher-centered teaching approach, but ignore the learning and the students? center position as well as the memory law. This is not good for the students? language competence in the long run and even causes them to lose interest in English. This paper points out these existent problems of English vocabu- lary teaching in middle school. Based on these problems, some countermeasures are put forward, which will certainly benefit students’ English proficiency and improve the efficiency of the teaching and the learning.      
　　Key Words: vocabulary teaching; deficiencies; student-centered teaching approach;
　　1. Introduction
　　As is widely known, vocabulary is essential to language. It is one of the speech elements of a language: pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary (齐国忠、霍金侠, 2007:138）. The linguist David Wilkins (1972:43) once summed up the importance of vocabulary in his book Linguistics and Language Teaching: without grammar, very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed. Just as Harmer says: “If we compare language structure as the sketch of language, vocabulary is the thing that provides important organs as well as blood and flesh"(张雪莲，2006). So without a proper amount of English vocabulary, the five basic skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translation would not be acquired in the course of English study. In a word, vocabulary plays a crucial role in foreign language teaching. With the development of the modern linguistics and deep study of lexicology, vocabulary learning has no longer been recognized as remembering and studying vocabulary lists simply. It is a process in which learners join actively and a skill which learners need to master in their study and life. Some researchers and teachers in China have changed their opinions on vocabulary teaching and they have begun to pay attention to vocabulary teaching methods. Now, English vocabulary teaching is an indispensable part of English lessons and an important task for the teachers. But there are still some misunderstandings in vocabulary teaching in middle school. For instance, teachers only pay attention to the teacher-centered teaching approach, but ignore the students’ learning, neglect the memory law and teach vocabulary in isolation. To solve those problems, the teachers are supposed to teach vocabulary in student- centered approach, attach importance on the memory law and teach vocabulary with scientific rules. 
　　2. Basic information of English vocabulary teaching  
　　As we all know, only when one can understand something deeply, he can make full use of it. So for both teachers and students, it is necessary to have an overall comprehension about the definition and significance of vocabulary teaching.
　　2.1 The definition of vocabulary teaching
　　According to Michael Wallace (1982:27), teaching vocabulary means the ability to:
　　1) recognize it in its spoken or written form; 
　　2) recall it at will; 
　　3) relate it to an appropriate object or concept;
　　4) use it in the appropriate grammatical form; 
　　5) in writing, spell it correctly; 
　　6) use it with the words it correctly goes with, i.e. in the correct collocation; 
　　7) use it at the appropriate level of formality;
　　8) be aware of its connotations and association.
　　So it is true that teaching vocabulary is a rather complex process in the target language. As for teachers in middle school, they have to pay great attention to English vocabulary teaching.
　　2.2 Great significance of vocabulary teaching
　　Scholars represented by Lewis (1993) suggested that vocabulary should be the center of language teaching and learning. In the past, the teacher didn?t pay attention to vocabulary teaching. Not until 1970?s did the scholars begin to take a new interest in the study of word meaning. Through research the scholars found that lexical problems frequently interfered with communication. Communication breaks down when people do not use the right words (Allen, 2005:5). At the same time, the teacher also realized the value of vocabulary teaching. They knew the communication would be stopped when learners don?t master the necessary amount of words. Even if the students have mastered grammar and pronunciation very well, it is still difficult for them to listen, read, speak and write, let alone learning English well. Generally speaking, the more one masters, the better his English is. Although most students in middle school work hard on vocabulary, they still find it difficult to master a great number of vocabularies. As a result, they lose heart, become less self-confident and even lose interest in English study. So vocabulary teaching plays an important role. McCarthy (1990) indicated ?it is the experience of the most language teachers that the simple biggest component of any language course is vocabulary. In China, English is a required course for middle school students. According to the national teaching syllabus, middle school graduates have to master 1,800 to 2,000 words and phrases over a period of six years. Some students can possess a great number of vocabularies, but they cannot use these words with high proficiency. Some students can have the grammar at their hand, but they cannot express ideas in English fluently or accurately, which results from the inadequacy of vocabulary. Faced with those phenomena, the teachers should help the students master the vocabulary and use the vocabulary freely. The most important thing is that effective teaching methods are helpful in cultivating the students? capability in their communication competence. If the teachers? methods are suitable for and beneficial to the students in the long run, they could arouse the students? interest in English and help them to develop a solid foundation of language learning ability; whereas if the teachers fail to do so, it might result in students? diffidence towards themselves and disgust at English. 
　　3. Deficiencies of English vocabulary teaching in middle school
　　Nowadays, vocabulary teaching is playing a fundamentally important and active role in language learning. It also arouses the interest of the researchers and teachers. However, at present there are still some vocabulary teaching methods failing to meet students? need. For instance, the general procedures in teaching vocabulary are as follow:
　　1) Students preview the new words on the vocabulary list by reading after the tape and they try to remember the spelling of the vocabulary.
　　2) The teachers explain in details about the usage of the words with the same illustration and examples.
　　3) Students memorize the words mechanically by reading and writing the words repetitively. This process is usually accompanied by literal translation of the words. This procedure shows that teachers only teach students English words with Chinese meanings in texts or reading material, and students are only required to rigidly memorize what their teachers tell them. 
　　These procedures cause the loss of effect in the vocabulary class. 
　　3.1 Teaching vocabulary in teacher-centered approach
　　The teacher-centered teaching approach is a ?Duck-stuffing? way. Teachers just stay on the platform to teach students knowledge, not caring about students? activities. The students just act as passive receivers of knowledge. Apart from taking some notes, they seldom take part in classroom activity. Actually when students want to master many words, a lot of activities of putting words into use are necessary. Only in this way can they master these words proficiently. On the contrary, though their notes are perfectly covered, these words will be forgotten in the future. The teacher-centered teaching approach only focuses on vocabulary teaching itself ,not bearing awareness of students? status in class as a principal part of their thinking and creative abilities. In the whole lesson, the teachers act as a deliver of the knowledge, while the students are just listeners, always feeling bored. This kind of teaching greatly prevents the students? initiative in learning. The students still rely on their teachers a lot and take a little responsibility for their own learning. So they made no great efforts to respond to their teachers’ instructions. Some students show little interest in the teaching activities. A lack of interest may result in their passive attitude towards the teaching activities. This is not what the teaching aims at. What the teacher should do is try his/her best to wake up the students? initiative and interest in learning.
　　3.2 Failing to follow the memory law
　　At present, cramming is still popular in vocabulary teaching. Traditional teachers always spend a lot of class time asking students to repeat words again and again. In this method, it is not easy for students to memorize so many words. On one hand, it makes vocabulary learning less effective, lowing students? interest and confidence in English learning. On the other hand, it makes students forget the words easily. The reason for these phenomena is that the teachers fail to follow the memory law.
　　Memory is the mental capacity to store information, either for short or long period. Two different types of memory are often distinguished. A short-term memory refers to that part of the memory where information which is received is stored for short period of time while it is being analysed and interpreted. Long-term memory is that part of the memory system where information is stored more permanently. Information in long-term memory may not be stored in the same form in which it is received (Richards, C.J. 2000:283). As a matter of fact, our memory process is a recycling one. The information in short-term memory must be processed and reviewed before it goes into the long-term memory. According to the survey of linguists, the more time it is used for the words, the better you remember it. That is the reason why superficially the students take in thousands of new words, but only few words really stay in their store. So the most important methods are repeating and applying words in life.
　　3.3 Teaching vocabulary in isolation
　　One of the cogent criticisms of the traditional practice of presenting lists of isolated words to learners is given by Schouten-Van Parreren (1989:76-77), who presents a four-point-argument as follow:
　　(1) If the words are presented as isolated elements, there is no point of support, no ‘cognitive hold’ for them in learners’ memory, so despite sometimes considerable learning effort, they are quickly forgotten.
　　(2) If the words are presented in thematically or especially in alphabetically ordered word lists, pupils will often suffer from interference. This not only hampers learning, but also can be decidedly harmful, since unlearning is far more difficult than learning.
　　(3) Isolated words do not present a linguistic reality; as the meaning of a word is in most cases partly defined by the context.
　　(4) Isolated words or words in isolated sentences do not present a psychological reality, because they do not carry a message. For this reason they cannot evoke emotions or involvement in the learner, a factor which plays an often underestimated, but yet important part in long-term acquisition.
　　In the vocabulary class, teachers always introduce the words in textbooks. In view of the English syllabus, most words are the target for teacher. But the traditional teachers always teach words in the word list. They just ask students to read the vocabulary list after them, following with some interpretation of each word on the list. Thus they isolate the meaning of the word from the special context, and even isolate its proper usage from students? communication in reality. Neglecting the relationship between words in English vocabulary system might result in students? slowness in comprehension and inappropriateness in exploiting the English words. It seems that students learn vocabulary merely for the sake of the teachers? instruction, but not to accelerate the development of their integrated skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in English. Being taught in this way without a change, students might have difficulty in working out the meaning of some words, such as “fish” in the following two sentences:
　　 ① They caught several fish.  (Means “a kind of cold-blooded animal)
　　 ② I often fish.             (Means ?try to catch fish with hooks, nets, etc.)
　　When students come across such sentences, if they only know the meaning of each individual word, they will be confused with the meaning of the whole sentence. So teaching vocabulary in isolation isn?t a scientific method.
　　4. The effective approaches to deal with deficiencies
　　Although vocabulary has gradually become a focus in language teaching, there are still problems in vocabulary teaching, making vocabulary class less effective. Taking the above deficiencies into consideration, teachers are supposed to adopt various, scientific and efficient ways to deal with those problems. Teachers should bear in mind how to increase students? vocabulary effectively and efficiently so that students can express themselves more clearly and appropriately in the wide rang of situations. And the improvement of communication competence also promotes students? and teachers? interest in vocabulary, and makes a better effect on language learning.    
　　4.1 Teaching vocabulary in student-centered approach
　　Student-centered teaching approach is quite contrasted with traditional teacher-centered teaching approach, in which control rests with the teacher (Richards, C.J. 2000:450). The student-centered approach’s emphasis is laid on learning and communication. A teacher should know his/her role in teaching. He/ She is not only the deliver of the knowledge, but also the director, conductor and organizer. He/ she must facilitate the students? learning. Then, a teacher is supposed to change the traditional methods according to the students? characteristics and natures. Last but not least, the teachers have to know that ?teaching? should serve for ?learning?. In fact, the effect of English learning depends on the students? subjective initiative and participation. Student-centered teaching approach takes the students as the body part in class. All the teaching activities must center on the students. The student-centered teaching approach is good for the teachers to fulfill their roles. And student-centered teaching approach has a lot of good effects on both teachers and students. First, student-centered teaching approach can attract the students? attention and arouse the students? interests. Through this approach, the students? eagerness to study will rise, and their motivation will become stronger. Second, it can greatly meet the students? needs and give free rein to their capabilities. Thus, the vocabulary teaching will be no longer boring. It will lead to a good result. Third, the students? ability gets a full play in the class, their learning interests will also become strong. Since the students learn vocabulary in ineffective ways, such as rote learning, it is not only necessary but also vitally important for the teacher to organize some student-centered classroom activities to enlarge students? vocabulary, to reinforce their new vocabulary and to improve their ability to use vocabulary correctly and efficiently. The teacher can organize a lot of activities to help students to practice the vocabulary. 
　　There are many vocabulary consolidation activities that can be done in class. 
　　1) Describing and drawing. Students are put into pairs. One student has a picture, the other a blank piece of paper and a pencil. The student having the picture must tell his partner what to draw so that the drawing ends up the same as the original picture. The student must not show picture until the drawing is completed.
　　2) Showing a picture, a series of different flash card or magazine picture. They have one or two minutes to memorize as many of the objects as they can. The card, picture or tray are then taken away and the students have to say what they saw, or write down everything they can remember. Then compare their answers with the rest of the class.
　　4.2 Paying attention to the memory law
　　According to the ?forgetting curve?, the process of forgetting always develops more quickly at first, and then speeds down (吕建国, 2006:124). Understanding how students’ memory works helps the teacher create more effective ways to teach vocabulary. Since forgetting seems to be an inevitable process, students must review what they have learnt in time, i.e. “recycling should happen one or two days after the initial input.”(何高大, 2000:15). In the course of vocabulary teaching, how to make students memorize the target words firmly and impressively need the teacher’s reconsideration.
　　Most English textbooks present vocabulary items in a wordlist, which is not easy for students to memorize. Hence, new words should be further grouped according to similarities and differences among them. Association can help students store a series of words. According to Nation (2004:42),?the association attached to a word will affect the way that it is stored in students’ brains and also influence the availability of the word when it is needed”. It can establish familiar relations between new words and known words in the students? mind. The process of word association is just a course of memorization. For example, when teaching the word “news?, teachers can tell the students how this word comes. It is said that, ?news” is originated from the first letter of the four directions— N (north), E (east), W (west) and S (south). It indicates that “NEWS? comes from and spreads all over the world. It is much easier for students to remember. There are several methods of association. The first is association according to pronunciation and spelling. For example: night?[nait], light?[lait], right/wright?[rait]. The second one is association according to semantic field, such as the words of human beings. We can learn this kind of words by this procedure of growth and maturity. This way shows the relationship between words: baby→infant→child→teenager-youth→adult→wild→aged→the old→the elder. The last one is association according to words synonyms and antonyms. This way is commonly used in teaching. By this means students can quickly learn and memorize many English words, which are relevant in meaning. Finally, during the study, the teachers are supposed to put familiar knowledge to make a brief summary, and then make a systematic summary. For example, position preposition. If the teachers take a systematic summary, the students would master it completely.
　　
　　
　　
　　
　　
　　
　　
　　
　　
　　
　　
　　The picture helps the students to remember these propositions easily and the students also don?t feel confused again, because the association is very rich and vivid, the students? vocabulary learning will become more active and effective.
　　4.3 Teaching vocabulary in context
　　Context refers to the phrase or even a longer utterance or a text that occurs before and / or after a word or phrase, but this is only in the narrowest sense. Now modern linguists have broadened its range to the setting, background, society or even the culture with which a word or a phrase is associated, context can be defined as ?information that reduces uncertainty about the elements of a text; their meaning, and the meaning of the text as a whole ?? (Goodman, 1986). The same word can have various meanings in different contexts, so if the teachers convey the meaning of a new word exactly, it is better to present the word in a sentence or in a text. Learning an isolated list of words without reference to the context is merely a memorization exercise, which makes it difficult for students to use the words in spoken or written language. The students should not only know the words but also know how to use them in proper context. It may contribute to a learner?s autonomy to learn English and help them to remember words well. For example, look at the following sentences:  ?the captain asked the seaman to throw the anchor?. The students may not know the word ?anchor?, but there are enough clues for them to guess its meaning. If they are able to work out the context, surely they will remember it well.
　　In a word, in successful language teaching, it is impossible to teach vocabulary without putting context into consideration, especially in the process of vocabulary teaching of a foreign language.
　　5. Conclusion 
　　Vocabulary teaching is very important for Chinese learners. In vocabulary teaching, it is worthy to draw the teacher?s consciousness and enough attention. There are many factors contributing to the inefficiency in English vocabulary teaching, such as teaching vocabulary in teacher-centered approach, failing to follow the memory law and teaching vocabulary in isolation. To enhance the effectiveness and quality of English vocabulary teaching, every English teacher should focus on the reformation of the old teaching system and review untimely teaching concept. English teachers in middle school should pay attention to the students ?center position to make the class more active and efficient. Teachers must stress on students? participation in class and are supposed to observe the memory law and provide the students more scientific and efficient vocabulary teaching methods, he/ she will succeed in arousing the students to memorize more English vocabulary. The ultimate teaching aim is to improve the students’ language competence, not just to catch a large number of words.
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