Vocabulary Instruction Through Communication

The study and instruction of vocabulary has long been in a neglected position. In the 1990s, the development of corpus restimulated attention among researchers and teachers on vocabulary teaching and learning. They focused their research on vocabulary size, word knowledge, and vocabulary learning strategies. In the meantime, all these factors are also embodied in various coursebooks.At present, foreign language teaching has stepped into a new era in China. New syllabus and new teaching materials call for new ideas and approaches. Communicative language teaching has been widely learned and adopted by language teachers. Vocabulary teaching through communicative perspective contains a very important part in communicative approach. Due to various reasons, vocabulary instruction has not been very much improved. How to instruct vocabulary in a more active and scientific way is drawing much attention in language teaching field. By contrastive method, this paper presents how communicative approach is applied vocabulary teaching in different materials.The main body of this thesis consists of three chapters. The introduction chapter offers the definition of vocabulary, examines the reasons for neglecting vocabulary teaching in the past and awareness of its importance in recent decade. Chapter two provides a comparatively complete review on relations between grammar and vocabulary, the aim and elements of vocabulary instruction. Vocabulary learning strategies are also elaborated. Chapter three shifts its attention to vocabulary instruction in different teaching approaches including Grammar-Translation Method, Audio-lingual Method, Situational Method, and Communicative Method. The fourth chapter deals with vocabulary instruction in the selected textbooks: Xu Guozhang's English, New Concept English, English 900, and Li Xiaoju's CECL, trying to find out how vocabulary is instructed respectively in them. Chapter five analyzes the basic features of the class presenting Communicative approach and its teaching plan and procedure.The author also recommends some pedagogical implications: (1) giving priority...