Strategies And Techniques Of Vocabulary Instruction In Vocational And Technical Colleges

With the coming of information age and the development of advanced science and technology, the world has become a global village and a large number of college students with good command of English are greatly needed. English is a universal language and it's a compulsory course for the college students. However, according to the survey, we find that the students cannot express themselves freely because of insufficient vocabulary. Communication breaks down because they do not use the right words. They cannot further improve other skills accordingly.In view of the above-mentioned facts, the author has done further investigation about the students' attitudes towards foreign language acquisition and examined some teaching methods used by the teachers in vocational colleges to get first hand information. This paper attempts to make further study of the strategies and techniques in vocabulary instruction for the purpose of improving vocabulary teaching and learning in vocational colleges.Based on relevant memory theories and some vocabulary teaching researches, the paper probes into some practical vocabulary teaching strategies in vocational colleges. Firstly, it discusses methods of lecturing words' collocation, connecting sound pattern with its spelling and teaching word-formation. Secondly, it explores the strategies of distinguishing words among synonyms, homonyms and polysemys and the techniques of guessing words' meaning from context. Thirdly, the paper expounds cultural teaching at lexical level through analyzing connotative meaning and denotative meaning. Finally, the author points out that learning strategies are to be incorporated in the vocabulary instruction. Learning strategies can develop students' self- control ability and serve as teaching techniques.In conclusion, the author summarizes the problems discussed in the paper and analyzes the significance and limitation of this research. Some implications for college English teaching based on these findings are presented. The author holds the view that more empirical studies on psychology and linguistics are needed in order to get deeper understanding about vocabulary instruction.