II. The drawbacks of several traditional vocabulary teaching methods
:
i. Teach words in isolation:
Middle school English teachers in china usually ask students to learn vocabulary lists in which words are isolated from the context. In one case, they let the students pick out all the new words in the text, list them on a paper, and consult the dictionary for the Chinese or English meanings; for example, “display” mean “show”, “arrive” means “reach”. In another case, they try to get the students to associate each word with an image or an object; for example, they hold up a picture of a car and say “This is a car.” Both these teaching techniques imply that learning vocabulary means learning individual word one at a time. These two methods may save time and be fast-effective. However, the relationships between words are as important as the meaning of the word in isolation: how “car” contrasts with “bus” and “truck”, and how it is related to “driver” and “engine” are as important as the word itself.
Neglecting the study of the relationships in English vocabulary system might result in students’ slowness in comprehension and inappropriateness in exploiting the English words. Being taught in these ways without a change, students might have difficulty in working out the meanings of some words, such as “time” in the following three sentences:
①She is near her time. (means “She would die soon.”)
②The umpire called time. (means “The umpire called for a stop.”)
③He is in the time of his life. (means “The days he is experiencing are very enjoyable.”)
And many Chinese middle school students often make such sentences as:
①The policies adopted by the Chinese Communist Party is beneficial.
②My spoken-English is very bad.
Students who make such sentences only know the meaning of each individual word, but they are poor in the proper use of “beneficial” (which should “be beneficial for” people) and “bad” (which should be changed into “poor”).
ii. Teach English words in one-to-one correspondence to Chinese words：
Many English teachers tend to teach English words in one-to-one correspondence to Chinese words; for example, English “glass” is “玻璃” in Chinese, English “cup” is “茶杯” in Chinese, and so on. This traditional translation teaching method which has been adopted in china for a long time is considered to be helpful. But in the long run the overuse of this method is harmful to the development of students’ language competence. Especially in the elementary stage, this method should be avoided as possible as it can be.
When students say that they know the meaning of an English word, they usually mean that they have found an equivalent word in Chinese language, but this equivalent word may be misleading. Let’s take the word “with” for example. In the sentence of “I have milk for breakfast”, the word “milk” in Chinese culture refers to hot milk, because Chinese people are used to drink milk hot; while the word “milk” in the American culture refers to cold milk, because Americans never drink boiled milk as we Chinese do. This example shows us that the same word “milk” has different social meanings in different cultures. In fact, many linguists believe that no word can be exactly translated into another language. Learning the vocabulary of a second language is not just to memorize the equivalent words of language one, but to learn the meaning relationship between “milk” and all other words in English within the context of cultural life.
iii. Treat all words equally：
Some English teachers treat all vocabulary equally. That is, they generally imply that students should be able to produce all vocabulary presented. But as is suggested by the linguists that words can be classified into receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary according to the needs, language levels and professions of the learners. They point out that all speakers are able to recognize more words than they usually use on a productive level. Productive vocabulary is that utilized in everyday speech. Receptive vocabulary, on the other hand, although needed for comprehension, is not necessarily essential for production in speaking and writing. Teachers who do notice this fact ask students to concentrate equally on the acquisition of both receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary. This method of vocabulary teaching adds much burden to students, and would cause them to become tired of vocabulary learning.
iv. Neglecting the cooperation of sense organs：
According to the experiments of linguists, an average English learner will better remember a new word and make it become an active one if he observes, speaks out, hears, and writes as well as recites it. But many teachers seem to be unaware of this rule that there are not a few students remember vocabulary by incorrect ways. On one hand, they treat the new words as if they are telephone numbers. They read the new words letter by letter without observing the pronunciation rules. For example, when they read the word “classroom”, t
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