Research On Regional Direct Vocabulary Teaching

English teachers and researchers nowadays show great interest in vocabulary in second language teaching and research. Krashen's Language Input Hypothesis is applied in vocabulary acquisition and thus incidental vocabulary acquisition theory comes into being. Incidental learning is the process of acquiring vocabulary incidentally when learners are carrying out other language activities especially during reading. However, a basic vocabulary level is a prerequisite for a learner to acquire vocabulary successfully. Low level of vocabulary leads to low efficiency in incidental vocabulary acquisition. In China, the initial vocabulary goal for the freshman in college is 2000, however most students cannot reach this goal in Guizhou University of Technology. To achieve the basic requirement of 4500 words in two years is hard work.This study explores to find a way to increase students'vocabulary level within relatively short time—direct vocabulary teaching. An experiment was carried out to verify the idea above. The subjects of this study are the first-year non-English majors recruited into Guizhou University of Technology in September 2004. A conclusion is drawn by quantitative analysis on the data as following:1. Direct vocabulary teaching is effective in improving students'receptive vocabulary skills, while it is little helpful to productive ones.2. The combination of direct vocabulary learning with incidental vocabulary learning is supposed to be a better way to improve students'language skills in the long term.