英语词汇学习七种武器之一：Build a Large Sight Vocabulary（英语教学法原著选读74）
以下“导读”为武太白原创内容，英文原文节选、整理自上海外语教育出版社出版的《教学法丛书：词汇：描述、习得与教学》一书。
导读
上周我们读了《Inferring from context 上下文推断词义述评（英语教学法原著选读73）》，文中指出，过去二三十年来风行的“从上下文推断词义”这种词汇教学法虽然很好，但是不够，并且有自身的若干缺陷。为了弥补这种“非显性教学”（implicit teaching）的不足，有必要进行“显性教学”，即明明白白进行词汇教学（explicit teaching）。从本篇起，作者就逐一列举了她认为最重要的七种词汇教学方法。本篇讲的是第一种：建立较大的常用词汇基础。
事实上，前面另外有一篇文章也讲过这个问题：《算词汇量，怎样才算一个词？有没有高频词汇列表？专有名词算不算词汇量？（英语教学法原著选读68）》。这篇文章里讲到了高频词汇列表，我也进行了若干推荐。然而，并不是有了高频词汇列表就可以的，怎么利用这些列表也是很大的学问。我觉得靠背词典能够学好英语的人，即便有，也不会很多；词汇还是要靠篇目来落实。现在我要说：如果现在让我从头开始再学一遍英语，那我会这样学习词汇：
1、选择比较好的教材。请注意是综合教材而不是词汇教程；
2、自始至终充分利用图解（可参见《如何帮助学生在短时间内扭转英语学习的不利局面？授您锦囊三四，请收好！》）；
3、充分利用按照词义分类的词典而不是字母顺序词典，比如《Word Menu》（Stephen Glazier，Writer Brothers出版了PC版软件，纸质书是Random House Webster出的）；
4、多听录音、看视频，尽量减少自己朗读的投入，或者，至少尽可能降低自行单个词朗读的时间投入比例。
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下面这段文字主要讲了：
1、高频词要学，非高频词……也要学（这不是废话吗。。。）；
2、困难的词也需要我们的注意力；
3、自行选定需要学点什么词很重要（还推荐了一本书，貌似不错哦）。
当然，具体内容要比上面的总结丰富、具体、生动得多。我还加了一点注释，朋友们看看还有什么不明白的，欢迎留言哦！
原文
Thesis Title: Current Trends in Vocabulary Teaching
Author: Anita J. Sokmen
Build a large sight vocabulary
L2 learners need help developing a large sight vocabulary so that they may automatically access (get) word meaning. However, which words should be focused on: high frequency (often-used) words or difficult ones? There is support for both approaches. Learning the 2,000 most frequent words in English can be very productive. Analyzing one text for young native speakers and another for native speakers on the secondary level, Nation (1990) found that 87 per cent of the words were on the high frequency list. The teaching of such word lists through paired-associates learning, often seen as a more traditional way to acquire vocabulary, has nonetheless proven to be a successful way to learn a large number of words in a short period and retain them over time. In fact, learners are capable of acquiring a list of anywhere from 30-100 L2 words with their L1 equivalents in an hour and remember them for weeks afterwards (Nation, 1982; 1990). In the years ahead, technology will undoubtedly aid students in mastering this list. Cody, et al. (1993) experimented with computer-assisted learning of the 2,000 most-frequent words in English and concluded that using computers to learn the list was an efficient use of time and that emphasizing the list was valuable because it resulted in higher reading proficiency.
Some lists to consider using are the 2,000-word General Service List of English Words (West, 1953), the Cambridge English Lexicon (Hindmarsh, 1980), and the Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English (McArthur, 1981). For academic English, Xue and Nation’s University Word List (1984) has been shown to provide worthwhile returns for the learning effort involved (Nation and Kyongho, 1995).
Difficult words need attention as well. Because students will avoid words which are difficult in meaning, in pronunciation, or in use, preferring words which can be generalized (Levenston, 1979), lessons must be designed to tackle (deal with) the tricky, less-frequent words along with the highly-frequent. Focusing on words which will cause confusion, e.g. false cognates, and presenting them with an eye to clearing up confusion is also time well-spent (Laufer, 1990c). It should be noted, however, that teaching difficult vocabulary before it is encountered in context has some drawbacks. What Widdowson (1978) calls 'priming glosses,’ difficult words and phrases with their meanings presented before reading, may require the learner to do too much work disambiguating (make clear the difference in) meaning once into the context. Additionally, priming glosses may lead the reader to believe that the glossed words always have one meaning, regardless of context. In contrast to the priming glosses, 'prompting glosses,’ those given within the text, may require too little of the learner, robbing her of the opportunity to interpret how meaning changes in different contexts. Widdowson advocates teacher awareness of the functions of these glosses to eliminate confusion.
Finally, because motivation affects intention to learn and, consequently, attention to commit something to memory (Baddeley, 1990), letting students choose the words they want to learn is another option (Haggard, 1982; Stoller and Grabe, op. cit.). Haggard's Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy is effective because words chosen for class work and vocabulary journals come from students' lives and content area classes and they recognize the importance of learning those words. Whether they are self-selected words, difficult words, or high frequency words, the point is to work consciously on the development of a large corpus of automatic word knowledge. This may mean scheduling ten minutes at the end of an instructional period, a class session per week devoted to vocabulary, or on-going homework, such as vocabulary notebooks.