Based on the sociocultural theory, this book makes an empirical study on vocabulary acquisition in the field of teaching Chinese as a foreign language. It adopts an experimental approach to probe into the effects of Chinese vocabulary acquisition displayed by students outside the Sinosphere who are studying Chinese using different methods. Classroom teaching experiments are conducted and experimental data collected from several aspects, including methods of control, types of scaffolding, and methods of learning vocabulary; the sociocultural theory and statistical analysis methods are employed to study the mechanism of second language vocabulary acquisition and the influences of implicit learning and explicit learning on vocabulary learners at different stages. The experimental research shows that it is better for elementary level learners to learn vocabulary under others’ control, through teacher-student cooperation (scaffolding-type) and in an explicit way.

Ms. Jiang Rong, Ph.D. in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, is a teacher in the College of Intensive Chinese Training of Beijing Language and Culture University. Ms. Jiang’s research interests lie in second language acquisition and teaching Chinese as a foreign language.