Vocabulary teaching is essential in English language teaching. How can the teachers encourage learners to develop strategies for learning vocabulary? A combination of context and lexical patterns and groupings is regarded as the effective approach. This paper discusses vocabulary teaching by means of scale-filling, collocation grid, lexical phrases, semantic mapping, blank filling and co-operative story telling, which are all based on contexts. Scale-filling activities help learners distinguish the differences in meaning and organize words to enhance retention. Collocation grids help learners clarify the limits of items and provide a useful framework for revising items. Lexical phrases aid the learners to become conscious of the meaning and usage of the idioms. Semantic mapping will not only be visual reminder of links in the lexicon but of the students' expanding vocabulary. Blank filling can recycle the words the students just learned. Co-operative story telling helps learners retrieve the words they learned in the texts and promote the oral practice of vocabulary. A combination of context with a focus of lexical patterns and groupings performs an essential function in explicit vocabulary teaching.
