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According to Oxford English Dictionary (2017), the definition of presentation is “the way in which something is offered, shown, explained, etc. to others”. In language teaching and learning, the target language is also introduced through presentation, which involves showing a language item, explaining its meaning and introducing other related information of it. Specifically to vocabulary teaching, Zhang and Wei (2004) thought that the presentation of English vocabulary is the process of introducing or showing the target vocabulary (including word form, pronunciation, meaning, syntactic features, collocation and its application) to learners in a certain means, whose aim is to deepen learners’ perception and impression of the target word so as to make it enter the learners’ long-term memory as soon as possible, and improve the storage form of the target vocabulary in their mental lexicon by using the rich vocabulary information obtained in the presentation process. Therefore, vocabulary presentation is an essential stage in vocabulary teaching and learning.

As for the ways to present vocabulary, different scholars hold different views. Gairns and Redman (1986) put forward three representative vocabulary presentation modes: dictionary mode (bilingual dictionaries, picture dictionaries, encyclopedia, etc.), visual mode (pictures, cards, gestures, etc.) and verbal elaborating mode (definitions, synonyms, antonyms, etc.). Ur (2000) recommended definition, translation, detailed description, demonstration, illustration and context-based mode to present English vocabulary. Wang (2006) introduced some helpful techniques like providing visual or physical demonstrations, offering verbal context, using lexical sets, translating and exemplifying, using word formation, preparing for possible misunderstanding, etc.

2.2 Theoretical Foundations

2.2.1 Schema Theory

The original meaning of “schema” is “figure” in Greek. The term is primarily seen in philosophy when Immanuel Kant first used “schemata” in his Critique of Pure Reason, referring to determinations of objects in general (cited in Nevid, 2007). Piaget (1932) then introduced “schema” into the field of psychology, and defined it as the basic mental structure that enable human beings to form a mental representation of the world. Generally speaking, schema is a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them. In other words, all the information and knowledge we have learned throughout our life are not stored in our brain disorderly, but are connected around a key node to form a knowledge unit, which is called schema. For example, when it comes to Shakespeare, we will soon think of his life story, his classic plays, like Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, etc., and even we can recite Sonnet 18 with iambic pentameter. It shows that information or knowledge is closely linked and orderly stored in our brain.

Similarly, vocabulary is also a kind of schema (Li, 2001). According to cognitive psychology, there is a “spreading activity” in human memory network: a word can act as a node to activate the existing knowledge network, which interacts with other words or schemas, so that readers can fully understand the information of the text (Anderson, 本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。