This essay is concerned with how vocabulary teaching material might be evaluated and selected from the view of university students in China.

The present study is an empirical investigation of textbook vocabulary based onCorpus of English Textbooks for Secondary School set up by Schools of Foreign Studies,South China Normal University.

Traditional lexical teaching method stresses the literal meaning of the word and neglects the actual meaning of the word in particular contexts,and translation and contrast approaches are mainly used,which can not help students to have a better understanding of literal or implied meaning of the word in a particular context.

Traditional way of lexical teaching is obviously characterized with certain deficiencies,such as uninterestingness,low class participation of language learners,unfirmness of learners memory.

In lexical teaching,according to the basic theory of psychological linguistics,teachers should strengthen it by means of plot memory and association,cultivate their learning motive and stimulate their interests to promote the effect and efficiency of it.

The use of metaphor in university English vocabulary teaching and learning will help students to develop deeper understanding of knowing words, train students thinking ability and deepen the understanding of different cultures.

As a result,three innovative ways of vocabulary teaching and learning are suggested: 1) Incorporating learner divergences into production dictionaries;2) Making good use of corpus-based materials;3) Applying DDL.

As vocabulary poses one of the obstacles to English teaching and learning,this paper tries to apply theories and approaches from corpus linguistics to vocabulary teaching and learning in the hope of improving effectiveness.