How it is possible to help EFL learners acquire vocabulary in the aspect of junior English vocabulary teaching is a profound problem which should be under careful consideration. Last year, since the curriculum of lexicology, the author had interests in word association. And by reading and researching some theories and studies, the author concerns that English word association is possibly a language teaching and strategy that has an important role in dealing with this problem. Word association makes students focus on one concept firstly, then think about other relevant concepts, and gradually grow them to own an association field for analyzing the collections among the words, and finally give them a great command of vocabulary. In this way, it improves learner’s long-term memory and helps them remember vocabulary more quickly and accurately. 

Therefore, will word association enlighten English vocabulary teaching in junior high school? In this thesis, the author takes students in grade seven as the participants to do the experiment, and tries to explore word association and its enlightenment in junior English vocabulary teaching.