Vocabulary learning is a headache for many Chinese EFL learners and vocabulary teaching remains a challenge for Chinese EFL teachers. The paper lists the problems involved in the traditional vocabulary teaching and learning mode. Traditional teaching mode put more emphasis on mechanical memorization to enlarge students' vocabulary instead of developing their lexical competence. Students have inadequate vocabulary learning strategies, low motivation, no collaborative learning environment to

more »

... ice their lexical competence, insufficient exposure to authentic language input, inadequate teachers' instruction on social strategies. This paper analyzes the reasons that lead to the current problems. Aiming at solving the above-mentioned problems with traditional instruction mode, the research proposes a multi-dimensional instruction mode with lexical competence development as its goal, digital technology as its media, task-based learning and collaborative learning as its form, campus English native speakers as its resources, textbooks as its content. An empirical study was made to test the effectiveness of the proposed mode, results of which prove mode to be effective in increasing the students' receptive vocabulary size, productive vocabulary richness and awareness of using strategy learning strategies and motivation. Index Terms-lexical proficiency instruction, vocabulary learning strategy, Chinese EFL learners, data-driven learning, task-based teaching, an empirical study  Ruixue Ma is currently a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. Her research interests include EFL teaching, second language acquisition and intercultural communication.