Vocabulary is considered one essential part of language, once words carry meaning on it and the ability of using them properly is difficult to be made up. This means also that using collocations, the company words keep, is another challenge both to students and EFL teachers. This monograph presents the current methodologies to the teaching of vocabulary as well as the principles which should make a vocabulary lesson effective. Through the theories of second language vocabulary acquisition and through the study of the principles of an effective vocabulary teaching, three EFL coursebooks vocabulary activities under these principles were analyzed. The results showed that some progress has been made in the teaching of vocabulary and collocation and that there should be more investigations about the benefits of vocabulary teaching. Keywords: EFL vocabulary teaching, vocabulary methodology, collocation, vocabulary teaching principles.