Research On The Application Of Multimodal Discourse To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

Vocabulary is the foundation of language and it is very difficult and important to teach and learn vocabulary in senior high school.We need to do researches on vocabulary teaching to make it easier and more efficient.The videos used in this research are a kind of multimodal discourse.We call a video with spoken language describing its contents a multimodal discourse video.With the development of network technology,more and more multimodal discourse videos with background music and subtitles of different colors and fonts are available for English teaching and learning.The purposes of this research are to know about the situation of English vocabulary learning of freshmen in senior high school before this English vocabulary teaching experiment,explore whether the application of multimodal discourse videos to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school can improve students’ English vocabulary learning or not,and talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the application of multimodal discourse videos to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school.We use the method of empirical research to achieve the research purposes.The three research questions are as follows: 1)What is the situation of English vocabulary learning of freshmen in senior high school before this English vocabulary teaching experiment? 2)Will the application of multimodal discourse videos to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school improve students’ English vocabulary learning? 3)What are the advantages and disadvantages of the application of multimodal discourse videos to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school?The research subjects are 86 freshmen in Ge’ermu No.7 Senior High School,43 of them are from Class 3,and the others are from Class 4.In this research,we make Class 3 the experimental class and Class 4 the controlled class randomly,and we teach the students in the experimental class the target English vocabulary using multimodal discourse videos and textual materials,the students in the controlled class the target English vocabulary using textual materials.Questionnaires are used to know the students’ subjective difficulty level,the students’ subjective difficult point,the students’ reasons for the subjective difficult point and the students’ methods and steps of English vocabulary learning before and after this English vocabulary teaching experiment.Vocabulary pre-test is held to know whether the research subjects have learned the target vocabulary of this English vocabulary teaching experiment,and vocabulary post-test is held to know the effects of this English vocabulary teaching experiment.The contents of these two vocabulary tests are the same.By analyzing the answers to the questionnaires and the scores of the vocabulary tests,we get the following five results: 1)Before this English vocabulary teaching experiment,69(80.2%)of the 86 students think that the grammar of using English words is the difficult point of English vocabulary learning,17(24.6%)of the 69 students think that they cannot use English words they learned freely because they don’t know how to use English grammar;30(34.9%)of the 86 students think that the process of English vocabulary learning is a kind of rote learning;40(46.5%)of the 86 students claim that they memorize the meaning of English words by Chinese translation in English vocabulary learning.2)The application of multimodal discourse videos to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school can help students memorize the meaning of English words.In the vocabulary post-test,the students in the experimental class do significant better than the students in the controlled class on the part of writing out Chinese translation of English words according to the spelling of English words.3)The application of multimodal discourse videos to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school can change students’ subjective difficult point of English vocabulary learning.In the experimental class,there is 1(2.3%)of the43 students before this English vocabulary teaching experiment,while 27(62.8%)of the 43 students after the experiment,who think the pronunciation of English words is the difficult point of English vocabulary learning.4)The application of multimodal discourse videos to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school can help students form method of English vocabulary learning.After this English vocabulary teaching experiment,there are 16(37.2%)of the 43 students in the experimental class,while 7(16.3%)of the 43 students in the controlled class,who mention that they should use context to understand the meaning of English words.5)Statistically speaking,there is no significant effects on the aspects of the pronunciation,spelling,and use of English vocabulary learning by watching a related multimodal discourse video three times.The conclusions of this research are as follows.1)Before this English vocabulary teaching experiment,the freshmen in senior high school think that the grammar of using English words has great influence on English vocabulary learning,and they learn the meaning of English words by Chinese translation.2)The application of multimodal discourse videos to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school can improve students’ English vocabulary learning by deepening their understanding and memorizing of the meaning of English words.3)The application of multimodal discourse videos in English vocabulary teaching in senior high school can not only reduce the influence of grammar on English vocabulary learning,but also make students realize that they need to understand the meaning of English words in context;the addition of three times of watching a related multimodal discourse video can not help students learn the pronunciation,spelling and use of English words better than teaching English vocabulary with textual materials.