An Empirical Study On The Effects Of Multimedia Instruction On Junior Students’ English Vocabulary Acquisition

Vocabulary functions as a foundation of language and the basis for how well students listen,speak,read and write.Compared with high-level learners,vocabulary is particularly important on gaining English linguistic knowledge for junior students.However,due to the limitations of teaching equipment and the single use of teaching aids,most rural junior students still receive conventional vocabulary instruction,in which the vocabulary is presented mainly based on textbooks and the blackboard.With the popularization of multimedia technology,multimedia instruction is becoming widely applied in English instruction.However,there are few empirical studies on multimedia vocabulary instruction among junior students,especially those in rural areas.This study focuses on the application of multimedia projection on junior English vocabulary instruction and examines the differences between the projection-based multimedia vocabulary instruction as well as the blackboard and textbook-based conventional vocabulary instruction.According to the results of the midterm English test and vocabulary knowledge test,two parallel classes in the seventh grade of a rural junior middle school in Shaanxi Province were selected for multimedia vocabulary instruction and conventional vocabulary instruction.Based on the independent samples t-test,internationally available Vocabulary Knowledge Scale was adopted to test the efficiency of students’ word meaning retention,vocabulary application,and the depth of vocabulary acquisition in the experimental group and the control group.Based on the quantitative analysis,a semi-structured interview was conducted to further follow up the results of this study.The major findings drawn in the current study are as follows:(1)After 8-week treatment,the efficiency of word meaning retention of students receiving multimedia vocabulary instruction has improved and their performance was more stable compared with students receiving conventional vocabulary instruction.Therefore,multimedia vocabulary instruction could significantly improve the efficiency of word meaning retention among junior students.(2)The sentence-making ability of students receiving multimedia vocabulary instruction and conventional vocabulary instruction was evaluated from two aspects: the level of only semantically correct sentence formations and the level of both semantically and grammatically correct sentence formations.The results showed that multimedia vocabulary instruction could significantly improve junior students’ ability to make sentences that were only semantically correct,but it had no significant effects on the level of both semantically and grammatically correct sentence formations.(3)The test results showed that junior students had a deeper understanding of vocabulary knowledge and could use words more proficiently after receiving multimedia vocabulary instruction.Therefore,multimedia vocabulary instruction could improve students’ comprehensive learning efficiency of vocabulary knowledge and played a significant role in enhancing junior students’ depth of vocabulary acquisition.(4)The responses of the semi-structured interview revealed that multimedia vocabulary instruction could improve junior students’ enthusiasm for vocabulary acquisition.Besides,it would greatly arouse their interests in learning vocabulary and improve their vocabulary acquisition efficiency.Multimedia vocabulary instruction may significantly increase the efficiency of junior students’ word meaning retention,semantic application of vocabulary and the depth of vocabulary acquisition.In addition,the application of multimedia on vocabulary instruction is very popular among rural junior students.Teachers in rural junior middle schools should take advantage of multimedia to enrich vocabulary presentation mode as well as to enhance students’ subjective initiative of vocabulary learning.