| The rapid development of network information technology and its widespread use in the areas of education exerts the fundamental changes in both the teaching modes and learning styles which in one way or another,challenges the traditional educational philosophy and concepts.In a variety of teaching environments,the application of network multimedia technology has been overwhelming.Yet,disputes concerning its proper roles in the teaching process,the roles of the teachers,its correlation with the students' performance,the monitoring of students' autonomous learning and so on all arouse great concerns in view of the teaching effectiveness and efficiency.Both the proponents and opponents take their own stands which demands clarification from empirical research.This study,with college English vocabulary learning as the breakthrough,aims to explore the effectiveness and efficiency of college English teaching and learning under the network and multimedia assisted learning environment.It provides the empirical basis for the application of network and multimedia assisted teaching and learning,offers tips for the deep understanding of the mismatches between teaching and learning and opens a window for college English teaching to well adapt to the development of modern information technology in view of the teaching concepts,teaching methods,teaching modes for the sake of learning optimization and efficiency.We firstly investigated college students' electronic media ownership and network usage in the Southeast University in the year 2003 and 2013,respectively.Study found some tremendous changes in students' electronic mediaownership,Internet use,time online,reasons to use the Internet,ability to use the Internet and Internet preference etc.Those changes indicate that Internet has profoundly affected college students' learning,life and psychology and provided strong psychological and technical support for its penetration into foreign language teaching and learning under the multimedia environment.The empirical study uses noticing hypothesis theory and output hypothesis theory to verify whether the highlight function of computers can trigger the learners'noticing and output mechanism and improve their vocabulary acquisition.Four parallel classes of freshmen in the Southeast University,each with 25 students,participated in the experiment.They were:Class One-enhanced noticing on input and output class;Class Two-enhanced noticing only on input;Class Three-enhanced noticing only on output and the Control Class-no enhanced noticing on both the input and output.The research applied a vocabulary test of 20 targeted words,one of which is word recognition test and the other is blank filling test.Students were evaluated on both the accuracy rate and the reaction time on the test.It was found that(1)there are significant differences between 3 experimental classes and the one control class(P<0.05),whichconfirms that computer highlighting works effectively when combined with enhanced noticing on input and output in students' vocabulary learning.(2)The significant differences between Class One and Class Two(Class One uses less reaction time and acquires high accuracy rate than Class Two)confirm that output task promotes the vocabulary acquisition and task type should be given due attention in the word recognition learning.(3)There are no remarkable differences between Class One and Class Three(Reaction Time,P>0.05)(Accuracy rate,P>0.341),which prove that the output task,the use of highlighted computer text,the enhancing frequency and teacher's guidance don't facilitate the learning of content word both in the word recognition test and the blank filling test.(4)Significant difference was found between Class Two and the Control Class(P<0.05)which shows that the text reinforcement,high frequency of the targeted words and teacher's guidance can trigger student's noticing and promote students' vocabulary acquisition even with no output task.This study holds that computer's highlighted function combined with the other strategies can better activate students' noticing mechanism and stimulate students' vocabulary learning.This paper uses another empirical study to answer the hypothesis:Which mode is more effective in the network and multimedia assisted learning environment with regard to students' vocabulary learning when several teaching modes are in coexistence.Five parallel classes,each representing a different mode of teaching or learning,were involved.They were classified as E1-Network and Multimedia Assisted Traditional Classroom Teaching Mode;E2-PPT Course-ware Assisted Classroom Teaching Mode;E3-Traditional Classroom Teaching Mode;E4-Autonomous Learning with On-line Consultation Mode;E5-Autonomous Learning Blended with Cooperative Learning and Real Time On-Line Consultation Mode.Those five classes were eventually evaluated by a vocabulary test.The result was calculated on both the accuracy rate and the reaction time.The study found that E1 had the highest accuracy rate and the comparatively least reaction time,which indicates that the new form of teaching through the integration of network assisted multimedia and traditional classroom teaching can trigger students' activeness and initiatives and eventually improve the teaching and learning efficiency for its rich representing forms of the teaching contents,the good interactions and the real language environment.E2 scored next to E1 and E3 which proves that the PPT concourse assisted classroom teaching is an ideal tool for the construction of learning environment and classroom teaching because of its fast information transmission and rich representing forms.E3 came the second in the test which confirms that at current college English learning,traditional classroom teaching,especially for knowledge learning like vocabulary,it still has its unique advantage when more emotional involvements are wanted.Its importance should not be ignored with regard to the TEFL situation in China.E4 did the poorest job in the five experimental classes and E5 ranked the second from the bottom.The results from E4 and E5 prove that autonomous learning is unsuitable for Chinese College English learning students at the moment and teacher's guidance and monitoring should be enhanced to promote the development of students' self-monitoring ability.The creativeness of this research is(1)In theory,it expands the application of multiple teaching and learning theories,linguistic theories,psychological linguistic theories and information processing theories underthe web-based multimedia form of college English teaching and learning.(2)In research methods,it takes the various elements of classroom teaching and the relationship between the teaching elements into consideration;view college English teaching process from the perspective of systematic theory,exams the application of the modern information from a holistic angle,clarifiesthe mismatches and offers optimization strategies.(3)Inthe research angle,the study rests on the teaching reforms and experiences in past few decades and carefully reviews the relevant literature both at home and abroad to chooses the college English teaching and learning under the network-based environment,the diversification of teaching models in using information technology as the break-through point,and describes in detail the improving strategies.The results of the study are somewhat significantly representative among similar colleges and universities.The findings can be used as guidance and reference for the future college English teaching reform under the network multimedia form and hopefullymakes some contributions to the sustainable development of college English. |
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