A Study On The Visual Presentation Strategies Of Digital Foreign Language Learning Resources

With the development of information technology and innovation of learning styles,visual elements such as images and graphics have become important contents of digital learning resources besides language characters and have become an indispensable method of representing and conveying knowledge.However,without appropriate design of visual presentation,visual elements cannot effectively improve the efficiency and efficacy of knowledge communication.Therefore,visual presentation is a key factor determining whether digital learning resources could reach expected results.This study advocates guiding visual presentation design of digital foreign language learning resources(DFLLRs)with the theory of knowledge visualization.The study analyzes the theoretical foundation of foreign language knowledge visualization(FLKV),explores its visual representation framework,and proposes a few visual presentation strategies from the perspectives of second language acquisition and other theories which were then verified.The study expects to provide theoretical support and reference for experience-oriented development of DFLLRs and for the people concerned,and to improve the efficacy of DFLLRs in modern learning approaches.The study includes the following parts:Theoretical foundation and functional mechanism of FLKV.The study demonstrates the feasibility,effectiveness and necessity of FLKV from the perspectives of semiotics,psychology and multimedia learning.Semiotics,including multimodal semiotics,explains the relationship between symbols and the world,dual-coding theory and schema theory discuss some special mechanisms of the brain processing information,and multimedia learning theory elucidates the functional mechanisms of multimedia learning resources in the learning process.These theories prove that it is scientific and necessary to represent foreign language knowledge with visual symbols apart from language characters and that by using images and graphics,FLKV could facilitate the assimilation,storage and invoking of foreign language knowledge.Based on the theoretical analysis,the study introduces the concept of interlanguage and further explores the functional mechanism of FLKV which is supposed to lie in there factors:how the producer knows about the potential learners;how knowledge is visually represented;and how the interlanguage model is established and integrated into the present interlanguage system.The framework of FLKV visual representations.The study classifies foreign language knowledge from the angles of disciplinary knowledge,explicit/tacit knowledge and declarative/procedural knowledge.The study classifies foreign language knowledge into fundamental knowledge,pragmatic knowledge and social and cultural knowledge which are further broken into several types respectively.Among the three types,pragmatic knowledge is tacit and procedural while the other two are explicit and declarative.Nevertheless,the researchers there is no clear-cut boundary between the explicit/declarative and tacit/procedural features of foreign language knowledge as it is learned while being used.The study puts forward six types of visual representation for foreign language,namely general text,graphs and diagrams,static images,motion pictures,animations and virtual realities.Then five key representing elements of FLKV are proposed,i.e.knowledge description,logic presentation,context establishment,pragmatic demonstration and culture exhibition,and the presenting ability of the six types of visual representation on the five dimensions is discussed.The study analyzes the characteristics of learning different types foreign language knowledge and makes a table showing the matching between knowledge and visual representations.Visual presentation strategies of DFLLRs.The study analyzes the implications for the development of DFLLRs from the mainstream theories of second language acquisition such as the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis,the Input Hypothesis and the Affective Filter Hypothesis.First,DFLLRs should create authentic and natural language acquisition environment to facilitate the internalization and application of foreign language knowledge.Second,DFLLRs should improve the efficacy of language input from the aspects of comprehensibility,interest and relevance and increase actual input.Third,DFLLRs should help improve learners' psychological status to make them learn in a relaxed way.Fourth,DFLLRs should facilitate the interaction between the learners and resources to make them feel like real participators.Fifth,DFLLRs should facilitate assimilation of language input from the aspects such as perceptual salience to help learners reconstruct and improve the individual interlanguage system.Based on these implications,the study further systematically explores the design priorities from the perspectives of cognitive load,visual attention,social presence and modern learning approaches,and verifies the factors influencing the efficacy of DFLLRs through structural equation model.Then the study proposes the visual presentation strategies regarding optimizing visual content,controlling cognitive load level,improving social presence,directing visual attention and supporting modern leaning approaches.The verification of visual presentation strategies.The study adopts quasi-experiment method with learning resources as the independent variable to verify the strategies.Data are collected through questionnaire survey,interview and test.The results show that although the resources developed according to the strategies do not result in lower cognitive load and significantly higher scores,they do bring higher social presence and better user experience.The study interprets the results incorporating the interview data and concludes that the reasons why the hypotheses regarding cognitive load and learning outcome are not supported lie in three aspects:first,the subtitles attached to the resources of the experimental group are not properly installed,which makes them difficult to grasp and comprehend,and the pictures in some resources switch too frequently,which makes them occupy too much attention and disturb the comprehension of language texts,hence extra cognitive load is produced;second,foreign language knowledge has indistinct boundaries and very limited input is not sufficient to change learners,interlanguage system;third,Hawthorne effect exists in this experiment context in which both the experimental and controlled groups will study hard,hence the advantages of the experimental group resources cannot take effect.As to the problems identified in the experiment,the study puts forwards some suggestions:design subtitles appropriately to avoid extra cognitive load,reasonably arrange visual information and add language exercises to adapt to online learning contexts.The innovations of the dissertation are embodied in the following aspects:first,it introduces knowledge visualization ideas into the development of DFLLRs,which makes the design focus shift from displaying classroom teaching to expressing and communication of knowledge,and is helpful to improve the efficacy of DFLLRs;second,it analyzes the types and features of FLKV visual representations,establishes a corresponding reference table and locates the factors affecting the efficacy of DFLLRs through structural equation model to put forward pertinent strategies;third,it combines DFLLR design with second language acquisition theories and explores the guiding principles for DFLLR design from multi-perspectives of content characteristic,cognitive load,visual attention,social presence and learning support,which makes the strategies better respect rules of second language acquisition,human cognition and requirements of modern learning approaches and might change the experience-oriented tendency of learning resource development.