Application Of Multimedia And Network To The Teaching Of Foreign Language Reading

Content: Current foreign language teaching faces a great challenge. To deepen teaching reform and improve teaching efficiency, multimedia and network is considered to be a more effective medium of foreign language teaching (FLT) and represents an inevitable trend of applied linguistics. Yet the research and practice in this field have just begun. Most schools, colleges and universities do not make full use of computers. Furthermore, recent researches reports focus mainly on relevant theories and practice, thus tend to give little or no attention to the applications of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), especially to the teaching of reading in classrooms. It is helpful to explore uses, problems, and solutions of multimedia and network for foreign language teaching. This paper provides an overview of the current status of research on the teaching of foreign language reading based on conventional media of instruction and summarizes the previous researches and applications of CALL, expounds the advantages, the rationale and variety of multimedia, and that network can enhance reading in classrooms. The paper also offers some cases of practical application in the teaching modes of foreign language reading, followed by a discussion of the role of the computer as it relates to reading, so as to further determine that multimedia and network has a great potential for creating an authentic environment of learning, developing reading skills and facilitating second language learning. However, this paper strongly emphasizes that technology cannot solve all the problems, it only supplies the teacher another sophisticated option of foreign language teaching and the relationship between teachers and students can not be replaced.