A Study Of Multimedia Application-based Vocabulary Acquisition

The development of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has created the opportunity for exploring the effects of the multimedia application on foreign language vocabulary acquisition in recent years.This study provides an overview the computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and detailed a developing result of CALL—multimedia. With the application of constructivism theory, the research explores the use of multimedia software to vocabulary acquisition. It presents a case study that uses survey method to explore the interest level of Chinese college students with the multimedia software they worked with and their attitudes towards multimedia application. Another purpose of the thesis is to examine the effectiveness of multimedia application among Chinese EFL learners.The software: I Love English Vocabulary designed by Beijing Wrestler Computer Technology Company Ltd was served as the instrument in the experimental part of the study. 80 College students of non-English majors took part in the research as subjects. One class of 40 consisted of the experimental group and received multimedia-based instruction. The other class of 40 students compromised comparison group and received the traditional way of vocabulary instruction.Survey methods which include questionnaires, pre- and post-test and observation are used in the research. And after qualitative and quantitative data analysis, we got the following results:Firstly, learners hold highly positive attitudes towards the multimedia software's application. Secondly, the study shows clear evidence to indicate the effectiveness of multimedia application to the development of vocabulary acquisition. Nevertheless, thirdly, the integration of multimedia application into the curriculum will not be successful for some kind of reasons.The findings of the study may be valuable to software designers and EFL teachers. However, because of the limited sample size of the study, the conclusion drawn from the study may be serves as hypothesis deserving further research and attention.