| With the rapid development of the information technology, foreign language informanization has become a need of the times, and Multimedia Assisted Foreign Language Teaching (MAFLT) is the model that meets this developing trend. But how is the current MAFLT going on? And what has the significant impacts on its development? These are the fundamental issues that people are greatly concerned about. A number of scholars and teachers have tried to deal with these problems from different aspects, such as hardware equipment, software technology and teacher's repertoires. Unfortunately, only a little attention has been paid to the impacts from nonverbal signs. Therefore, this thesis aims to discuss the application and characteristics of nonverbal signs in MAFLT. The significance of the present study is to theoretically broaden the field and enrich the study of MAFLT and the integrative application of nonverbal signs, and practically to help teachers with more efficient application of nonverbal signs in MAFLT. This thesis is mainly composed of five parts, In Part I, by making a broad review on the development of media and the study of nonverbal signs, we point out that MAFLT is the developing trend of FLT. The findings from the study of multimedia have pushed on the application of nonverbal signs, and a further study of nonverbal signs will have a significant impact on MAFLT.In part II, we first deal with the definitions of MAFLT and nonverbal signs. Referring to some researches from abroad and at home, we point out the features of multimedia system: the large memory system and hyper-media software, the various representing forms to stimulate students' affective factors, to create authentic communicative contexts, and to develop the students' ability of thinking. We also discuss the features of nonverbal signs: fidelity, conciseness and comprehensiveness, information in abundance and beauty of art. Considering the features of the two notions, we believe that the combined use of multimedia and nonverbal signs in MAFLT can improve the outcome of foreign language teaching and learning.In order to find out the efficiency of nonverbal signs in MAFLT, we have conducted a special survey study among 55 undergraduates from the College of Foreign Studies, Guangxi Normal University and 76 senior students from the Binyang Middle School, Guangxi in the form of questionnaire. The findings have proved that most of the students think that nonverbal signs can help us optimize MAFLT in terms of listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, we also find out such problems as the inappropriate application of nonverbal signs in MAFLT. Therefore, we must try to realize the further optimization of MAFLT on the basis of the theories of communications, communication aesthetics, schema, cognitive psychology, etc. and personal experience:(1) Try to optimize course materials by applying nonverbal signs. From the perspective of the communication aesthetic theory, we use nonverbal signs to help us optimize courseware design owing to their great expressive force and beauty of art, which can stimulate the aesthetic senses of students and lead to the effective learning in their aesthetic activities in class; according to the psychological theory, we must choose the nonverbal materials to meet the psychological demand of students and the needs of teaching for the purpose of optimizing our teaching; according to the schema theory, nonverbal signs can help us optimize teaching materials, construct language information and provide students with more instructional information and background knowledge so as to enrich their knowledge structures.(2) In the light of the theories of communication study, pedagogy and cognitive psychology, we must try to control teaching procedure scientifically. Owing to the power of appealing and communicative function, nonverbal signs can on one hand be used to reinforce the interaction between teacher and students and between students themselves and on the other hand, to optimize classroom control...
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