An Experimental Study On The Effect Of The Multimedia-assisted Presentation Mode On English Vocabulary Retention

Vocabulary is the fundamental component of language. Vocabulary teaching plays an important role in English teaching in China. Therefore, the study on how to present English vocabulary efficiently is practical.Based on information processing theory, dual-coding theory and constructivist learning theory, this thesis is a comparative study of the vocabulary retention results of a multimedia assisted presentation mode with those of a non-multimedia assisted presentation mode, aiming to find out which mode is a more efficient one to present new vocabulary to junior high students. The research questions are as follows:(1) Will different presentation modes lead to students'different vocabulary retentions results? (2) Which mode will better promote vocabulary retentions?Two classes of junior high school students in Grade 7 (100 in total) are selected as subjects of the experimental study and two groups of English words (7 per group) are chosen as materials for the experiments. In order to guarantee the validity and reliability, the two presentation modes are cross performed in both classes. After each presentation, a short-term memory test is carried out immediately and a long-term memory test is given one week later to test the retention of the target words in short-term memory and long-term memory separately. Then a questionnaire survey of the two presentation modes is delivered to the subjects to investigate their attitudes towards the two comparative presentation modes and their opinions and reasons about which presentation mode better promotes vocabulary retentions. SPSS17.0 is adopted to analyze the data.Data analyses have revealed the following major findings:(1) In English vocabulary teaching, different presentation modes will lead to students'different vocabulary retention results; (2) There are significant differences between the mean scores of tests on Mode 1 and those adopting Mode 2. Mode 1 better promotes vocabulary retentions in both short-term memory and long-term memory than Mode 2; (3) The subjects'retention effect of the new words in the short-term memory tests is significantly better than that in the long-term memory tests no matter which presentation mode is adopted; (4) A Memory-fading phenomenon exists in both of the two presentation modes. The memory fading speed is faster when the target words are presented and learned on Mode 1, while the memory-fading speed is slower on Mode 2; (5) Most subjects prefer Mode 1 to Mode 2, and they show positive attitudes to Mode 1.Based on the experimental findings and preliminary discussions of the experimental results, pedagogical implications are obtained:the multimedia assisted presentation mode is more efficient than non-multimedia assisted presentation mode to present new words to junior high students; there may be significant short-term memory effects of the target words by memorizing vocabulary through multimedia assisted presentation mode, but a memory-fading phenomenon exists and the memory fading speed is usually fast. This study also provides some suggestions for further researches.