Application Of ASSURE Model In College English Teaching

Multimedia technology has been used in English teaching for a long time in China.However, Multimedia-Assisted Foreign Language Teaching (MAFLT) does not simplypresent knowledge by various media formats, such as texts, graphics, audio or video,etc. Besides, teachers should design courses systematically with instructional theoriesto guarantee the teaching effect. Among plenty of the MAFLT theories, the ASSUREmodel proposed by Heinich (1970) is a classic one, which provides a practicalguidance to teachers for a systematic and effective course design.Although the ASSURE model has been widely used in foreign countries, it is justapplied in the net-based teaching system or automatic learning system in China bymost teachers and researchers. It is seldom applied in classroom teaching, especially incollege English teaching. Therefore, this thesis attempts to make an exploration inapplication of the ASSURE model in college English teaching, and aims to address thefollowing questions:(1) Is the MAFLT based on ASSURE model able to improve students’performance?(2) Is the ASSURE model able to enhance students’ interest in learning English?(3) Is the ASSURE model able to promote the interaction between the teacher andstudents?In order to test the function of the ASSURE model, the researcher did anexperiment on sophomores from Wuhan Textile University. In the experiment, theexperimental group (EG) was exposed to the ASSURE model, whereas the controlgroup (CG) was taught by the traditional MAFLT model. The data were collected andprocessed by SPSS software to answer the above mentioned questions. The results ofthe research show that1) the MAFLT based on ASSURE model has positive effect onimproving students’ performance in English, especially in listening and reading,2) it can stimulate students’ interest in learning English, and3) it can promote interactionbetween the teacher and students. On the whole, the EG outperformed the CG.Finally, the researcher proposed some suggestions for teachers and students.