The Effects Of Multimedia-Assisted English Teaching And Learning On Verbal-Imagery Cognitive Styles

The cognitive style is an important factor that influences the individual differences in foreign language teaching and learning. Application of the multimedia in the process of teaching doesn’t mean that we can realize the multimedia learning. Students with different cognitive styles have different results under the use of multimedia. How to effectively use the multimedia in English teaching has become the focus of English teachers. The aim of the present study is to research the Verbal-Imagery cognitive styles which are closely related to the multimedia and to explore the effects of MALTL on English teaching and learning.The present study, an experimental research, is based on Riding’s cognitive style integration theory and Mayer’s dual coding theory of multimedia learning, and expects to discuss the different results of Verbal-Imagery cognitive styles under the MALTL. The data were collected from89sophomore students who major in Marketing Management in Zhixing College of Hubei University. Four instruments were employed for data collection. They are verbal and visual learning style questionnaire (VVQ), pretest, posttest and interview.The author translated the Kirby’s VVQ questionnaire into Chinese and used this questionnaire to test subjects’cognitive style preferences. The pretest was administered to the students to check their general English proficiency. The posttest has the same degree of difficulty. The results of the posttest could reflect the subjects’performances after the teaching experiment to a certain extent. Interview was also used to get more information about the subjects’attitudes and suggestions about multimedia-assisted English teaching and learning.SPSS13.0was used for data analysis. The results are as follows:1) Chinese non-English major college students are more Imagery-cognitive-style-oriented and the cognitive style distribution in genders is not significantly different;2) the results of the posttest show that the students with Imagery cognitive style performed better than verbalizers;3) in the posttest, the results of boys with different cognitive styles have a significant difference but the results of girls with different cognitive styles don’t have a significant difference;4) there is a significant difference between the verbalizers and imagers in the vocabulary and reading parts, but there isn’t a significant difference in the translation and composition parts in the posttest;5) most students accept the MALTL method. According to the results of the present study, the author tried to propose the following suggestions to stimulate students’interests and to improve the teaching efficiency:an English teacher should understand the students’different cognitive styles, organize effective and suitable teaching activities for students with different cognitive styles, conduct individualized instruction and rationally use the instructional media.