The Application Of Multimodal Teaching Approach To English Vocabulary Teaching At Middle School

With the rapid development of modern education and information technology,multimodal discourse analysis has attracted a lot of scholars’ attention at home andabroad. In the1990s, many linguists have applied multimodal discourse analysis intoteaching, which has got great achievements and teaching effects. Multimodal discourseanalysis theory framework has important effect on English teaching. As a new teachingapproach, it is bound to inject new power and concept into English classes, whichcompletely accords with the law and principles of language learning. Based on thetheory of multimodal discourse framework, multimodal teaching introducesmultimodal symbols (language, images, music, Internet, etc.) in teaching process tomake various senses involved in the study and stimulate students to memorizevocabulary and produce many associations at the same time in order to strengthenmemory effects. The approach is more impressive than single explanation of languageand makes students enhance memory ability more quickly. The diverse teachingapproach makes up for the deficiency of the single vocabulary teaching. And thepositive influence on English vocabulary teaching is irreplaceable, so multimode hascertain theoretical significance for English vocabulary teaching. At present,multimodal discourse analysis is still at the starting stage at home, so most researchesare only theses foreign achievements. Applying the multimodal discourse analysis intoEnglish teaching field is mostly in college English classes, however, there are few inmiddle school English classes. This thesis focuses on how to effectively usemultimodal discourse analysis to guide English vocabulary teaching at middle schooland explores multimodal teaching pattern and multimodal teaching strategies of middleschool English classes. It also investigates the effects of multimodal vocabularyteaching pattern on students’ English vocabulary acquisition by carrying out vocabulary tests and students’ attitude towards multimodal vocabulary teachingapproach.104students are chosen as subjects, who are from two parallel classes (54students in Class A and50students in Class B) according to their pre-test scores froma middle school in Ji Lin province. The pre-test is the final English exam which washeld at the end of last semester. It aims at testing the degree of students’ mastery ofEnglish on the whole after one semester. And the subjects are at the first year ofAffiliated Middle School to Jilin University and their English scores are at similar level.There are fifty students in the control class and fifty-four in the experimental class.Then the two classes are implanted teaching experiment respectively. The experimentalclass adopts multimedia teaching approach, and the control class uses traditionalteaching approach. After one month teaching experiment, post-test is implemented inorder to test students’ mastery of the acquisition and usage of the target words. Thepost-test is about vocabulary which students have learnt in class (the vocabularies arefrom Unit Four to Unit Seven in GO FOR IT Book Two). It adopts unified testingmethod to test the effect of teaching experiment. And students in the control class andthe experimental class are all required to take part in the post-test. After post-test alldata collected from the teaching experiment are analyzed by SPSS7.0to compare theteaching effects of two vocabulary teaching approaches on students’ mastery of thetarget words to draw a conclusion. And then, the questionnaire survey is used to studythe students’ attitude towards the multimodal vocabulary teaching approach and theinfluence of the multimodal teaching approach on students’ vocabulary acquisition andlearning ability. At last, the author interviewed ten students in experimental class andobserved the class to get the students’ feedbacks and learning enthusiasm, the studymotivation, to arouse the English teachers’ awareness of the importance of the form oftheir multimodal teaching in enhancing the students’ learning enthusiasm and interest.The statistical result of questionnaires shows that multimodal vocabularyteaching approach has incomparable advantages in inspiring study interest, improvingand consolidating vocabulary output and attracting learners’ attention in class to deepenvocabulary impression and relieve memory burden. And multimodal vocabulary teaching approach makes it possible for students to experience real and natural targetlanguage context, thus the effect on improving students’ listening and speaking abilityof vocabulary is obvious. The effect of multimodal teaching approach on students’vocabulary application and output is very obvious, but its effect on training students’self-study ability is insufficient.And through the interview and classroom observation, it is found thatall the students think that the English teachers’ facial expressions have effect onsuggesting and presenting knowledge and their encouraging expressions in the eyesalso could enhance students’ confidence. And some humorous body language makesstudents impressive and deepens the degree of mastering knowledge when teachersinvigorate the class atmosphere. Therefore, students like this vivid teaching approach(multimodal teaching approach) very much. In a word, students hope teachers to havesense of humor and create relaxing and happy atmosphere in class, making teachingcontent rich and flexible as while inputting more valuable knowledge. After studyingthe interview, we can find that most of students like multimodal vocabulary teachingapproach, but it still has shortcomings to be improved.From the data analysis of the students’ vocabulary test during teaching experiment,we can see that there exists a distinct correlation between the score of students’vocabulary test and teaching approach. And whether from the students’ master degreeof vocabulary quantity and quality point or from the T-test of the two classes withdifferent teaching approaches point, it shows that multimodal vocabulary teachingapproach is better than the traditional vocabulary teaching approach and has significantinfluence on improving students’ vocabulary acquisition. And the effects of multimodalvocabulary teaching approach on students’ vocabulary acquisition are notably betterthan traditional vocabulary teaching approach, however, the multimodal vocabularyteaching approach on improving the accuracy of students’ word spelling needs to bestrengthened.By analyzing the data collected about the two teaching approaches (multimodalteaching approach and traditional teaching approach) and discussing questionnairesand interviews after one month teaching experiment, the research result has been obtained, which has a definite implication on English teaching. The input of pluralisticmedia (visual pictures, MP3audios, PPT courseware, Internet) is conducive tostudents’ getting information from more channels to image and setting up constructionof meaning, thus it deepens understanding of teaching content and impression ofmemory. Multimodal interactive teaching (teaching subjects, teaching objects, andteaching subjects and objects) creates favorable condition for students’ language inputand help them to improve their ability to output and apply language. The role ofteachers and students has changed in multimodal teaching class; teachers’ role fromdominator and knowledge imparter in traditional teaching turns into an organizer,designer, guide, helper, solver for teaching activities. They design teaching activitiesand tasks, organize students to explore knowledge actively, guide students to think,help students solve problems in study, guide students construct knowledge by usingInternet; Furthermore, students’ role from a subordinator and passive receiver intraditional teaching turns into a participator, active learner, knowledge explorer, thinkerin class activities. And they improve study enthusiasm and initiative by personallytaking part in class activities, explore study by rich Internet resources and complete theconstruction of knowledge during the exploration process. Therefore, the transformedrole of teachers and students has great influence on prompting our English teaching aswell as putting forward higher requirements for teachers under multimodal teachingapproach. Internet self-study classroom provides a platform for students’ individual anddiverse study. Students collect and sort out material on their own initiative to finish taskassigned by teachers before class, which raise students’ self-study ability to some extent.And teachers’ effective guidance is also conducive to training students’ self-studyability. Traditional teaching approach also has its own unique advantage. Traditionalvocabulary teaching pays attention to teaching students’ basic knowledge and dictatinghigh-frequent vocabulary, which is conducive to raising rate of students’ vocabularyspelling. In addition, traditional teaching approach is very flexible and is less affectedby external environment (such as, power off, Internet and computer breakdown), andteachers could regulate the width and depth of teaching content and adjust teachingways and content to teach students according to their current level and aptitude. Moreover, blackboard handwriting has distinct gradation and lays emphasis on the keypoints, which is easy for students to take notes to make a systematic revision after class.Sometimes, directly teaching knowledge could save students’ self-exploration time,which expedite students to understand and master knowledge.This thesis is based on teaching experiment and guided by multimodal discourseanalysis theory to fully explain the advantages of multimodal classes and show someaspects which need to be paid attention to in the multimodal classes. According toteaching achievement, multimodal teaching approach could increase students’ studyinterest and is conducive to improving their attention and exam results, therefore,hoping the thesis has certain referential value to explore and develop English teachingapproach and modals at middle school. It is believed that middle school Englishvocabulary teaching under the guidance of multimodal discourse analysis theory suitsthe development requirements of the times and makes full use of modern educationaltechnology, which not only helps students broaden their vision by the real culture andsituational context but also increase students’ interest in language study by multimediacourseware. The advantages of multimodal teaching have become more and moreobvious; as a result, it will be the trend of modern English classroom. It is a sincerehope that the study will offer some certain theoretical guidance for multimodal teachingdesign, and produce referential meaning for middle school English vocabulary teachingpractice. However, this thesis still has some shortcomings to be corrected by relatedscholars and experts.