The Application Of Multimodal Discourse Analysis Theory To College English Vocabulary Teaching

In the process of English teaching, vocabulary teaching is the foundation. English reading, grammar and listening are inseparable from vocabulary. But English vocabulary learning for college students, especially for Non-English major college students, is still one of the main difficulties needed to be overcome. The studies of Multimodal discourse which emerged in western countries in the late 1990 s had made a great impact on the research direction of many disciplines. Its instructions to Language teaching increasingly aroused the researchers' attention. Many scholars both at home and abroad have carried out researches on it from different perspectives. However, most researchers paid particular emphasis on theoretical discussion, and less work had been done on empirical researches and the relevant quantitative and qualitative analyses. On the basis of former researches, this research employs the combination of theory and practice to explore multimodal vocabulary teaching mode in college English class, and to test and demonstrate the influence of multimodal vocabulary teaching mode on college students' English vocabulary acquisition by carrying out the teaching experiments.The study lasted one semester. The subjects were 98 Non-English major freshmen of Northwest University Nationalities. The study took quasi experimental research. Firstly, through the pretest, it can be determined that the English vocabulary scores of two classes(control class and experiment class) have no significant difference. Then two teaching experiments were carried out in two classes. The control class used the traditional vocabulary teaching mode, the experiment class adopted the multimodal vocabulary teaching mode. After the teaching experiments, post-test was carried out in the two classes. Test data were input into SPSS17.0 software for quantitative analysis, in order to compare and analyze students' vocabulary acquisition effect of two kinds of teaching modes. Finally, the questionnaires were given out to the students in experimental class in order to know the subjects' attitude towards multimodal vocabulary teaching mode.The results of this research shows that multimodal vocabulary teaching is more effective than traditional vocabulary teaching on students' vocabulary acquisition and vocabulary retention in general. The scores of students in vocabulary tests have significantly correlation with teaching mode. The results of independent samples t-test indicate that the test scores of students via multimodal vocabulary teaching mode are higher than that of traditional vocabulary teaching mode. However, based on further analysis of test data, the author finds that the test scores of students via multimodal vocabulary teaching mode are lower than traditionalvocabulary teaching mode in words spelling. And it demonstrates that high frequency dictation training in traditional vocabulary teaching model can help to improve the accuracy of words spelling. The questionnaire results indicate that multimodal vocabulary teaching mode has superiority over traditional vocabulary teaching mode in stimulating students' learning interest, improving students' listening and speaking ability and consolidating the usage of vocabulary, but it still needs to be improved in improving students' accuracy of words spelling.