A Study On The Application Of The Multimodal Teaching Method To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High Schools

The present paper is a survey of the application of the multimodal teaching method to English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.Since 1990,Multimodal Discourse Analysis(MDA)has been applied into language teaching.It mainly includes the following aspects:research on multimodalities of textbooks,research on multimodal teaching environment and multimodal education technology,research on multimodal teaching mode,research on multimodal teaching effects,research on the relationship among different modalities and research on classroom multimodal discourse.However,MDA is seldom applied in English vocabulary teaching classes of senior high schools but mostly applied in college English classes.Based on MDA,the paper aims to answer two questions.1)What effect does the multimodal teaching method have on senior high school students’ English vocabulary breadth? 2)What effect does the multimodal teaching method have on senior high school students’ English vocabulary depth? The research subjects in the experiment are 120 senior high schoolstudents of grade three in Yueyang City,Hunan Province.61 students are in the control group and 59 students in the experimental group.The author carries out the study by two vocabulary breadth tests and two vocabulary depth tests.Before the experiment,the two groups’ vocabulary breadth and depth test results are compared to see whether there is a significant difference in English level between them.During the experiment,the author adopts traditional teaching methods to the control group,and applies multimodal teaching method to the experimental group.After the experiment,the two groups’ post-test results are analysed through SPSS21.0 software and excel 2003.Here are the main findings.First,multimodal teaching method has a positive effect on students’ vocabulary breadth,especially on students’ receptive vocabulary.Three months later,the experimental group acquires173 more words than the control group.Besides,the former is better at the meaning of verbs and adjectives.Second,in the vocabulary depth post-test,the scores are given from three dimensions: meaning,collocation and usage.The experimental group is better at the collocation and usage of words,which means that multi-modal teaching method has apositive effect on students’ collocation and usage of words.However,there is no distinct correlation between multimodal teaching method and students’ meaning acquisition,which indicates that in terms of high-frequency English words,multimodal teaching method makes little difference.It is the author’s hope that this paper has a referential value for the application of multimodal teaching method into vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.According to the findings,three implications for vocabulary teaching are discussed: first,English teachers in senior high schools can apply multimodal teaching method to vocabulary teaching.Second,much attention has been paid to vocabulary breadth,but the importance of vocabulary depth should not be ignored.Third,in multimodal classes,students should change their passive learning styles into active,inquiry-based,self-access ones.However,this study still has some limitations,for example,the experiment time is just about three months long and the research subjects are only 120 students from one school.It’s proposed that in the future,the experiment time can be one year long or even three years long and the subjects can be students of different grades from schools around thecountry.Besides,the subjects’ age and gender can be also taken into consideration.