An Empirical Study On The Multimodal Teaching Of English Vocabulary In Primary Schools

In recent years,the reform of English teaching has been in succession.The goal is to develop the students' capability of using English and improve the pupils' oral English ability and learning attitude and enhance learning structure and cultural consciousness.However,the promotion of language competence depends on the comprehensive utilization of the vocabulary in listening,speaking,reading and writing.The reform has posed a new challenge and higher requirements to primary schools English vocabulary teaching.The study of the Multimodal Discourse Analysis(MDA),which emerged in the late 1990s,has had a great influence on the research in various disciplines.It brings enlightenment on foreign language teaching research.Many experts and scholars have conducted explorations about the multimodal teaching from diverse perspectives,such as multimodal education technology,class multimodal discourse,multimodal teaching mode and relationship among different modality.However,most of the researchers have placed particular emphases on theoretical research and less work has been done on empirical research of primary English vocabulary teaching.Based on MDA,this study aims to investigate the validity of the multimodal teaching model and carries out the teaching experiments to testify the two questions:(1)What effects does the multimodal teaching have on pupils' English vocabulary learning interest?(2)What effects does the multimodal teaching have on pupils' vocabulary learning achievement?The subjects are 70 pupils from two classes in Grade 4 in a primary school in Changsha.The controlled class adopts the traditional teaching approach as usual,while the experimental class uses multimodal teaching method:The experiment part includes two tests(pre-test and post-test)and two questionnaires.The study collects the experimental results and uses SPSS to analyze the collected data.Here are the main findings.First,a proper use of the multimodal teaching can arouse pupils' vocabulary learning motivation and interest.The data reveal different changes of English vocabulary learning motivation,habits,attitude and confidence in the two classes.Pupils think the multimodal teaching classroom is more interesting and they would like to participate in vocabulary class activities and spend more time in learning English vocabulary.Second,compared with the controlled class,the experimental class gets higher scores,including an average score in the post-test.Meanwhile,the SD of the post-test proves that the scores of the experimental class are more stable.It can be concluded that the experimental teaching can improve pupils' English vocabulary learning.The research results have the certain enlightenment for English vocabulary teaching in primary schools:Pupils' vocabulary level has very close connection to their interest in vocabulary learning.The result asks English teachers to cultivate pupils' interest in vocabulary learning and it also suggests teachers that the major task is to promote their vocabulary using ability and communication skills.This study hopes that it has a referential value for the application of multimodal teaching in English vocabulary teaching practice in primary schools.However,there are still some limitations in the study.The whole research time was limited,only lasting one semester and the samples were only 70 pupils.This study should take some factors into consideration,such as subjects' gender,age and learning strategy.