A Study Of The Application Of Multimodal PPT In Junior High School English Teaching

As an assistant teaching tool,multimodal PPT helps much to construct meaning and enhance language input by means of texts,pictures,color,sounds and so on.It has superiority and uniqueness in attracting students' attention,increasing information input and enlivening atmosphere in class.Based on the Multimodal Discourse Analysis Theory and Input Enhancement Theory,this study analyzed the application of multimodal PPT in junior high school by using questionnaires,interviews and classroom observation in order to look into the various modes of multimodal PPT,teachers' and students' attitudes towards them and their strengths and the weaknesses in an attempt to contribute a bit to the improvement of its effectiveness.For this purpose,the questions for the study are:(1)What are the main modes of multimodal PPT in junior high school English teaching?(2)What are the teachers' and students' attitudes towards the multimodal PPT?(3)What are their advantages and defects in the use PPT? The PPT samples and participants are from Grade Seven of two junior high schools in Yantai.Findings show that in terms of frequency,the visual mode is much more frequently used than audio-video mode.Of visual modes,text mode is most frequent,picture mode ranks second,then typography mode,and the least frequently used is graph mode.Of audio-video modes,audio mode is remarkably more frequently used than video mode.Results from teachers' questionnaire,interview and class observation show that all the teachers think that they are skillful in designing text and picture modes,then audio mode,but less skillful in using flash,animation and hyperlink.Results of students' and teachers' attitude towards multimodal PPT and the use of it in English teaching in junior high school reveal that most of the student participants welcome most of the modes since it is helpful and effective in their learning and most of the modes are beneficial though in different degrees,for they work to focus their attention in class,to improve their listening comprehension,to activate them in class,to upgrade their English and tomake class more interesting.Most teachers hold positive attitude towards PPT,thinking that it presents much more information in various ways and highlight key and difficult points.However,there are still some defects in the PPT use in junior high school English teaching:(1)Teachers tend to overuse text mode but underuse audio-video mode,which is not to the students' expectations.(2)Some teachers incline to over depend on multimodal PPT,which may result in lower teaching effect and lower activeness of students participation.(3)There exist inappropriate use of typography,which greatly impacts the outstanding of the key and difficult points.(4)Some teachers are weak or incompetent in using modern technology in multimodal PPT design,especially in flash and hyperlink.