A Study On The Application Of Multimodality Theory To English Vocabulary Teaching In Rural Junior High School

It is widely acknowledged that vocabulary,which is one of the three major components of language,plays an important role in foreign language learning.Teaching vocabulary has become one of the main tasks of foreign language teaching.However,the current traditional monomodal vocabulary teaching method can no longer meet the requirements of students' vocabulary learning,and the vocabulary teaching method needs to be improved urgently.With the development of information technology,the communicative channels between people are gradually widened and the expression of meaning is no longer achieved simply through language.In addition to language,it can also be expressed through other symbol resources or a combination of multiple symbols.Therefore,multimodality theory has gradually caught people's attention.Recently,multimodality theory has been mostly applied to reading,grammar and writing teaching.Only a few studies,yet,have combined multimodality theory with vocabulary teaching.Under such background,this study applies multimodal theory to English vocabulary teaching in the rural junior high school and explores its impact on students' vocabulary knowledge.This study attempts to explore the following three questions: compared with traditional vocabulary teaching: 1)In terms of the breadth of vocabulary knowledge,to what extent does multimodal vocabulary teaching affect the timely and delayed acquisition of the students? 2)In terms of the depth of vocabulary knowledge,to what extent does multimodal vocabulary teaching affect timely and delayed acquisition of the students? 3)In terms of the strength of vocabulary knowledge,to what extent does the multimodal vocabulary teaching affect the active recall,passive recall,active recognition and passive recognition of the students?This study did two and a half months' empirical research with 106 students in two parallel classes in Grade Eight of a rural junior high school in Jingjiang City.The number of students in the experimental class and the control class is both fifty-three.During the teaching experiment,the experimental class adopted multimodal vocabulary teaching method while the control class employed traditional vocabulary teaching method.Experimental data were input into SPSS 18.0 for analysis.The results demonstrate that: compared with traditional vocabulary teaching: 1)In the breadth of vocabulary knowledge,multimodal vocabulary teaching contributes more to the timely and delayed vocabulary acquisition than traditional vocabulary teaching,and it has a more significant effect on delayed acquisition;2)In the depth of vocabulary knowledge,multimodal vocabulary teaching has an advantage over the timely acquisition and delayed acquisition of students,and the promotion of delayed acquisition is more obvious;3)In the strength of vocabulary knowledge,multimodal vocabulary teaching has a more significant role in promoting passive recall,active recognition and passive recognition,especially in passive recall.However,in the active recall,the promotion of traditional vocabulary teaching is more advantageous.Based on the above findings,this thesis summarizes several implications of the application of multimodal theory to English vocabulary teaching in the rural junior high school: 1)In multimodal vocabulary teaching,teachers should be good at using multiple media resources to mobilize learners' senses to participate in teaching activities.But teachers should choose and integrate modes properly in teaching;2)In multimodal vocabulary teaching,the roles of teachers and students have changed,which urges teachers to improve their theory and competence of teaching practice;3)Traditional vocabulary teaching method cannot be completely abandoned and teachers should combine the traditional vocabulary teaching method with multimodal vocabulary teaching method to optimize the teaching.