A Study On The Application Of The Multimodal Teaching Approach To Middle School English Reading Class

With the rapid development of technology,information is no longer mainly displayed through the written text,but through the combination of color,animation,image,sound,posture,gesture,facial expression and so on,so that people can receive the information more quickly than before.In the 1990 s,western researchers began to analyze multimodility.Barthes(1977)was the first scholar to put forward multimodal discourse analysis theory,which is one of the theoretical basis of multimodal teaching.New London Group(1996)discussed the application of multimodalities into language teaching.But the study of multimodal English teaching in middle school is less concerned.Therefore,the author intends to apply the multimodal teaching approach(MTA)based on multimodal discourse analysis,systemic functional linguistics and visual grammar theory to English reading class,and discuss the following questions.1.What are the effects of multimodal teaching approach on middle school students' English reading interest?2.What are the effects of multimodal teaching approach on middle school students' English reading proficiency?3.Why does multimodal teaching approach have effects on middle school students' English reading interest and proficiency?The subjects of the study are from the author's school: two classes in the eighth grade of a middle school in Qingdao,one as an experimental class and the other as a controlled class.The multimodal teaching approach is used in the experimental class,and the traditional reading teaching mode is used in the controlled class.A questionnaire and pre-test were carried out in two classes before the experiment.After the experiment,the questionnaire was carried out in the experimental classes and post-test was carried out in both the experimental and controlled classes.Through the descriptive analysis of the results of the questionnaire,it is concluded that the students' interest improved after the experiment.Specifically expressing,students' interest in English reading has increased obviously.The attitude towards this teachingmethod becomes positive and the participation of reading class has increased.After class,students can read relevant English articles and books independently.The independent sample T test and paired sample T test conducted by SPSS.21.0 showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental class and the controlled class,and the scores of the experimental class increased significantly after the experiment.After analyzing the results of the interview,the author summarizes the reasons that multimodal teaching approach has an impact on students' English reading interest and proficiency.So it can be concluded that multimodal teaching approach has a positive effect on English reading class.However,there are still some demerits and limitation.Some suggestions are given by the author for future research.It is expected to have further exploration and improvement.