A Survey Of The Use Of Audio-Visual Materials In Junior English Classes

Audio-visual materials are very significant in English teaching.Affectively,they can help create the atmosphere,attract students’ attention and arouse students’ curiosity.Cognitively,they help students construct new knowledge based on the prior one.Pedagogically,they help achieve teaching objectives and improve teaching efficiency.However,the actual use of audio-visual materials in English classes exhibits a mixed picture.In order to make it clear,course videos from the 11 th session of the National Junior English Basic Skills Competition(2017)have been used as research data to address the following three questions in the thesis:1)How good are the qualities of the audio-visual materials used in Junior Englishclasses examined with Mayer’s principles?2)How good are the qualities of the use of audio-visual materials in JuniorEnglish classes examined according to the teaching objectives and tasks?3)What are the problems in the use of audio-visual materials in junior Englishclasses?In the research,twenty-seven course videos were chosen from the 11 th session of the National Junior English Basic Skills Competition(2017)as the research data,with audio-visual materials transcribed and analyzed.Based on Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of multimedia learning,three observation tables were compiled,in order to help the systematic analysis.This research was mainly about whether the contents of audio-visual materials accord with students’ cognitive patterns,and whether the use of audio-visual materials meets teaching objectives.On the basis of analysis,the problems were summarized.The results are as follows:1)Examined by Mayer’s Cognitive Theory,most audio-visual materials used in junior English classes accord with junior school students’ cognitive patterns.These audio-visual materials are authentic materials related to topics of lessons.Besides,requirements are offered before learning and key points are underlined after learning,which helps students to understand and master knowledge.2)85.7% audio-visual materials are used to realize teaching objectives.Those fail to realize teaching objectives are all isolated from teaching activities.Key elements are proper audio-visual materials and flexible teaching skills,which should be coordinated.3)Problems of the use of audio-visual materials in junior English classes are centered around the adjustments and teachers’ ideas of audio-visual materials.Positions of captions,durations,and speed of audio-visual materials should be adjusted to be more cognitively suitable for teaching and learning.Thus,teachers are advised to use audio-visual materials with a clear understanding of teaching objectives and nature of teaching activities.