| With the development of the theory of teacher discourse analysis,people begin to pay more attention to the use of symbolic resources other than language.In this context,especially in English reading classes,language is no longer the only way to transmit information.Multimodal texts composed of images,audio and other symbols can develop students’ multiliteracies,while modes such as eye contact and facial expressions can fully mobilize students’ senses,providing a good communication environment and enhancing their communicative competence.Therefore,many scholars have conducted in-depth research on the multimodal discourse used in English classes.However,most current studies in China focused on college English teachers and the videos of award-winning classes in teaching competitions.In general,the attention paid to teachers in basic education and their daily teaching practice is far from enough.Therefore,the research on multimodal discourse of pre-service and in-service teachers in the classroom is still of great significance.This study adopts classroom observation method and interview method to compare the multimodal discourse in reading classes by pre-service and in-service teachers,analyzing their conceptual understanding of multimodal discourse,the structure and modal distribution characteristics of reading classes,the type and function of the media for expression and the construction of multimodal discourse meanings.In so doing,this study may help pre-service and in-service teachers use multimodal resources more effectively.After reviewing the relevant literature at home and abroad,the author has defined the core concepts and constructed a multimodal discourse analysis framework based on systemic functional linguistics,multimodal discourse analysis theories and visual grammar theory.On this basis,a classroom observation scale was designed,and 20 videos of pre-service and in-service teachers were observed and analyzed.After the observation,6 pre-service and in-service teachers were selected for interviews.The results show that: both groups of teachers have certain practical experience,but they lack theoretical understanding of multimodal discourse to some extent;the classes of both groups of teachers include five stages: class beginning,topic introduction,teaching main content,student activities and class ending while there are three stages missing: announcing teaching objectives,class summary and assignment;the total number of modes used by both groups of teachers at each teaching stage is related to the complexity of the teaching task,which tends to rise first and fall at the end,reaching the peak at the stage of teaching main content with the highest complexity;both groups of teachers use a variety of verbal and nonverbal modes,with the language mode as the dominant one mainly used for presenting information and communicating with students,the changes in font,color and graphic-text relations for emphasizing information,eye contact,head movement,facial expression and body distance for attracting students’ attention and strengthening teacher-student relationship,among which eye contact and body distance are the main modes playing a supporting role;both groups of teachers combine multiple modes to construct three types of discourse meanings,i.e.representational meaning,interactive meaning,and compositional meaning,where different modes mainly present complementary relationships;preservice teachers’ pay more attention to teacher talk,use more means of displaying information through blackboard writing and PPT design,and smile more to show friendliness;in-service teachers’ reading classes are more complete,show more balanced proportion of teacher talk and student talk,and the teacher-student interaction is strengthened through diversified gestures and varied eye and body distance.On the basis of the findings,suggestions are offered to help pre-service and in-service teachers to better understand and take advantage of multimodal discourse. |
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