The Effect Of Context-based Multimedia On Second Language Vocabulary Learning

As an important approach in L2 study, learning language in context has received increasing attention from scholars and teachers. In recent years, the rapid development of the multimedia technologies has shed new light on the study of context. The context-based multimedia incorporates motion pictures, sounds with texts, creating a vivid and authentic context for language learners. However, the existing research on context-based multimedia concerns primarily with its effect on language comprehension and word acquisition, few researches are devoted to the study of explicit vocabulary learning.The present study is conducted to find out the effect of context-based multimedia on L2 vocabulary learning. Through a comparative experiment between 2 classes, the writer finds that context-based multimedia can promote the vocabulary learning among low to intermediate students. In tests, students in experimental group far outperformed those in contrastive group in both word recognition and usage, which is an indication that multimedia context do enhance the meaning comprehension and promote a deeper level of word processing. In the part of word recall, there's also a big difference in test result. This means the context-based multimedia can also enhance the memory and retrieval of words.