Effective Application Strategies Of Textbook Illustrations In Junior Middle School English Classrooms

Although increased attention has been paid to illustrations by English textbook editors, these illustrations are often neglected by teachers who are supposed to use them in class. Against this background and based on dual coding theory and cognitive theory of multimedia learning, this research discusses the effective using strategies of illustrations in Junior English textbooks with quantitative statistic analysis, questionnaire investigation and classroom observation.Using Go For it, a junior English textbook published by People's Education Press, as the research object, this thesis first collected the relevant data for statistical analysis. According to the analysis, a significant proportion of the textbook series is composed of illustrations and the allocation of the illustrations is basically satisfactory. However, improvements need to be made in some areas, such as some illustrations tend to distract students'attention, some illustrations could not show the information clearly, and some could not correspond to the content. Then, the author carried out questionnaire surveys to collect the opinions of both teachers and students on the illustrations of Go For it. The investigation is based on the degree of satisfaction, the degree of using illustrations and the effect of using illustrations. The investigation results reflect that teachers and students are basically satisfied with the illustrations, and that the teaching effect on using illustrations is positive. However, the using of illustrations in class is not so sufficient. Many illustrations were not fully used in class and became useless. Finally, the author carried out a classroom observation as a teacher, attempting to verify the assumption that"using illustrations in English teaching is effective".This research finds that using illustrations to facilitate teaching is helpful to motivate the students to learn English, to enhance the student's memory, and to deepen their comprehension of the content. Therefore, the teachers should pay enough attention on the illustrations, systematically study the characteristics of illustrations, and effectively use them in English teaching. To address the various contents of English teaching, this research also attempts to propose some strategies of using illustrations when teaching listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar.