A Study On The Application Of Multimodal Method In Senior High School English Vocabulary Teaching

With the rapid development of information technology and modern education,English plays an increasingly important role in social communication.As the basis of English learning,vocabulary is of vital significance to cultivate students’ listening,speaking,reading and writing ability.However,nowadays most of Chinese students just learn vocabularies by rote,which is not only tedious but also time-consuming and inefficient as well as makes it inaccurate to master some synonyms in meanings and usages.Thus,it is extremely urgent for English teachers not to teach students vocabularies simply from sounds,forms and meanings adopting the traditional cramming teaching method.They are supposed to explore a new effective teaching method to improve students’ capability and interest to learn and memorize vocabularies efficiently.Then compared with the original single-modal teaching method by listening and repeating,the comprehensive Multimodal Method emerges,which takes full advantage of visual,auditory,tactile sense and many other senses to help communicate through various means and semiotic resources such as language,image,sound etc.In view of the current situation above,Multimodal Theory and current situation of English vocabulary teaching at home and abroad are sorted out systematically,and Halliday’s System-Functional Linguistics is introduced emphatically,based on which it is discussed whether Multimodal Method could guide learners to learn vocabularies efficiently or not in senior high English vocabulary instruction so as to provide a new perspective on vocabulary teaching and learning in senior high school.This thesis applies this new Multimodal Method to English vocabulary instruction in senior high to answer the following three questions:(1)Is multimodal vocabulary teaching method more effective than traditional teaching method?(2)What changes do multimodal semiotic resources bring in terms of students’ attitudes towards vocabulary learning in vocabulary instruction of senior high?(3)What advantages does multimodal vocabulary teaching method have in contrast to traditional vocabulary teaching?In order to study the effectiveness of multimodal vocabulary teaching method in senior high English vocabulary instruction,the author chose two parallel classes in Shaanxi YichuanMiddle School to conduct this experiment for approximately three months.During the teaching experiment,the experimental class adopted multimodal teaching method,while the control class continued to utilize the traditional teaching method.Written pretest and post-test were used to check the effectiveness of Multimodal Method and questionnaires were employed to investigate students’ attitudes towards multimodal teaching method.Software SPSS was employed to collect data and the conclusion was as follows:Colorful semiotic resources of multimodal teaching method greatly stimulate students’ learning enthusiasm in combination with various senses,and improve their vocabulary learning efficiency and memorization skills.Also,vivid teaching environment arouses their English learning interest and initiative as well as vocabulary learning enthusiasm and confidence.The implications we may get from the research results is that for the purpose of improving senior high students’ passive and inefficient vocabulary learning situation,expanding their vocabularies and develop an interest in English learning,English teachers are expected to exert every effort to encourage students to participate in class activities and enhance students’ vocabulary capability to learn English effectively in a relaxed and cheerful atmosphere by language,images and sounds,etc.