An Empirical Study Of Audio-Visual Approach From The Perspective Of Peirce's Theory

We are now in the tide of economic globalization and it is self-evident that foreign languages and teaching methods play a vital role in it.Grammar-Translation Method appeared first and was extremely prevalent between the 15th and 17th centuries in Europe.Overtime,researchers found that it couldn't satisfy current needs and soon Direct Method and Audio-Lingual Method came to their birth.With the development of ages and advance of scientific technology,Audio-Visual Approach was created in France in the 18th century and compensated for the defects of traditional teaching methods to some extent.Through literature review,it is demonstrated that most researchers analyze Audio-Visual Approach through teaching theories.There are few scholars who study this method by the nature of languages and signs.Also not much research is done on undergraduates with relatively lower English levels.This thesis is based on Peirce's semiotic theories to solve the following three questions:1.How is Audio-Visual Approach applied in college English teaching?2.What are the differences in phrase and reading comprehension when different forms of audio-visual aids are used?3.How can Semiotic theories be applied to interpret Audio-Visual Approach and improve teaching?Through an empirical study,the major findings are as followed:firstly,Audio-Visual Approach is widely applied in college English study and has received warm welcome from both teachers and students.Icons,indexes and symbols within audio-visual aids help students improve their pronunciation,listening comprehension and cultural awareness.Secondly,materials that are composed of different proportions of icons,indexes and symbols have different effects in students' phrase comprehension and reading comprehension.Audio-Visual group perform the best and the gaps between high-level and low-level students are bridged.However there is no significant difference in reading comprehension.Thirdly,teachers' and students' inner ideas about teaching methods are revealed and semiotic theories are used to interpret and improve college English teaching for a better result.