Application Of Multimodal Literacy Teaching Model In College English Teaching

Multimodal literacy teaching model(MLTM),a recent development in language teaching practice,advocates making use of different modalities to mobilize learners' multiple senses to work together and participate in language studies.The application of this pedagogy is expected to enable students to realize the functions and interrelations of multiple modalities revealed in the process of constructing multimodal discourses and texts,and to facilitate students to get familiar with the use of different signs in communications,their meaning potentials and limitations.MLTM provides learners with relatively abundant information,emulational language learning environments and relaxing atmospheres in which learners interact with members of their community and the instructor,and develop their comprehensive English skills.The current research on MLTM is launched around three research questions:(1)Compared with the traditional 3P teaching model,is multimodal literacy teaching model more efficient in improving art students' performance in English proficiency test?(2)In what aspects can multimodal literacy teaching model enhance art students' multimodal literacy?(3)What are the art students' attitudes toward MLTM? The researcher selected two sophomore classes in a normal university,one as the experimental class(EC)where MLTM was employed and the other the control class(CC)in which the 3P teaching model was used.Before the experiment,the researcher conducted the pre-test and decided EC and CC;then the pre-questionnaire survey was conducted in the EC for the purpose of measuring the students' present state of multimodal literacy and their attitudes toward it;students in EC were also instructed to work out their PPT works for given themes,and the resulting works were collected later.Then the researcher implemented the teaching experiment for 16 weeks in both EC and CC and collected the PPT works produced by students in the EC;upon the completion of the experiment,the post-test was conducted in both two classes in the final week,and the researcher conducted the post-questionnaire in EC and investigated the students' attitudes toward the pedagogy by interviewing six of them at three different levels of English proficiency.The subjects' grades from both the pre-test and post-test were analyzed through independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test with the statistical software SPSS19.0.The research reaches the following conclusion: firstly,in comparison to the traditional 3P teaching model,multimodal literacy teaching model is more effective in improving art students' performance in English tests.Second,through the analysis of art students' answers to the questionnaire and their PPT slides,the researcher found that most students had improved their multimodal literacy,with the progress especially revealed in three aspects: linguistic design,visual design and special design;however,the students' construction of their multimodal discourses are influenced by their meaning potentials,or available designing resources.Third,MLTM greatly changes art students' attitudes to college English course,and arouses students' interests in learning English;they become actively engaged in class and created a lively atmosphere;they all approve of applying the pedagogy to the future English classes.Meanwhile,the students understand that the selection of modalities and their spatial arrangements have rules to follow.