The Effects Of Illustrations On Students' Vocabulary Learning In A Junior Middle School

A significant portion of researches indicate that for language learning,illustrations have the functions of attracting students' attention and facilitating their comprehension as well as memory.However,there were relatively few studies focusing on the effects of illustrations on vocabulary learning.This study aimed to enrich the research in this aspect,trying to reflect the opinions of students and teachers on the use of illustrations in vocabulary learning,measuring the effects of illustrations on abstract and concrete words,helping students learn vocabulary more effectively,and providing the specific applications of illustrations in real class for teachers and researchers who need for reference.1.This study attempted to answer the following two questions by combining qualitative and quantitative methods.1.How do illustrations impact Junior Middle School students' vocabulary learning,especially in terms of vocabulary retention?2.What are the different effects of illustrations(a)on the meaning recall of abstract and concrete words and(b)on the spelling recall of abstract and concrete words?In this research,firstly,classroom observation and interview for teachers were conducted to know how illustrations impact students' vocabulary learning and to know teachers' opinions.Secondly,questionnaire was applied to get to know the further information and students' opinions.Finally,two parallel classes of Grade Seven from a Junior Middle School in Hangzhou were chosen randomly as the experimental classes.Meanwhile,two kinds of vocabulary presentation were applied to the two classes respectively,with eight concrete and eight abstract words as the target words.After the experiments,the immediate test for students short-term memory was conducted immediately while the delayed test for the long-term memory was completed one week later.Then all data collected was analyzed by SPSS.From the results of interview and questionnaire,most of the teachers and students kept an affirmative attitude towards the application of illustrations for both intentional and incidental vocabulary learning.And the classroom observation revealed that illustrations were applied and designed flexibly in various language learning activities.But the target words presented were usually concrete,and the ways of presentation were customarily fixed.Besides,some teachers were lack of the understanding of illustration and the way of using it.In terms of the effects of illustrations,the study found that vivid illustrations can inspire students' thinking,attract their attention,arouse their interests and challenge desire,and relieve their stress.In addition,the results of experiment proved that the group with illustrations performed better than the one without in both immediate and delayed test.To be specific,illustrations had a significant effect on both short-term and long-term memory of abstract words in both meaning and spelling recall,but only had a little effect on the spelling recall of concrete words.