An Investigation Into The Multiliteracies Of Junior Middle School Students In English Learning Under Multimodal Teaching Environment

With the development of new information technology and the emergence of new communication media,it is found that the traditional ideographical ways of language and text are increasingly combined with vision,auditory,body posture,image,action and other ideographical methods to jointly construct meaning and better achieve communicative purposes.Due to the way in which people send,receive information displays diverse characteristics,traditional reading and writing as the main channel of communication can no longer satisfy people’s needs,multiliteracies emerged at that moment.Multiliteracies is the ability to read and write texts through linguistic and non-linguistic sign systems,such as images,colors,sounds and actions(Zhang Zheng,2011).Therefore,in the face of diversified information communication and multimodal information presentation,it is of great importance to develop and improve people’s multiliteracies.Combined with the current situation of the multimedia information age,this research investigates the current situation of students’ multiliteracies under multimodal teaching environment and collects the students’ perceptions on multiliteracies and multimodal teaching in order to explore the development situation of multiliteracies of junior middle school students in English learning and cultivate junior middle school students’ multiliteracies better in the future.In addition,this research compares the different grades students’ multiliteracies,and explore the main causes for the differences of different grades students’ multiliteracies further so as to do some foreshadowing and provide some references to the subsequent scholars.On the basis of predecessors’ researches,this study is mainly based on the social semiotics theory,sociocultural theory and constructivism learning theory,takes one middle school as an example and selects three classes students from Grade Seven,Eight,and Nine receptively as the research participates,which are 318 students.Moreover,this study adopts methods which are the combination of quantitative research and qualitative research,through the questionnaire method and interview method to investigate the current situation of multiliteracies in junior middle school students and to explore the main causes for the differences of different grade students’ multiliteracies.The purposes of this study are to explore the following questions : 1.What is the current situation of junior middle school students’ multiliteracies? 2.Are there any differences in the multiliteracies of students in different grades? If yes,what are the main causes for the differences?It turns out that the current situation of junior middle school students’ multiliteracies under the multimodal teaching environment is positive.In general,all of students have higher linguistic literacy,visual literacy and auditive literacy compared with other literacies.And the current situation of multiliteracies of Grade Nine students is better than that of Grade Seven and Grade Eight,especially,in gestural literacy,spatial literacy and multimodal literacy as well as ability of application of multimodality.Moreover,the research also finds that the main causes for the differences of different grades students’ multiliteracies are: students’ age,channels of obtaining information and living environments.In addition,students also have a positive attitude towards multimodal teaching.Senior students are more supportive of multimodal teaching,and they believe that multimodal teaching is conducive to the development of multiliteracies.Finally,according to the results of the investigation,the author summarizes how to cultivate students’ multiliteracies from three aspects and puts forward feasible suggestions for educators,parents and students.It is hoped that the results of this investigation can attract the attention of other scholars in order to make a contribution to the cultivation of students’ multiliteracies and make students better adapt to the development of The Times.