A Study On The Practical Use Of Textbook Illustrations In Senior High School English Teaching

English textbooks are important resources in English teaching.The English Curriculum Standards for Common Senior High School in 2017 has proposed that textbooks should arouse students’ interest and develop students’ language skills.As a part of textbooks,illustration can improve students’ interest and get students’ attention,and illustration is so indispensable that researchers,teachers and students should all pay attention to it.According to the related literature,the studies of textbook illustrations were mainly concentrated in the function of the textbook illustrations,the category of textbook illustrations,the effect of textbook illustrations and so on.There is not so much research on how to use textbook illustrations effectively in practical English teaching.Based on Dual-Coding Theory and Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning,this study took the compulsory textbooks of People’s Education Press(PEP)for example to investigate the practical use of textbook illustrations in senior high school English teaching and put forward feasible suggestions for the problems that teachers have in the process of using textbook illustrations.The purpose of the study is to promote teachers to carry out effective illustration teaching.The research questions of this study are specifically formulated as follows:(1)What are the attitudes of teachers and students towards using textbook illustrations ?(2)In practical teaching,what problems do teachers have in the process of using textbook illustrations?In order to solve the research questions,a questionnaire was conducted among 26 teachers and 200 students of Yan’ an Middle School,aiming to investigate their attitudes towards using textbook illustrations.Then,five English teachers’ classes were observed to explore the problems that teachers have in the process of using textbook illustrations.Through the analysis and discussion of questionnaire and classroom observation results,the study found although teachers and students have a high degree of recognition of textbook illustrations,their utilization degree of textbook illustrations is not high.Based on the analysis of the requirements of the English Curriculum Standards,the problems that teachers have in the process of using textbook illustrations are as follows:teachers ignore the importance of “seeing”,teachers do not fully consider students’ cognition,teachers do not dig deep into the illustration information,and the use of textbook illustrations deviates from teaching goals.In view of these problems,some feasible suggestions for teachers are put forward: strengthen the learning of the English Curriculum Standards and related theories of illustrations,focus on students in teaching process,strengthen the study and learning of strategies for using illustrations,and strengthen the training of illustration teaching practice.