Multimodal Teaching At Primary Level Through English Picture Books: An Embodied Cognitive Perspective

Since the twenty-first century,as a global language,English has become more and more important in China,and there has been a trend in which English learners are exposed to English learning at their young ages.As a result,much attention has been paid to English teaching for young learners,especially for primary school students.In 2011,the New Standards for Primary School English Curriculum launched by the Ministry of Education provides guidelines for English teaching at primary level,which clarifies the objectives of primary school English teaching and advocates a picture-based English teaching method.However,it is not clear about what the English picture books are in English teaching,why they are needed and how they are used to achieve English teaching goals.Only a few studies have explored the English teaching significance of picture books at home and abroad.According to the current situations of English teaching at primary level,most classes are taught English by English picture books,but they are mainly taught by teachers and supplemented by students’ passive learning.Students have a few chances to think independently with the help of picture prompts,which leads to lower class participation and less interactions.As a matter of fact,the English picture book is a kind of multimodal resource.From the perspective of Multimodal Interaction and Embodied Cognition,English picture books construct and convey information through multimodal interactions among modal resources such as audio,texts and videos.These modal resources provide multi-sensory channels for the experiential activities,and enhance the students’ experience of the information constructed by multimodal interactions.Students cognitively process the enhanced experience and output it again in a multimodal way.Therefore,it can be concluded that the better teaching effects can be achieved by the proper adoption of English picture books for English teaching.With Multimodal Interaction and Embodied Cognitive Linguistics as its theoretical bases,this study adopts three research methods,namely literature review,questionnaire survey and teaching practice,to explore the effectiveness of EC-based Multimodal English Picture Book Teaching Model in the process of English teaching at primary level and further explain the pedagogical significance of English picture books in English teaching so as to provide constructive suggestions about how to teach English at primary level through English picture books.The research questions are as follows:1.Can EC-based Multimodal English Teaching with the aid of picture books improve students’ comprehensive English competency?2.Can EC-based Multimodal English Teaching with the aid of picture books increase students’ interests in English and create more classroom interactions?In order to answer the research questions mentioned above,this study conducts the English teaching experiment,with 60 students from two classes of grade four of a primary school in Chongqing as the research object for a teaching experiment.The experimental steps are as follow:(1)Pre-test is taken by the students of the five classes from grade four to select two classes whose English levels of the students are basically same.(2)The students of two classes are taught English for three months.One class is taught by traditional teaching materials and teaching methods(control group),and the other class by EC-based multimodal English teaching with the aid of picture books(experimental group).In three months,the post-test for the two groups is conducted to check whether there is a significant difference in language proficiency between the two groups.The relevant data are analyzed by SPSS16.0.(3)A questionnaire is designed for the experimental group to investigate whether there are differences in their interests in English learning before and after the experiment.The results indicate that:(1)In terms of language proficiency,there is a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group(P<0.05),and the English level of the experimental group is higher than that of the control group.What’ more,the whole English proficiency level of the experimental group is also better than before.(2)The interests in English learning of the experimental group are significantly increased after the experiment.The results of this study manifest that EC-based Multimodal Primary School English Picture Book Teaching is not only helpful to improve students’ comprehensive ability of using English vocabulary and syntax,but also can promote primary school students’ interests in English learning,promote students’ class participation and English class interactivity.