An Empirical Study On English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High Schools Based On Multimodal Theory

As one of the three major components of language,vocabulary is the basis of language acquisition.Foreign and domestic scholars have shown unprecedented enthusiasm in the research on vocabulary learning in EFL contexts over the thirty years.As a result,a booming number of studies concerning different aspects of vocabulary and its acquisition have been made,including multimodality.Applying qualitative and quantitative surveys,the present study aims to explore the effects of multimodal teaching method on senior high school English vocabulary class by discussing the following two questions:1.Can multimodal vocabulary teaching method improve students’ English vocabulary learning? If so,in what aspects?2.What are students’ attitudes towards multimodal vocabulary teaching method?To answer the above two questions,a seven-week-long empirical study was conducted among two parallel classes of Grade One students in Dongchong Senior High School in Shanwei City,Guangdong Province,with one class as the experimental class with multimodal vocabulary teaching method,the other control one with traditional pedagogy.Vocabulary tests,including pre-test,post-test and delayed post-test,questionnaire survey as well as interview were utilized to collect data for this study.The results show that: 1)Multimodal vocabulary teaching method contributes to improving students’ English vocabulary learning,especially their ability in vocabulary application.Moreover,it has a long-lasting positive influence on students’ vocabulary acquisition and strengthens their understanding and memorization of the newly-learnt vocabulary.2)Multimodal vocabulary teaching method creates a relaxing and pleasant classroom atmosphere,arouses students’ enthusiasm and passion in language learning,encourages students to be more actively engaged in class activities.Thus,it has a positive impact on students’ attitudes.However,in terms of word spelling,learner autonomy as well as cooperative learning,these still need to be improved in future.In line with the results of the study,implications have been provided to improve vocabulary teaching in regards to the use of multimodal theory.