A Study On The Effects Of Vocabulary Presentation Methods Of Different Modality Combinations On English Vocabulary Learning Of Junior High School Students

Vocabulary learning plays an essential role in English learning,and an interesting and effective vocabulary teaching and learning method is in dire need.There are hot discussions on the way of presenting new vocabulary to students and many kinds of modalities and their combinations are considered.It is believed that the combination of several modalities is more conducive than a single modality,and the usefulness of videos and pictures in vocabulary learning are attested in many studies.However,few researchers compare the differences between the two modalities on vocabulary learning.It is quite obvious that a proper way of vocabulary presentation can exert a highly positive impact on students’vocabulary learning.Therefore,it is necessary to find out a better modality combination.In this study,the effectiveness and interest of videos and screenshots for vocabulary learning are compared.In order to make the comparison more scientific,we first determine the teaching videos and then make screenshots out of the same video.A series of screenshots is like a static video.In this way,the contents of these two modalities are the same,which better controls the latent variables.Given that it is not enough just to learn vocabulary by watching videos or screenshots,the glossaries are also provided to the students.Therefore,this study employs two groups,the VG（Videos plus Glossaries）group and the SG（Screenshots plus Glossaries）group,using videos and glossaries,and screenshots and glossaries respectively.Four research questions are designed in this study:（1）What is the difference in the effects of VG and SG on target word spelling for junior high school students?（2）What is the difference in the effects of VG and SG on target word meaning for junior high school students?（3）What is the difference in the effects of VG and SG on target word usage for junior high school students?（4）What is the difference in the effects of VG and SG on vocabulary learning interest for junior high school students?The first three questions are designed to compare the effectiveness of VG and SG on vocabulary learning,and the fourth question is about students’ opinions on the interest of the two modality combinations.This study uses the combined method of qualitative and quantitative analysis.A vocabulary test is adopted to identify if there is any difference between the effects of VG and SG on students’ vocabulary learning performance,and a questionnaire and an interview are used to investigate students’views upon videos and screenshots in vocabulary learning,with a main focus on the interest of videos and screenshots and the influence on students’vocabulary learning interest.According to the results of the vocabulary pre-test,there is no significant difference between the VG group and the SG group in terms of the scores of word spelling,word meaning,word usage as well as the total scores of the vocabulary test.The results of vocabulary post-test show that there is no significant difference between VG and SG with regard to word spelling learning,while SG plays a significantly better role in improving students’ vocabulary learning performance than VG in terms of word meaning,word usage and the whole vocabulary learning score.According to the results of the questionnaire and the interview,although videos are generally considered by students of the two groups to be more interesting and appealing than screenshots.Nevertheless,screenshots are also thought to be interesting and desirable in improving students’ vocabulary learning performance and vocabulary learning interest.The effectiveness of SG is attested in this study and the modality of screenshots can be used in further research including vocabulary teaching and learning.In addition,the attraction of videos to students is also affirmed in the study and they can be used to stimulate students’ interest and participation in the class.Therefore,teachers can use the two modalities more often and try to make the best use of them.Editors can think about designing videos and comic books of the textbooks as supporting materials to offer more help to teachers in their teaching.