An Empirical Study Of English Listening Teaching In High School Based On Multimodal Theory

The General High School English Curriculum Standards(2017)points out the ability to understand and express meaning in the three thematic contexts(man and self,man and society,and man and nature)by listening,speaking,reading,seeing,and writing.These are the specific language abilities proposed by the core literacy of the English subject.Among them,listening is at the top,which is the basis for effective communication among English learners and plays an extremely significant role.In the English test of College Entrance Examination,the total score of the listening test is 30 points,accounting for 20%.However,although there are some listening courses in senior high school,they are relatively few.There are also some disadvantages for students themselves to limit the improvement of their listening ability.Faced with these situations,this research is based on the Input Hypothesis and the Constructivist Theory,and studies the following three questions using experimental and questionnaire research methods:(1)Can the multimodal listening teaching method(audio & video modality and audio & image modality)improve the English listening ability of high school students?(2)What’s the changes of students’ English listening ability when the teacher adopts different modalities,including audio modality,audio & video modality and audio & image modality?(3)What’s the attitude that students have towards listening teaching based on multimodal theory?A ten-week teaching experiment was conducted with 120 students in three parallel classes in the first grade of a senior high school in Shouguang,Shandong Province.In the process of listening training,the control class A uses the audio modality,the experimental class B uses the audio & video modality,and the experimental class C uses the audio & image modality.The study found that :(1)Compared with the listening teaching of audio modality,the listening teaching of the audio & video modality and the audio & image modality can effectively improve students’ English listening ability.However,there are differences between them.The use of the audio & video modality has better impact on students’ English listening ability than the audio & image modality.(2)Different types of modal input have different effects on the listening ability of high school students.First of all,the audio modality has little effect on students’ listening ability.Secondly,when teachers use audio & video modality and audio & image modality for multimodal English listening teaching,students’ ability to understand facts and details and the ability to infer and judge are significantly improved,but there is no significant change in the students’ ability to understand the main ideas and to understand the viewpoints and attitudes.(3)Most students hold a positive attitude towards listening teaching under the guidance of multimodal theory and hope that the teachers can continue to adhere to this English listening teaching methods.Built on the experimental analysis,the author proposes the following suggestions on high school English listening teaching: First,in the process of high school English listening teaching,teachers should rationally design and use multi-modality for listening teaching.Teachers should use more audio & video modality and audio &image modality to present listening materials that can provide students with real language atmosphere and boost the students’ listening ability.Secondly,teachers should also actively explore other listening teaching methods to promote the overall improvement of high school students’ English listening ability.Lastly,students should strive to improve their own English literacy,cultivate good listening habits,master scientific listening strategies,participate in various and vivid listening activities,and take the multi-modal listening materials provided by the teacher seriously in order to improve their listening ability.