An Investigation Into The Current Situation Of The Application Of The Multimodal Teaching Mode In English Vocabulary Teaching In Middle School

The primary unit of language is vocabulary.English expression and communication can be achieved through vocabulary mostly.Vocabulary learning is always a part of the whole process of learning English.The number and difficulty of vocabulary in English textbooks in middle schools has increased dramatically with the establishment of the New English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education.Traditional teaching methods are no longer sufficient to pique students’ interest in learning English.Consequently,rich and varied modern educational technologies have come to schools.Teachers have tried to combine new multimedia technologies with vocabulary teaching,and the multimodal teaching mode is beginning to shine in vocabulary teaching.The multimodal theory first appeared in Western countries at the turn of the twenty-first century,and it was quickly adopted into the classroom instruction.The multimodal teaching mode,which is characterized by multiple modalities such as language,text,pictures,sound,video and body movements different from the traditional teaching mode.It stimulates the learners’ senses,motivates their interests in learning,and make full use of multimodality to enliven the classroom atmosphere so that learners can learn actively in a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere.Up to now,the multimodal theory has been progressively applied in the field of language teaching and learning,and has led to a number of achievements.Hence,it is of some certain theoretical and practical significance to probe the application of the multimodal teaching mode of instruction in English vocabulary in the middle schools,with a view to providing broader teaching ideas and better teaching strategies for foreign language teaching,especially for the teaching of English vocabulary.This paper analyzes the use of the multimodal teaching mode of instruction in teaching English vocabulary in middle school,supported by systemic functional linguistics and multimodal discourse analysis theories.This study will focus on the following questions.1.What is the current situation of multimodal teaching mode in teaching English vocabulary in the targeted middle school?2.What are the students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning based on the multimodal teaching mode?This study was conducted with 5 classes in each of Grade 7 and Grade 8 in a middle school in Wuhan,with a total of 10 classes,526 students and 4 English teachers.The researcher uses the research methods of classroom observation,questionnaire and interview to test the research subjects.Firstly,the author learns about the current situation of vocabulary teaching of English teachers in the school by observing the classes.It remains 16 weeks.Questionnaires are then distributed to students in the observed classes to collect data on their attitudes towards the multimodal vocabulary teaching mode and the traditional vocabulary teaching mode.Then the questionnaires are entered into SPSS 26.0 for processing and analysis.Finally,interviews are conducted with the teachers of the observed classes to find out their views and suggestions on the multimodal teaching mode.The results of the study shows that students approve of the use of the multimodal teaching mode in vocabulary teaching and affirm the positive effects of the traditional vocabulary teaching mode on memorization and writing during the process of the vocabulary leaning as well.Students believe that the multimodal teaching mode can stimulate their interests in learning vocabulary and increase their motivations to learn.It also shows that multi-sensory stimulation helps students to better understand the forms and meanings of vocabulary,deepen their impression of vocabulary and strengthen their ability to use it.The results of the teachers’ interviews reflect that students’ lack of interest in vocabulary learning is the most problematic aspect of teaching vocabulary.Teachers tend to adopt the multimodal teaching mode to teaching vocabulary,with linguistic,auditory,visual and paralinguistic modalities being involved in vocabulary teaching.Overall,teachers agree that the multimodal teaching mode was worth promoting in vocabulary teaching.However,based on the classroom observation,the author finds the main problems with vocabulary teaching in the multimodal teaching mode as following: 1.some students rely too much on multimodality;2.students’ attention is easily disturbed;3.some students lack of the awareness of learning in a multimodal teaching mode4.teachers lack the ability to organize and control the class in the multimodal teaching mode;5.teachers lack experience in multimodal teaching;6.teachers lack experience in multimodal teaching instructional design;7.teachers are relatively inflexible in choosing the combination of modalities.Based on the above findings,the author proposes the key improvement strategies as following: 1.students need to enhance the qualities and improve the adaptability;2.students continue to improve the self-control and self-discipline;3.students should increase the awareness of self-learning;4.teachers increase the ability of the classroom management and organization;5.teachers improve the multimodal teaching design skills;6.teachers should strengthen the multimodal teaching practice;7.teachers pay attention to the coordination and reasonable use of multiple modalities,and emphasize the logic and rationality of mode selection.It is expected that the findings of this paper will help teachers to improve their approaches of vocabulary teaching and provide some practical suggestions for enhancing the efficiency of vocabulary teaching.