Literature Review 范例

A Literature Review of An Empirical Study of

Multimodal Teaching Model in

Middle School English Listening Teaching in a Multimedia Context

In recent years, the theories of multimodal discourse and multimodality have gained many scholars’ attention. Many researchers study them and try to apply multimodal teaching to middle schools’ teaching. And nowadays, many famous language scholars are trying their best to do the empirical study on the multimodal teaching.

As a matter of fact, many noted researchers have made a brief definition of multimodality. “Multimodality means the combination of different semiotic modes---for example, language and music---in a communicative artifact or event” (Kress & Leeuwen 1996: 281). “Multimodality refers to the diverse ways in which a number of distinct semiotic resource system are both codeployed and cocontextualized in the making of a text-specific meaning” (Baldry & Thibault 2006: 21).

Since the 1990s of last century, the multimodal teaching approach has drawn the researchers’ and the teachers’ attention in abroad. As a matter of fact, the term “multimodal” was put forward by the New London Group in 1990, and it was the first time for people to hear this term. Then a book called Reading Image which systematically established the analysis model of social semiotic multimode (Kress & Leeuwen 1996: 68). In this book, it is first time to explain the grammar designed by vision systematically and survey the way that the pictures transmit the meaning. The author also quoted many examples to explain, such as child drawing, text-cut, camera pictures, and so on. This book supplies a very valuable theoretical instrument.

The development of the research of the multimodal discourse and text gives a strong supporting for the evolution of multimodal teaching. Unsworth posed the

foundational theoretical knowledge of important textbook. He believed the teacher should have the knowledge of vision and discourse grammar and the ability of the computer assisted learning which can meet the requirements of teaching with the newly-minted electronic texts and images (Unsworth 2001). The book Perspectives on Multimodality which published in 2004 gave a guide to the multimodal research and the construction of the multimodal theory (Ventola & Charles 2004). In this book, the author carefully explained the multimodal discourse theory and the methodological problem, such as the levels of the modes, the source of the mode symbols, and the annotation of the database of six multimodal discourses. In another book, The Multimodal Discourse Analysis which was mainly edited by Halloran in 2004, the author collected the leading-edge research that is the production of multimodal text and discourse through two or even more models of symbolic communication and connection, such as the language, dynamic and static visual images, architecture and three-dimensional bodies (Halloran 2004). They are a series of case studies which use the framework of systemic-functional grammar to research how the meaning produces.

From what have been mentioned above, the research on multimodality indicates a great increasing in abroad. There are many well-known researchers study multimodality and multimodal teaching. Moreover, the attempts to the application of multimodality to education have been carried out more systematically and scientifically.

Scholars in China also did many experiments and researches in recent years. The introducer of domestic multimodality theory, Professor Gu Yueguo, has constructed a multimodal language database in 1993. In his point of view, “multimodality” is based on 20 sense organs that human owns. In the face to face communication, the facial expression, expression in eyes, gesture, posture, body language and clothes are likely revealed the message. During the teaching, the teachers try their best to mobilize all of the students’ sense organs to experience the teaching activities, and interact with the teachers (顾曰国 2007: 3-12). Professor Hu Zhuanglin in Peking University pointed

out that people can draw the support from various ways and modalities to exchange and deal with various messages when they are interacting with others. This is meaning making and delivering (胡壮麟 2006: 1-10). As the matter of fact, language is multimodal. The famous scholar Zhang Delu mentioned that multimodal communication can make the listeners receive message by various ways, and it makes listeners understand and remember things easier than single- mode in Preliminary Investigation into the Concept of Design and the Selection of Modalities in Multimodal Foreign Language Teaching (张德禄 2010: 48-53). Long Feiyu and Zhao Pu believed that different kinds of modality can converse into others reciprocally, so that multimodal teaching has a great effect on the language learning (龙飞宇 赵璞 2009: 58-62).

Based on the theories of multimodal teaching, Zeng Qinmin conducted an experiment and a survey to explore the efficacy of this mode in the video-aural-oral course. Through the results of the test, she found that multimodal teaching is proved to be effective in improving students’ listening and speaking skills as well as their ability to do autonomous listening tasks, and that teaching mode also had a positive impact on the students’ attitudes towards English study (曾庆敏 2011: 72-76). Liu Rongjun conducted a teaching test in Beijing University of Technology, which based on the impact of single-mode and multimodal listening teaching under different speed levels on listening comprehension and the output of students of different levels. Then she analyzed the results of the test, and she found that multimodal teaching has an obvious effect on the development of listening ability (刘荣君 2011: 133-135). Xie Jingxian and Dong Jianqiao made an analysis on teaching college English listening that based on multimedia and multimodal teaching and learning. In this paper, they gave the definition of “listening” first, and then they analyzed how to choose the listening materials and how to design the listening tasks under a multimedia and multimodal context (谢竞贤 董剑桥 2010: 9-13).

This research first applies multimodal teaching model to middle school English listening teaching in a multimedia context, and the author conducts a two months’ teaching experiment in Hefei No. 45 Middle School so that to get convinced results. This research may not only provide a new teaching model for some English teachers

to teach English listening better, but also to teach English speaking, reading and writing preferably.

Bibliography

[1]Baldry, A. & P. J. Thibault. 2006. Multimodal Transcription and Text Analysis: A

Multimodal Toolkit and Course book [M], London: Equinox Publishing Limited.

[2]Halliday, M. A. K. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of

Language and Meaning [M], London: Edward Arnold.

[3]Halloran, K. 2004. Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Systemic-Functional

Perspectives [M], London: Continuum.

[4]Kress, G. & T. V. Leeuwen. 1996. Reading Image: The Grammar of Visual Design

[M], London: Arnold.

[5]Unsworth, L. 2001. Teaching Multiliteracies Across the Curriculum: Changing

Contexts of Text and Image in Classroom Practice [M], Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.

[6]Ventola, E. & C. Charles. 2004. Perspectives on Multimodality [M], London:

Oxford University Press.

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