Chapter One Introduction
Along with the significant expansion and increased use of information andcommunication technologies, multimedia facilities have been widely employed ineducation field especially in classroom settings. As a result, Computer-assistedinstruction (CAI) challenges education, especially in the field of language learningand teaching.With the popularity of multimodal discourse communication，the research on ithas become a hot topic in the international language field since the end of the 20thcentury. Classroom instruction is completed by a variety of modes, which includesspace, gesture, gaze, kinesics, movement, voice, accent, music, three-dimensionalthings, spoken and written language, graphics, tables, pictures, animation,etc.(Jewitt,2009:14)[1]With language dominating, the other non-verbal means playsan role of assistance, intensification and supplement to some extent. So, it is far fromcomprehensive to do the research only from language itself, the researchers mustexplore the construction process of classroom discourse combining language withother modes.The year of 2011 has witnessed the eighth revised in National EnglishCurriculum Standards for Common Senior High School which aimed to promotestudents overall language ability.[2]It points out that language teaching is no longeraimed only for developing language skills and knowledge, but expanded todeveloping learners’ positive attitude, motivation, confidence as well as strategies forlife-long learning along with cross-cultural knowledge, awareness and capabilities.[3]Here put the questions in front of all teachers. How to meet the requirements of theNew Curriculum Standards and to make the class teaching efficient? Of course it requires teachers to focus on updating their teaching skills basing on the newrequirements. New Curriculum Standard advocates task-based teaching ， andemphasizes the communicative function of language，and puts forward to newdemands on instruction proficiency of English teachers. Teachers’ instruction plays avital role in the organization of classroom teaching and language acquisition process.Therefore, it is essential to investigate and analyze the multimodal teaching situationin high school English classroom basing on the New Curriculum.Therefore, it is urgent for us to investigate and analyze English classroomteaching instructions in senior high school from the multimodal perspective and bymeans of multimodal theory. Over the years in China, foreign language teaching has been emphasized on thecontent and result, the course of teaching itself can not be paid enough attention to,and the systematic investigation and study are even rarely scarce. At present, teachershave not paid good attention to the quantity, quality, content and form of multimodalclassroom discourse. Most of the English teachers' teaching language is very casual,they can’t design and organize their teaching from a reasonable standpoint basing ongrounded theory, or they are lack of knowledge and sensitivity in the effective use ofmultimedia facilities.Therefore, it is significant to do the research and analysis on the situation ofpresent multimodal teaching in the English class of senior high school, which helpsEnglish teachers of senior high school to know how the multimodal discourse is muchmore beneficial to the students' language acquisition as well as the development oftheir learning strategies. And it also provides an important basis and revelation for theimprovement and evaluation of teaching, and teacher training.Taking the opportunity of deepening the reform on the New Curriculum, thisproject aims to analyze and study the classroom discourse of high school teacher frommultimodal perspective, and combining modern educational theories with otherrelated theories of English teaching. Hopefully, this thesis has both theoretical andpractical significant.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Main Term Definitions
Multimodal has emerged as a term out of studies published in just last decade orso. It arose out of the academic composition of the New London Group due to thetechnological advancement.The new London group argued that communication is not limited to one moderealized through one medium. Rather, as a result of digitization, all modes can now berealized through a single binary code, and the medium of the screen is becoming theprimary site where multiple modes can be composed to make meaning in dynamicways. As Kress and Van Leeuwen stated:[1]Media are the material resources used in the production of semioticproducts and events, including both the tools and materials used (e.g. themusical instrument and air; the chisel and the block of wood). They usuallyare specifically produced for this purpose, not only in culture(ink, paint,cameras, computers),but also in nature(our vocal apparatus)…Onlyeventually, as the particular medium gains in social importance, will moreabstract modes of regulation (“grammars”) develop, and the medium willbecome a mode.( Kress and Van Leeuwen; 2001:22)Multimodality calls for at least two response modalities to present information whichcould be visual, auditory and tactile, etc (Baber, 2001). Human interaction with theworld is inherently multimodal (Bunt et al., 1998; Quek et al., 2002). We employmultiple senses, both sequentially and in parallel, to passively and actively exploreour environment, to confirm anticipation about the world and to perceive newmessage. We perceive external stimuli through sight, smell, hearing, and touch, andwe sense our internal kinesthetic state through our body and its other parts. A given sensing modality may be used to simultaneously estimate several useful properties ofone’s environment, for example, audio cues may be used to determine a speaker’sidentity and location, to recognize the speaker’s words and interpret the prosody ofthe utterance, to estimate the size and other characteristics of the surrounding physicalspace and to identify other characteristics of the environment and simultaneous giveus a wealth of information to support interaction with the world and with one another.All discourse is inherently multimodal; hence it is not possible to achieve acomplete understanding of spoken discourse unless both linguistic and non-linguisticfeatures are jointly analyzed. Multimodality contains design process which means acontinuous choice of semiotics, and it is a multimodal form of communication whichcan be represented and studied in systematic way. Classroom instruction is accomplished by a variety of modes, which includesspace, gesture, gaze, kinesics, movement, voice, accent, music, three-dimensionalthings, spoken and written language, graphics, tables, pictures and animation,etc.(Jewitt,2009:14)[1]With language dominating, the other non-verbal means playsan role of assistance, intensification and supplement to some extent. It is far fromcomprehensive to do the research only from language itself; the researchers mustexplore the construction process of classroom discourse combining language withother modes.Multimodal Teaching in this study refers to a teaching progress during which avariety of multiple modes chose and employed simultaneously by teacher to achieveteaching objectives, which includes space, gesture, gaze, kinesics, movement, voice,accent, music, three-dimensional things, spoken and written language, graphics, tables,pictures, and animation, etc.In language instruction, teachers have to make choice about which modes to useand how to develop a concept or content that will be realized or expressed throughone or more media in classroom settings. A language instructor may bear teaching material and teaching objectives in ones mind which influence his multimodal designand choosing.
2.2 Multimodality Studies Abroad
The late 1970’s has witnessed the initial exploration of multimodal discourse ofwestern scholars. At that time, the two branches, Discourse Analysis and TextLinguistics, of the study on discourse analysis had been integrated into one anddeveloped into critical discourse analysis based on systematic functional grammar ofM.A.K.Halliday as theory foundation, which aims to analyze the relations of surfacemodality and deep social structure of discourse.[1]Representative of critical discourse analysis such as Kress &van Leeuwen in thelate 1980’s and beginning of 1990’s,[2]basing on former scholars findings, shifted thestudy focus from language to non-verbal factors which stress the contribution to thecontext by all modalities jointly that including body language, image, music, tone,architecture etc. since then, the study of social semiotics became an independentdiscipline, as a result, the scope of discourse analysis has spread to dynamicmultimodal context such as video clip, cartoon and background music etc. rather thanstatic text and image the in the early stage.The representative works during this period were such as: O’Toole(1994) tried toanalysis visual illustration by using the theory of systematic functional grammar byM.A.K.Halliday at the first time.[3]The most great contributors Kress & vanLeeuwen(1996) completed their significant work by constructing grammar frameworkof visual illustration analysis which takes “representative” meaning, “interactive”meaning and “compositional” meaning as core relations. Two yeas later,Lemke(1998b) had a deep discussion on the relations of images and text inmultimodal context.[4] In 2002, the first International Conference of Multimodal Discourse was held inSalzburg, the capital city of Austria, followed by the publication of the conferenceproceedings Perspectives on Multimodality. Such international conference ofmultimodality theme holds every other year in different countries by turns. Scholarsfrom all over the world come together focusing on topic of multimodality and relevantfields and related questions. Multimodality has spread it theory to semiotics of gesturelanguage, multimodal teaching, movie, computer and internet discourse, andmultimedia. And the achievements have generally applied in education, medical,architecture, culture, film and television and advertisement field, etc.In recent years, scholars within the circle of Systemic Functional Linguisticsshowed a strong interest, firstly, in the meaning making potentials of multiple modesof meaning representations such as Kress & van Leeuwen(1996), O’Halloran(1999),Royce(1998), Martinec and Salway(2005). They focused on the relationship betweendifferent modes of signs and how the integration of them to make meaning, that ismultimodality studies; secondly, they showed also a strong interest in how the usingof varieties of multiple modes influence the teaching and learning of language, that iscalled multiliteracy studies(New London Group, 1996).[2]Let’s extend our discussion on literature review by reviewing two relatively newstrand of research within SFL, that is, multimodality and multiliteracy.At the present century, the boom of multimodal discourse studies brought outinnumerable great achievements. Multimodal discourse analysis has been applied tolanguage instruction, designing of website layout, film and television, architectureproject and publication etc. And it has been tightly connected with media study,psychology, law, philosophy, and aesthetics. Microsoft PowerPoint, as the most typical carrier of multimodality, has the mostpopular application in Chinese educational institutions and it also caused manyscholars attentions. It has become the dominant teaching tool to facilitatecommunication in classroom setting been widely used in different levels of Englishteaching covers from high school to college English despite its shortcomings. That isthe reason we have to expand our discussion on its history and progress to someextent.Harry (1997) concluded that the new technologies open new possibilities for theeducational process by trying a combination of cooperative learning and presentationsoftware in chemistry class.[6]Fisher(2003) present some issues of the PowerPointcourseware assistant teaching in ESL class; Nouri & Shahid(2005) explored thecorrelation of students’ learning enthusiasm and memory when instruct on theoreticalknowledge by using PowerPoint courseware.As one form of multimodality, PowerPoint courseware are used to achieve kindsof teaching objectives, for example, the purposes for practice and drilling, games,reviews and for tests. There are consistent debates on whether PowerPoint coursewarehelps or hinder students learning. Many scholars hold the positive attitude towards theeffectiveness of PowerPoint courseware or other computer-aided tool in the classroom (Anderson, 1987; Bartsch & cobernb, 2003).Several studies showed that graphics in PowerPoint courseware improve studentrecall. For example, ChanLin(2000) found that graphic and animation setting werebetter than the control in learning descriptive facts in the low prior-knowledge group;while in the high prior-knowledge group, only the animation group was better than thecontrol in learning descriptive facts.[1]While Bartlett (2000) examined a decrease in student performance when theinstructor switched from transparencies to PowerPoint.[2]Lately, Bartsch & Cobernb(2003) found that students performed worse on quizzes when PowerPointpresentations included non-text items such as pictures and sound effects.[3]Theyconcluded in their study that PowerPoint can beneficial, but material that is notpertinent (have high relevance to) to the presentation can be harmful to students’learning.Teachers choose PowerPoint courseware could be complex with tables, pictures,graphs, sound effects, visual effects, and video clips etc; while it can be as simple ashaving only text on a colored screen. Several researchers (Moreno & Mayer, 2000)found that irrelevant sounds, interesting but extraneous text, and irrelevant picturescan reduce comprehension.[4]The PowerPoint courseware assistant teaching does have its merits and demerits.But the multimodality studies lack a coherent theoretical framework. And teacherswho apply multimodal teaching lack a founded knowledge of theory towardmultimodal choosing and designing.Multimodal interaction methods applied to learning environments of the Englishlanguage from the use of adapted mobile phones or PDAs. T.Magal.Royo,etc,(2012)made the first analysis of English language learning on a multimodal experimentalplatform at the academic level.
CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK......................................... 17
3.1 MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS THEORIES ............................. 17
3.2 FRAMEWORK OF MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ......................... 17
CHAPTER FOUR METHODOLOGY ................................. 21
4.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ........................... 21
4.2 PARTICIPANTS ........................................... 21
4.3 INSTRUMENTS............................... 22
CHAPTER FIVE FINDINGS DISCUSSION ......................... 365
61 QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS AND ANALYSIS ..................................... 36
Chapter Five Findings Discussion
5.1 Questionnaire Results and Analysis
1) The present situation on multimodal teaching in senior high school Englishclass299 of the students, occupies 80.2% of all participants, confirmed thatmultimodal teaching such as PowerPoint courseware, multimedia, sketches and bodylanguage have been applied frequently in their English class. 60.1% of all studentsexpressed their positive attitude of using PowerPoint assist teaching in English class;while 7.8% of the students showed objective using it and 32.2% of them not sureabout their attitude.We can see both from the questionnaires of teachers and students that the top twowelcomed multimodal lesson type are warming up and writing, and multimodalteaching is most frequently applied in warming up class. In this case, but there are50.1% of students complained the comparatively dull of the teaching methods whichmake them feel boring.2) Students attitude towards teacher’s multimodal teachingMost of the students admit that pictures, video and text could help their betterunderstand the language point to some extent; while still 30.3% of the students preferteachers’ handwriting to electronic text.From independent sample T-test，we can see that students attitude vary from classto class. As a result we may conclude that the effectives of the multimodal teachingvary from teacher to teacher.3) The influence of multimodal teaching on students’ English learning.There are 43.2% of students find that the multimodal teaching promote theirautonomous English learning outside the classroom. 61.7% of the students stated thatthey acquire English through English learning website, 31.9% choose movie and cartoons, 6.2% prefer listen to English songs.And 67.8% of the students express that the interaction between teachers andstudents and students and students maximize their participancy in classroom activities.Multimodal teaching model is represented by PowerPoint courseware assistantteaching, blackboard writing, teacher gesture, facial expression, etc., which is muchmore welcome than the traditional teaching model, on the other hand, it mainlydepends on teacher’s instruction, which we also got the result from independentsample T-test that students attitude vary from class to class towards their teacher’seffectives of the multimodal teaching. Among all participant teachers, there are 61.3% graduated with bachelor degreemajored in English education, 37.3% have master degree majored in Englisheducation, only 1.3% with other majors.1) the present situation of multimodal teaching applied in English class fromteachers’ point of view79.7% of the teachers design the multimodal teaching by themselves, only 4.3%prepare lessons collaborate in team workshop and 16% download from internetresources. 60% of the teachers reported they need more than one hour preparing aforty minutes lesson and they think that the lack of relevant theoretical guidance andtraining contribute to the major factors of the application of multimodal teaching,while most of the teacher reported never had chance to attend an in-service training.26.7% of the teachers have no knowledge on that the different social distancessuch as public distance, unity interactive distance and interpersonal distanceconveying different affections to students.2) teachers’ attitude towards multimodal teaching66.7% of the teachers think that the multimodal teaching promote studentslearning to some extent.62.7% of the teachers express their wishes to attending on-job training whichcould be organized by school or educational organization and 25.3% would like tolearn from other teachers through collaborate lesson planning; only 6.7 choose to listen to the advice from students.3) Teachers’ knowledge about multimodal instructionAs far as teachers theoretical knowledge about multimodal, 44% teacher reportthey select material and design the multimodal lesson taking the students intoconsideration firstly; while 56% teachers think that the content the text book comes inthe first place. It is worthy our attention that 32.7% of teachers reported that they havenever heard of the term of “multimodal analysis”; only 10.7% of the teachers havesome knowledge on it to some extent.22.7% of the teachers have never heard of teachers’ cooperation in lessonplanning and development of teacher community which is an effective way of teacherdevelopment overseas
5.2 Interview Results and Findings
1) the present situation on multimodal teaching in senior high school EnglishclassFour of the students from senior Grade Three reported that their teachers morefrequently adopted multimodal teaching such as PowerPoint courseware teaching,interactive activities, etc at senior Grade One and Grade Two than at Grade Three.And they are sure that the learning atmosphere is more relaxing and they are quiteenjoyable at the time of Grade One and Grade Two. There are more lessons ofgrammar and exercises when they are at Grade Three.Half of the interviewed students suggested that it is not necessary to usemultimodal teaching in senior Grade Three, for they think there are a lot of practice oflanguage points and examinations.2) students’ attitude towards teacher’s multimodal teachingThe purpose of learning English affects student’s attitude towards multimodalteaching. Some (from Grade 1) like all these modalities for they think that the use ofmultimode is eye catching and it could offer a relaxing learning environment, some(from Grade 3) disprove the use of PowerPoint courseware as lecture courseware in some kind of lessons such as grammar and exercises, they appreciate printed materialsand blackboard writing for they think that using of multimodality is flowery and timewasting rather than practical;3) the influence of multimodal teaching on students’ English learningStudents’ opinions vary when being asked about their preferences to pure texts,pictures, audio and video. Most of the students like video most which contains visualand audio modes. They agree that video is attractive and interesting. One of thestudents from Grade 3 reported he prefers pure texts to other modes.Different personalities of students show different expectations on teacher bodylanguage. They largely prefer teachers’ moving around in classroom rather thankeeping in a place. Reported to be self-abasement Student1 stated that she prefers thatteacher may keep her away when she is answering questions.All of the students have reported that inefficient gestures and expressions willadd difficulty to their comprehension, and they may think the teacher is passionlessand the class is dull. While too much expressions and gestures may cause easily tiredand they have an impression on the teacher of less trust and authority. But theyreported the above situations occurred sometimes.4) existing problemsAll the students reported that bold, italic and color variance of text onPowerPoint courseware could stress the important points. But they also pointed outthat color variance of text cannot be seen clearly from the different angle of classroom,which happens occasionally.The entertainment of the video may distract their learning concentration bycausing discussion and laughter among students. They are not sure if the multimodalteaching enhances their performance in English examination although they all agreethat the multimodal teaching do facilitate their learning to some extent. And they thinkthe decisive point in learning English lies in themselves consistently practice ratherthan the way the teaching is used. The all reported that the multimodal teaching maypromote their interactions.5) students’ expectationsThe interviewed students gave different suggestions to the multimodal teaching. The self-reported excellent in English wished to have the text as the primary mode inlecture slides. Four of the students have detected incoherence in teachers’ instructionand called for less download from internet, they prefer teachers’ authentic work.Most of the students reported their expected English teachers’ role not just as acontroller but as an organizer, a participant and a resource provider or other shiftingroles at times.
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Chapter Six Conclusion
6.1 Summary of the Major Findings
The findings suggest that the results of multimodal investigation entail a greatdemand of time and efforts, which is worthwhile. The research enabled us to interpretthe multimodal teaching from a broader perspective, i.e. the students’ standpoints,possibly closer to the real situation on multimodal teaching in senior high school,showing the significant role that multimodality such as PowerPoint coursewareteaching, paralinguistic and kinesics features play in the classroom discourse.(1)The call for students-oriented teaching as stated in the National EnglishCurriculum is yet to be literally carried out.It is noted that Multimodality has been generally applied in English instructionof senior high school. Whereas the extents of the application are quite different inGrade One, Grade Two and Grade Three for there seemly are more exercises andexaminations for both students and teachers when entering Grade Three. The teachingpractice has being oriented by college entrance examination; as a result, it hasinfluenced the application of multimodal teaching. The above points are all displayedin questionnaires, classroom observations particularly in face-to-face interviews.(2) The purpose of learning English affects student’s attitude towards multimodalteaching.Multimodal teaching is more popular than the traditional one among students ofGrade One and Grade Two but not of Grade Three. Exam-oriented students disprovethe use of PowerPoint courseware as lecture courseware in some kind of lessons suchas grammar and exercises lessons, they appreciate printed materials and blackboardwriting because they think that using of multimodality is flowery and time wastingrather than practical;It is controversial that majority of students reported they enjoy the multimodalclass and at the same time they state their English class is relatively boring which maybe explained by the inapropriciated use of multimodalities in class settings. (3) Students’ different personalities show different expectations on teacher bodylanguage. Inefficient gestures and expressions from teachers will add difficulty totheir comprehension.Teachers’ body language, facial expression or gestures etc., as resources ofparalanguage with language, serve jointly to achieve classroom communication,which possess the same important position as language or as the dominating mode.Actually, it is yet been laid enough value on it by teachers. And the students havereported improper use of these paralanguage occasionally which cause tiring andconfusing among them sometimes. Such as inefficient gestures and expressions willadd difficulty to their comprehension, and they may think the teacher is passionlessand the class is dull. And too much expressions and gestures may cause easily tiredand they have an impression on the teacher of less trust and authority. They largelyprefer teachers’ moving around in classroom rather than keeping in a place.(4) Multimodal teaching in some way activates classroom atmosphere andenhances the students’ interest in learning, enhances the maintenance of students’memory in class, strengthens students’ autonomous learning ability after classes andpromotes their participation in classroom activities. However it has not beenconfirmed that whether it will help improve the students’ academic performance.The shifting from one mode to another intensifies learners’ internalization overhis learning in a way to enhance the maintenance of his memory. When the modalityshifting happens, it will activate the students prior knowledge thus to obtain Englishlearning efficiency. It is an important learning way to direct learning throughpracticing by visual interacts with visual media.Multimodal teaching strengthens students’ autonomous learning ability afterclasses. Most of the students acquire English through English learning website in theirafter-class time. Their learning approaches vary from movie, cartoons, English songsand English magazines etc.(5) The teachers’ ability to render multimodal design is unstable because they donot understand and familiarize them with multimodal discourse analysis theory.Most of the teachers design and choose multi-modal teaching basing oninpidual experiences, which are lack of technical support and related theoretical guidance, and to some extent, lead to blind and random multi-modal design; Englishteachers of Senior High School can operate multimedia such as PowerPointcourseware to some degree. However, their multimodal designing and specific modeschoose are out of their personal experiences and intuitions, if not being well trained orequipped with enough theory knowledge such as the principles of colors collocation,delivery of message and interface layout as in psychology of education, etc.(6) Teacher’s cooperation in lesson planning is yet common practice in seniorhigh school.Majority of the teachers do not have any idea of development of teachercommunity, they think that designing lesson cooperatively is impractical. Whereas allthe teachers reported that multimodal designing is very time-consuming and they havea very heavy burden of workloads.
6.2 Pedagogical Implications
The implication of this study comes from the analysis of questionnaires,interviews and classroom observations which are directed to pedagogy.An excellent teacher not only is specialized in using one’s language wheninstructing, but also good at using all possible communicative semiotics to achieveteaching objectives skillfully. But how can our teachers take advantage of thosemultiple channel semiotics skillfully? What shall we do to help teachers equippedwith the knowledge about the potential meaning of the multimodalities?1) There should be more policies and guidelines to support students-orientedteaching practice, as it is stated in the National English Curriculum for senior highschool, which is the only way to prevent the students-oriented teaching practice frombeing an empty slogan. Reducing the degree of examination pressure for both studentsand teachers is a top priority.Educational administrators may support various teacher-training programs for itsteachers’ as much as possible. Consistent on-job training may help promote teacherslevel of multimodal designing. Such as Reading Salon, teacher-training programs insummer or winter holiday as awards for teachers. The training of technical use ofmultimedia for elder teachers in school also can be held at times. 2) To promote the practice of teacher’s cooperatively lesson planning, as oneform of professional development of teacher community, we need supports fromeducation authorities, experienced teachers as well as students. It may be a possibleand effective way to put forward the professional development in the teachers’community by emphasizing the role of a team leader, as a result, to set up thesuccessful team as a demonstration.3) Sincerely listen to our students and value their opinions and suggestions. It iscontroversial that majority of students report they enjoy the multimodal class and atthe same time they state their English class is relatively boring. It may be explainedby the inapropriciated use of multimodalities in class settings. It is helpful to changeour multimodal design for suiting student’s demands.Only when we cope properly with the relations of multimedia and the input andoutput of multimodal teaching can we say we will have an optimizing teaching effectby taking advantages of multimodalities.
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