An Exploratory Study on Application of Multimedia Technology in College English Teaching and Learning

Nowadays, the application of multimedia technology is most widely used in College English teaching and learning in China. Considerable money had been invested to better the technical equipments, such as multimedia classroom, computers recently, which meet each student needs. The effectiveness of multimedia has been made obvious by many teachers and students, however, it remains a controversial issue. The advantages and disadvantages in the use of multimedia technology are always being argued. It seems urgent and necessary to evaluate this new teaching mode, so the writer designed a questionnaire to seek the students' attitudinal data concerning the multimedia effectiveness. The data collected from the subjects of 150 non-English majors students, using the Experiencing English learning system and College English Integrated Course (New Edition) on CD-ROM. After statistical analysis to the valid questionnaires, the results are as follows: the students prefer multimedia to traditional teaching mode which indicate it is useful and helpful; but they do not have multimedia as a worthwhile replacement of traditional teaching modes; they generally perceive the learning on the system effective, but it will have a long way to go and attain to maturity, because the complex relationships between the teachers and the courseware, the students and courseware should be coordinated, producing a compound object among the teacher-student as well as the courseware. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ICAPIE Organization Committee.