What is Multimedia Learning?

     Educational technology and instructional design have notable impact on students’ motivation and commitment learning performance by reshaping various methods and strategies. As one of the innovative instructions that provide multidimensional aspects in learning, multimedia enables learners to practice contextually and go beyond blackboard by means of its quality and function as a medium of instruction. Specifically, having adequate vocabulary knowledge in a foreign language is one of the main determinants of how well learners speak as a requirement in mastering the four language skills; reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Generally, only words and their associated meanings in a text-only format are used to be presented to students as a traditional way of teaching in foreign language classrooms. However, with the development of technology, multimedia such as adding visual text, spoken text, and graphics on displays manages learners’ retention and comprehension of input.
 

 

      Rather than outdated traditional techniques or approaches, effective variety of the innovative instructions need to be adopted and supported if we would like to transform our classroom into an effective language learning environment. Teaching may be thought as an easy and a simple task, yet to be able to provide accurate and durable knowledge to the world of a learner is more sophisticated. However, the suggestive question is whether to be able to teach a language in an effective way making use of the innovative methods which fulfill the necessities of the time or with   outdated methods which hardly keeps up with dizzying changes of life. Therefore revolutionizing vocabulary teaching according to the necessities of the world based on the living language which finds a place in multimedia may play a crucial role.

 

      Vocabulary teaching seems to had been neglected - to use a colloquial expression-was left to take care of itself -for years and was of the secondary importance  after grammar due to the fact that  grammar was thought to be the core of the language competence and the ultimate goal of language teaching was seen to be able to produce grammatically correct sentences by  prominent methods of 1960s and 1970s.With the emergence of communicative methods, the focus of language teaching naturally shifted from being accurate to being intelligible. It is argued that knowing rules alone does not make any sense in terms of using language; in order to communicate, one first needs to know words, chunks and word patterns, in short lexical knowledge, and then the rules to put these words into meaningful order, that  is, grammatical competence. Therefore, both are indispensable and integrative part of language competence but considering the importance, it would not be wrong to say that lexical knowledge comes first and lies at the center of the ability to communicate effectively. If we clearly sum up with Wilkins’ (as cited in Donesch-Jezo, 2013) words, “Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”, so each is a component element supporting each other at the same platform.

 

      Learning vocabulary in the second language is a multidimensional process which requires gaining more than one aspect of knowledge about the word. Besides form and meaning, a L1 learner already possess the knowledge of L1 words; what they refer to, what they connotes, with what words they are linked, however, the L2 learner has to set up a new lexical construction by himself or herself or with the help of an instructor through explicit or implicit teaching and thus, the need of vocabulary teaching appears. However, how it should be done? For reasons beyond this scope of this discussion, we are not going to mention how vocabulary should be taught in detail but the point which related to our questions will be developing vocabulary through multimedia presentations.

      Also, the fact that students have  tendency dealing with new  technology while learning a language since they are surrounded with various kind of smart technology devices and these devices make them more motivated is  unquestionable. Therefore, they are expected to learn better when they are exposed to different teaching methods integrating technology such as multimedia learning tools and their language development will gain great acceleration. As it was aforementioned by Plass and Jones, the integration of second language acquisition theory and cognitive theories of multimedia learning needed to be conducted in different content areas (as cited in Samur, 2012, p. 166).

 

      In addition, the process of conducting new research on multimedia that used appropriately and effectively in design of instructional material can provide considerable benefits to instructional process of lessons in the field (Ariasdi, 2008). Zaim and Hum (2016) defines learning as a process of creating environment and relatively constant changes in behavior and skills so this environment is created by the elements that affect students’ learning. As it was defined by Anderson (2001), learning is a change in learner’s knowledge and this inevitable change in knowledge is described by instructional design (as cited in Mayer, 2008).

 

      Besides, learning outcomes are defined in learning objectives in instructional design, and these outcomes refer to change in one’s knowledge and knowing what students know is anticipated by an instructional designer. From Mayer’s paradigm of science of instruction, there are two classic ways of measuring learning outcomes, one is retention tests that aims to get what is taken away after giving instruction; which is basically refer to the skills in remembering, and transfer tests that measure understanding. Instruction works when the relevant material represented and integrated with relevant knowledge of learners. However, encouraging learners without overloading the capacity of verbal or pictorial channel is a challenge of educators and instructional designers. Mayer (2003) defines the key elements of science of instruction which are reducing extraneous processing, managing essential processing and fostering generative processing (Mayer, 2005; Sweller, 1999).

 

      In addition, it is beneficial to design learning materials depending on students’ learning styles, and presenting both on-screen text and narration is better than presenting in one way because of dual channels (Mayer et al, 2001). This processing of multimedia instruction is in the same line with the previous literature, and it is described as one of the efficient and effective way of instruction that develops self-paced learning and guides learners in sense making process by lowering the effort spent for the information being processed (Yamauchi, 2008). Thereby, multimedia presentations have been one of the widespread effective tools in the field of language education as a big wave of technological outcomes.

     

      Multimedia (MM) presentations as an instructional material are helpful to stimulate senses such as hearing and vision by means of mediums as text, images, animation or audio (Wang et al., 2011). In this taxonomy,  cognitive theory of multimedia learning (2002) describes eight principles based on evidences on researches in the field of education that guide educators axiology of designing instructional plans regarding to learners’ performance in developing certain skills rather than merely being a theory. The similar agreement comes from Mayer (2011) as he stresses the use of  multimedia as instructional material to foster learning and learning depends on cognitive processing that attributes relevant material and mental representation as well as integration of these with existed knowledge from long term memory (Mayer, 2008).

1.1  What is multimedia learning?

      Mayer (2008) also defines multimedia learning as learning from printed or spoken text and static or dynamic visuals such as diagram, chart, animation, video and so forth. Multimedia learning tools can be exemplified as narrated animation, Power Point presentations, and readings in a textbook, or educational video games. Basically, the word “multi” represents more than one form and the word “media” refers to the environment that is presented as a medium of instruction, so multimedia combines text, sound, picture and animation in a system   (Arkun&Akkoyunlu, 2008).

 

 

 

In addition, there are numerous evidence- based studies have proven that applying multimedia presentations in language teaching contributed individuals’ performance in developing vocabulary learning skills that assisted by pictures, sounds, and videos (Lu-Fuang Lin, 2010). Besides, practicing colorful images in text books and dictionaries and videos have certain amount of effectiveness in vocabulary learning regarding to learning styles of individuals. (Berk&Berk, 2017).

 

Furthermore, the previous study conducted at a university based on technology assisted learning and its outcomes reported the huge contribution of multimedia presentations in increasing participation and involvement in tasks in language classes (Schrand, 2008).

 

1.2 Framework of Multimedia Learning

Apart from valuable impact of applying multimedia presentation in language classes, one of the prominent characteristic of multimedia is embracing student centered approach referring to learners’ needs in designing instructional materials (Clark &Mayer, 2008). Principally, multimedia presentation deals with certain cognitive processes; selecting, organizing, and integrating so that the learners can create schemas and build the connections between verbal and visual channels in order to make meaningful chunks in working memory and build knowledge. The process of interactive multimedia for language learning is demonstrated in the following figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Framework of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2011)

 

As it is presented above, students figure out words and pictures from multimedia presentation and the words are received by ears and visuals are perceived by eyes. This process is called “selecting process” and those demonstrated “text and visuals” or “sound and images” are linked to the working memory and integrated in the memory. Terminally, learners integrate verbal and pictorial model as prior knowledge based on the input taught through multimedia learning.