Using Multimodal Methods in L2 Intonation Teaching for Chinese EFL Learners

The present study aims to investigate how multimodal training method contribute to the improvement of the L2 intonation produced by Chinese EFL learners. Altogether 75 learners with an English major background from 3 different dialectal regions of China are recruited. They are divided into 5 groups which differ from each other in training methods, which specifically are the control group (G1), group with sound for training only (G2), group with sound and after-training feedback (G3), group with both audio and visual material for training (G4), and the audiovisual training group with feedback (G5). The results show that although no significant improvement between learners' pretest and posttest for each group, still we observe that some of the learners in experiment groups score significantly higher in posttest than those in the control group, and among them, G5 is the best as the most cases of intonation are improved through the training. This indicates that multimodal + supervised training method is the most effective way in L2 intonation teaching in this experiment. Unobvious improvement of in the rest cases might due to the limited training time, which will be further ameliorated by a supplementary intensive training in this method.