Nowadays many schools take the Japanese language as the second language, although there are similarities in the writing of the Japanese and Chinese language, the student’s learning outcomes are a challenge for the teacher. This study is to explore the effect of multimedia principles (multimedia, temporal contiguity) in slides on students’ attitude and retention towards Japanese vocabulary among 10-grade students in Chinese rural areas. Using quasi-experimental research to form an experiment group and control group for 10 weeks. 90 participants have randomly selected sampling from Wucuan town, Zunyi city, Guizhou province. 5 Likert-scale questionnaire was used to collect the students’ attitudes and binary tests for the students’ retention. All the data were sorted out and input into the SPSS 26 version for description and inferential analysis. The results showed the students’ attitude and retention in EG are significantly different than the CG. Reveal the multimedia and temporal contiguity principles are a benefit to the students. Multimedia and contiguity principles used in the slides can change attitudes toward learning Japanese vocabulary and improve students’ retention.

This study aims to use the Problem-based Learning (PBL) method associated with social constructivism to enhance student readiness and achievement for high school English in online learning in China. Considering those in the context of the pandemic, teaching is shifting to online but lacking in more effective interaction. This pedagogy is applied in quasi-experiment research in Guiyang city, Guizhou province. Paired sample t-test is conducted in the experiment on students’ readiness and results show a positive increase ( M = 6.24) after the intervention t (49) = 6.77, p = .001 ( p < .05), and a significantly raising in dimensions of social competencies with classmates are M = 3.56, t (49) = 6.89, p = .001, communication competencies are M = 2.38, t (49) = 5.81, p = .001 respectively. Furthermore, a significant difference is found in students’ achievement post-test when covariate the pre-test, F (1, 97) = 11.46, p = .001, partial eta squared = .11. Students’ readiness can be improved when adopting the PBL techniques and activities through online learning. This approach has proven helpful, adaptable, and beneficial to learn English, especially for high school students who are forced to study online.