A Study On The Application Of Mind Maps In The English Reading Teaching Of Junior High Schools

English is an important subject of junior high school education in our country,and reading teaching is a key component of it.Judging from the trend of high school entrance examination across the country in recent years,English subject has higher and higher requirements for students’ reading ability.However,for a long time,due to the heavy stress of the high school entrance examination and the backward teaching concept,the junior high school English reading classes put too much focus on the explanation and practice of words,syntax and grammar,which leads to the reduction of students’ learning initiative and interest in English reading,and the teaching effect is not satisfactory.Mind map as a holistic way of thinking was proposed by Tony Buzan in the 1960 s.It integrates rich colors and connects text,pictures,etc.with lines to express thinking content and thinking process.The use of mind maps in junior high school English reading teaching can make it simple and clear to understand complex content,help students deeply understand what they have learned,and comprehensively build a knowledge framework.This research uses mind maps to integrate with junior high school English reading teaching and mainly studies the following two questions: 1.What effect does the application of mind map have on the English reading ability of junior high school students? 2.What effect does the application of mind map have on junior high school students’ interest in English reading?The research adopts the method of questionnaire survey method,interview method and experiment method.A total of 90 students from two parallel classes of a junior high school in Zhenjiang City were selected as the experimental objects.The experiment lasted for 2 months.For the pre-test and post-test data collected in the experiment,the researcher used SPSS statistical software to conduct tests and analyzed the results in detail.The researchers used two questionnaires and interviews to find out the changes in students’ interest in reading and their attitudes towards mind map teaching.The research found that:(1)The pre-test data showed that the reading levels of the two classes belonged to the same level and could be used as experimental samples.However,the post-test data analysis showed that there was no significant difference in the reading comprehension test scores between EC and CC,which indicated that the mind map was not effective for the improving of reading comprehension ability;(2)The data analysis of the questionnaire before the experiment showed that the reading interest of the students in the two classes was average.Most of the students thought that English reading was not a difficult problem in the senior high school entrance examination,but most of them believed reading was important.The questionnaire survey in the later stage of the experiment and the results of teachers’ and students’ interviews showed that the experimental class had changed in terms of reading-related interests,and the students were able to participate in the reading teaching activities more actively.