| Vocabulary teaching is the basis of language teaching and plays an important role in English teaching.However,most junior high school English teachers tend to use conventional teaching methods to teach words,and students are just used to rote learning.As an effective teaching method,mind mapping presents the thinking in the form of images,colors and lines.It shows the thinking process visually so that the students learn the words well.The theoretical foundation of this study is knowledge visualization theory,levels of processing theory and constructivism theory,and the teaching experiment is conducted through applying mind mapping into English vocabulary of junior high school.100 junior high school students from two classes of Grade Eight in Lanzhou,Gansu Province were selected as research participants.There are both 50 students in two classes.Class 1 was selected as the experimental class and class 2 as the control class randomly.Meanwhile,tests and questionnaires were used as research instruments.Two research questions were put forward as follows:(1)What are the effects of mind mapping teaching on students’ English vocabulary level(breadth and depth)of junior high school ?(2)What are the effects of mind mapping teaching on students’ English vocabulary memory strategies of junior high school?A four-month teaching experiment was carried out in two classes through tests and questionnaires.At the early stage of the experiment,the researcher tested the students’ English vocabulary level of breadth and depth in the experimental class and the control class.At the same time,a questionnaire was conducted on the students’ application of vocabulary memory strategies.During the experiment,mind-mapping teaching was adopted in the experimental class.The teacher designed vocabulary classes carefully,and guided the students to draw the mind maps.Students improved their ability of drawing mind mapping and divergent thinking constantly,and then improved vocabulary level and the frequencies of applying memory strategies.While in the control class,a conventional vocabulary teaching method was used.That is,the teacher explained the pronunciation and meaning of words,and conducted listening and speaking activities in class,then finished some exercises in the textbook.The homework assignment was mainly copying or reciting words.At the later stage of the experiment,a post-test and questionnaire were implemented both in two classes.After that,the data was collected and analyzed with SPSS 26.0,and finally came to the following conclusions:(1)Mind mapping teaching can improve the students’ English vocabulary level of breadth and depth in junior high school;(2)Mind mapping teaching has a positive effect on students’ English vocabulary memory strategies in junior high school.The results of the study show that mind mapping teaching is effective to English vocabulary teaching in junior high school.Teachers should flexibly use mind mapping in English class and the students are supposed to participate in the learning of mind mapping actively.However,there are still some limitations,such as limited research time and the number of students,some potential interfering factors and so on.In the future,this thesis can be further improved so as to offer teachers an effective vocabulary teaching method to help students learn better. |
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