An Empirical Study On The Application Of Mind Mapping To The Teaching Of English Writing In Senior High School

Writing is one of four basic skills in English learning and is also an important part in English teaching. However, current English writing teaching in Senior High School is unsatisfying. Students are not interested in English writing; teaching methods are traditional and the improvement of students’writing has been one of the most difficult problems for most English teachers. Therefore, this research tries to change the current teaching situation to some extent. English writing teaching based on Mind Mapping is proposed.Mind Mapping is an effective thinking model and can visualize the process of thinking. This concept was put forward by Tony Buzan in1960s. Because it makes full use of left and right brains and helps us to improve people’s understanding and develop spatial intelligence and creative thinking, it has influenced many areas profoundly. Mind Mapping is very helpful to organize thought and information, make the choice, and find the connection between new information and former information to enhance memory, which are very helpful to finish writing task. Therefore, the research applies Mind Mapping on English writing teaching aiming to study its effectiveness as a teaching means and learning method.In addition, the research will prove that Mind Mapping can arouse students’writing interest and enhance interaction between teachers and students to improve teaching efficiency.This research selects two parallel classes (N=100) and some experienced English teachers in No.6Senior High School of Huixian City in Henan Province as participants, lasting nearly one semester. The experiment uses three research instruments including interviews, questionnaires, and writing pre-test and post-test to collect data and analyze them quantitatively and qualitatively to prove the research hypotheses.The results of study prove that English writing teaching based on Mind Mapping motivates students’learning interest and consummates students’writing strategies. At the same time, students’other English-learning abilities are improved especially, the ability of comprehending reading materials. In consideration of the limitations of the research, some suggestions for future research are put forward at last.