An Empirical Study On The Application Of Mind Map To English Reading Teaching In Junior High School

Reading comprehension has become an important criterion for evaluating the students’ linguistic competence. The New Curriculum Standards issued by China Education Ministry in 2011 put forward higher standards on English reading of junior high school, which attaches much attention to fostering students’ reading strategies and their actual reading abilities. However, English reading is still dominated by the style of teacher-centered, examination-oriented method while the students are simply silent passive knowledge receivers in numerous junior high schools. The teachers neglect to cultivate the students’ awareness of reading strategies and the abilities of comprehending the whole text. Thus it is necessary to provide an effective method in English reading teaching.Mind Map as a visual thinking tool was originated in the 1970 s by Tony Buzan. It is an image-centered diagram that represents semantics or other conceptions through the combination of colors, images, symbols and words. Mind Map can enhance creativity, memory and association, and make it easier for students to change learning habits, monitor progress and improve learning strategies. The purpose of this thesis is to offset the deficiency of traditional teaching model and explore whether the Mind Map is feasible to English reading in junior high schools. Three research questions guide the current study:Firstly, is the teaching method based on Mind Map helpful to facilitate the use of the reading strategies?Secondly, can the Mind Map improve students’ ability of grasping the main idea of the passage in skimming?Thirdly, can the training of Mind Map enhance the students’ reading proficiency in their reading examination?There are 106 participants who come from two parallel classes of Grade 9 in No.4 Junior High School of Jinzhou. The time devotes to the experiment is 16 weeks. The control class is exposed to the traditional teaching method while the Mind Map approach is implemented in experimental class. The collected data of the questionnaires and tests are analyzed by Excel 2007 and SPSS 19.0. An interview is conducted to get more information on students’ reading strategies and grasping the main ideas in the experimental class at the end of the experiment.The research draws the conclusion that the application of Mind Map to English reading in junior high school is both feasible and beneficial. Under the guidance of Mind Map approach,students’ use of reading strategies can be facilitated. The reading abilities of understanding the passage and grasping the main ideas in skimming have improved greatly. Furthermore, Mind Map is only a tentative approach to the English teaching, limitations are inevitable and more efforts and investigations are needed for further research.