An Empirical Study Of Application Of The Mind Map To English Reading Teaching In Senior High Schools

Reading plays an important role in English learning and it takes a large proportion in various examinations. Nevertheless, in high schools, English reading remains a weak link for students as teachers often pay more attention to the explanation of linguistic knowledge including words and grammar rather than cultivation of their reading skills and comprehensive application ability. Through the long period of cramming education, students become used to reciting articles in a mechanical manner, but they lack deep thoughts about text contents and writing purposes, which deprives them of reading interest and creative thinking. Mind Map is a visual knowledge representation tool. It is also a method to embody radiant thinking. It can present complicated contents clearly and systematically and help students comprehend more deeply and remember what they’ve learned easily and foster their creative thinking ability.On the basis of Mind Map and schema theory, this thesis digs into the following questions:(1) What effects does the application of Mind Map have on students’ learning interest, strategy, attitude and confidence in English reading?(2)What effects does the application of Mind Map have on students’ English reading proficiency?This empirical study selected two parallel classes in Grade One, No.1 Senior High School of Changsha County. Mind Map was used in the experimental class to assist reading teaching, while the traditional reading method, such as grammar-translation method was used in the control class. This study lasted for 15 weeks, and the research data were collected form pre-test, post-test and questionnaires. The research data were analyzed by SPSS21.0. Moreover, after the experiment, an interview was given to some students in the control class in order to demonstrate the research results more powerfully.The study reveals that(1) students from the experimental class have improved their interest, strategy, attitude and confidence in reading significantly due to the application of Mind Map in English reading teaching, while those students in the control class taught with traditional teaching methods have no obvious improvement in the above mentioned four aspects;(2) due to the application of Mind Map in English reading teaching, students in the experimental class have apparently improved their reading test scores while the control class taught with traditional teaching method haven’t improved theirs distinctly. The study indicates that using Mind Maps to guide English reading teaching is both feasible and effective.Due to the limitation of time and place, there are two main limitations in terms of experimental duration and the sample size. The experiment only lasted for 15 weeks and only 136 students took part in the experiment so that the results of the study might be cautious to make generalization. To seek for a more precise conclusion, the future research should last longer and cover a larger sample size. The author wishes that the study could provide some references for the application of Mind Map in English reading teaching in senior high schools and enhance the efficiency of English teaching and learning.