An Empirical Study On The Application Of Mind Map To College English Reading

In English learning,reading is a basic means for learners to obtain information.College English Curriculum Requirements has put forward specific requirements on students' reading ability and CET4 also sets for corresponding goals.However,the current teaching effect of college English reading is not satisfied and students' learning methods are improper,which leads to the students' reading comprehension staying on a surface level.As time goes on,students lose interest in English reading and are always reluctant to do reading.Mind map as a graphical representation of one's thinking process and knowledge,using the whole brain,changes the complicated,boring and monochrome plane words into three-dimensional visual graphics which have clear structure and logic.It increases people's cognition and arouses students' interest and activates students' initiative and then improves the reading ability.By applying mind map to college English reading,this research aims to explore the following questions:(1)Compared with traditional English reading teaching,does using mind map in college English reading improve students' reading comprehension ability?(2)In which aspects does mind map more efficiently improve students' English reading proficiency?(3)Does the application of mind map to college English reading arouse students' interest and enhance their initiative to English reading?Two parallel classes from the major of Chinese Language and Literature of Shanxi Normal University of Modern Arts and Sciences are selected as the subjects,with a total number of 105 students who are randomly assigned as experimental class and control class.The experiment lasts for six months.In the experimental class,the teacher uses the mind mapin English reading class,while in the control class the teacher uses the traditional teaching method.Before the experiment,a reading pre-test is conducted in both two classes,it proves that there is no significant difference between the two classes in reading proficiency.Meantime,pre-questionnaires are distributed which aims to learn about students' present learning situation.After the experiment,a reading post-test and post-questionnaires are conducted in order to testify the effectiveness of the application of mind map to college English reading class.SPSS 17.0 is adopted to analyze the data.The research comes to the conclusion that compared with traditional English reading teaching method,the application of mind map to college English reading could improve students' reading comprehension ability.From the results of questionnaires,it can be concluded that mind map is helpful to deepen students' comprehending to the reading passages and to make students develop a good reading habit.It can promote students' interest and learning initiative to English reading.