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

English vocabulary is the basis of English learning.It is impossible to communicate with others smoothly without enough words.However,the situation of English vocabulary learning in junior high schools is far from optimistic at present.Teachers’ English vocabulary teaching methods are traditional and students are not interested in vocabulary learning.They regard English vocabulary memorization just as a heavy burden.How to effectively improve students English vocabulary learning ability has become a big challenge for English teachers.Mind Map is a visual tool which can help learners to memorize or learn information through a visual form.It is made up of pictures,colors,and codes.Since the Mind Map was introduced to the education field,it has created a positive effect upon teaching and learning.Mind Map can make full use of people’s brains and improve their understanding and creative thinking ability.Mind Map is also useful to organize people’s thoughts and information as well as find out the connection between different information,which can enhance learners’ associative ability.The associative ability is exactly what we need during the process of English vocabulary learning.Based on Theory of Knowledge Visualization,Semantic Field Theory and Spreading Activation Model,the study attempts to explore how to improve learners’ memorization skills and vocabulary learning efficiency by using Mind Map.The thesis aims to answer the following three questions:1.Can the Mind Map improve English vocabulary teaching and learning efficiency in junior high school?2.How does Mind Map promote English vocabulary learning in junior high school?3.What kinds of changes does the application of Mind Map cause in English vocabulary learning?The research subjects of this experiment are students in two parallel classes in Dalian Eighteenth Middle School.There are 86 research subjects altogether in two classes,42 in Class 1(the control class)and 44 in Class 2(the experimental class).The research started on September 1st and finished on November 25 th,.The typical Mind Map software Mind Manager is studied in the research,which includes the steps of drawing a Mind Map by the software and by hand.This can provide other teachers with teaching experience if they want to apply Mind Map to their English vocabulary teaching.In order to compare with the traditional teaching methods,three research instruments are applied,which include questionnaire,tests and interviews.The experiment data is analyzed by software SPSS19.0,which proved that the application of Mind Map can improve teachers’ efficiency in English vocabulary teaching.Moreover,the Mind Map can also improve learners’ memorizing ability as well as their spelling accuracy and retrieval capacity.The biggest benefit is that Mind Map can increase learners’ interest for English vocabulary learning.