An Experimental Study On The Effects Of The Application Of Mind Mapping On English Writing In Senior High School

English writing,as one of the four basic English learning skills,requires learners to master a certain quantity of vocabulary,grammar knowledge,sentence patterns and discourse structures.It can reflect students' comprehensive language ability.However,English writing has always been a crucial problem that bothers Chinese English learners,and it is also the importance and difficulty of English teaching.In senior high schools,due to the limited English class hours and the great pressure suffered by students,there still exists so many problems in the current situation of English writing teaching.For instance,teachers attach too much significance to students' English writing performance,and students tend to be too anxious about English writing within limited time.Hence,English education majors need to think constantly about how to improve students' English writing proficiency and how to help students reduce anxious feelings when they are required to write an English composition within a strict time limit.It has become a top priority to explore an effective English writing teaching way through teaching practice.Tony Buzan first developed Mind Map in 1960 s.Mind mapping is a process of generating a diagram which is used to present the words or ideas that are radiated around a central topic.It can assist learners to improve thinking ability and enhance writing confidence.Related literature shows that there has been more and more researches on the application of mind mapping to English teaching in recent years,and most of them are concerned with mind mapping in English vocabulary and reading teaching.As for the studies of applying mind mapping to English writing teaching,the research focus usually lies in students' English writing achievement and writing interests or attitudes.There are relatively few researches on exploring whether the application of mind mapping can help reduce students' English writing anxiety.Therefore,this research applies mind mapping to English writing in senior high school,which attempts to explore the effects of mind mapping on students' English writing competence and writing anxiety in senior high school through this experimental study.The research questions are as follows:(1)Can the application of mind mapping to English writing teaching improve students' English writing scores in Senior High School?(2)Can the use of mind mapping help reduce students' English writing anxiety in Senior High School ? If can,what are the effects on somatic anxiety,cognitive anxiety and avoidance behavior?Accordingly,the author carried out the 14-week experimental research in a senior high school of Heyuan City in Guangdong Province from September 16 th,2016 to December 25 th,2016.There are altogether 101 participants selected from two parallel classes in Senior One.One class randomly serves as the experimental class,another as the control class.Mind mapping is applied to English writing teaching of the experimental class,while the regular English writing teaching method is still used in the control class.The research instruments include English writing tests,the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory(SLWAI)compiled by Y-S Cheng and the interview.The author uses quantitative research methods and inputs the collected data into SPSS17.0.Through the comparative analysis of the writing scores and the writing anxiety questionnaires before and after the experiment,the author acquires the research findings combined with qualitative analysis of the interview.The research results show that the application of mind mapping can improve students' English writing scores,which can be seen from the improvement of students' writing framework,and it can help weaken students' English writing anxiety.According to the comparative results of students' writing anxiety before and after the experiment,the reduction of students' writing anxiety is mainly manifested in students' somatic anxiety and avoidance behavior.It can be concluded that the application of mind mapping to English writing teaching is a feasible and effective way to improve students' English writing proficiency and reduce their writing anxiety.This study offers some pedagogical implications for English writing teaching.In the end,the thesis points out the research limitations and provides some directions for further researches.