Research On Application Of Mind Map In Teaching Of English Reading In Junior High School

With the development of economy,trade,science and technology,English,as a lingua franca,occupies a prominent position in the development strategy of basic education in various countries.As one of the four basic skills of English,English reading is an important means to obtain information and knowledge.However,the Senior High School Entrance Examination results show that the reading ability of junior high school students was generally low.According to questionnaire,junior high school students showed the lack of interest in English reading and English reading class.As a tool to represent knowledge,mind map has been successfully applied in some subjects.However,the conclusions drawn from researchers on the application of mind map in teaching of English reading are obviously contradictory.In order to explore the influence of mind map on students' interest and reading ability,the author selected two parallel classes in a middle school,a total of 81 students.Questionnaires and teaching experiment were conducted to study the application of mind map in teaching of English reading in Junior high school.Through analyzing the data,the author drew the following conclusions:(1)the application of mind map in teaching of English reading can stimulate students' interest in reading and improve students' participation in English class.(2)students' genre preference on drawing mind maps is: exposition> argumentation > narration.(3)Students preferred their own mind maps for items on retention of the article and structure of the article,while students preferred the mind maps provided by the teacher for items on the purpose of the article,details of the article,and the identification of genre and theme of the article.(4)Of the reading sub-abilities,the experimental group students' information location and retrieval abilities progressed significantly,and the ability of detail information understanding was significantly different between the two groups(P=0.03<0.05).The students in the experimental group were significantly better than the control group.