Application Of Mind Mapping In English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

Language skills consist of listening,speaking,reading and writing and the comprehensive ability to use the four skills as well.Writing,one of the four skills,is an important language output in English teaching.It is also the investigation to students’ comprehensive language ability.English teachers in senior high school have realized the importance of English writing teaching.Due to low efficiency of training students’ writing ability,long duration of English writing teaching,and difficult writing teaching practice,some teachers have negative attitudes towards English writing teaching,which makes students lack interest in English writing and leads to writing scores difficult to improve.Therefore,a way or a tool needs to be found to improve English writing ability of senior high school students’ effectively and mind mapping is a good choice.Mind mapping is a tool of graphic thinking to make the visualization of thinking.It is also a graphic tool of divergent thinking people organize and express.The application of mind mapping to English writing teaching in senior high school can provide equal communication platform for teachers and students and help students collect materials,organize structures and eventually form a coherent,and wellorganized article.The study attempts to combine mind mapping with English writing teaching in senior high school,which can not only improve students’ scores,but also provide a feasible and effective teaching tool for teachers.Basing on the constructivism theory,brain science theory and divergent thinking,the author tries to apply mind mapping to English writing teaching in senior high school for the purpose of the research in the following questions.1.What attitudes do teachers and students have towards the application of mind mapping to English writing teaching in senior high school?2.How does mind mapping affect English writing teaching in senior high school?3.What are the effects of mind mapping towards the use of vocabulary,grammar,cohesion for students in senior high school?The study selected two parallel classes of senior one in the High School Attached to Tsinghua University—Qinhan in Xi Xian new district,Shaanxi province,one for the Controlled Class(Class 2)and the other for the Experimental Class(Class 13)with a total of 84 students as subjects and lasted for one semester to verify the effectiveness of the mind mapping applied to students’ English writing in senior high school.Mind mapping was applied to the EC in English writing teaching while traditional teaching method was used to the CC.The study combined questionnaires,interviews and tests with qualitative and quantitative researches to collect and analyze the data.The results were obtained finally.By analyzing,the research results demonstrate:1.Most teachers and students are positive about the application of mind mapping in English Writing Teaching in senior high school,from which they get benefit.However,few teachers and students have negative attitudes because for teachers,its branch separates the integrity of language,making it disorderly;for students,it’s more suitable for long articles and vocabulary improvement is not fast,which can be reflected in interviews and questionnaires.2.First,it activates classrooms,allowing students to quickly fix on classroom and stimulates their interest.Second,in this relaxed,happy and harmonious classroom,students speak actively,listen to other ideas and make them have more ideas and words,drawing their own mappings.Third,it truly puts students in centre and draws relationship between teachers and students.Finally,the interaction between them also promotes the progress of teachers and students,the improvement of teachers’ teaching methods and the improvement of students’ scores and abilities.These can be reflected in questionnaires.3.It helps enlarge their vocabulary,deepen their understanding to grammatical structures,make logical structures of the articles clear and increase the readability.Seeing their progress,students unconsciously increase enthusiasm for learning and become more confident,which promotes teaching.These can be reflected in interviews,tests and questionnaires.In a word,the attitude of teachers and students to the application of mind mapping in English writing teaching in senior high school is positive.In the relaxed,pleasant and harmonious classroom,teachers and students learn and make progress together.It is also helpful to increase students’ vocabulary and improve their understanding of grammatical structures and make logic structures of their articles clear,which improves their English writing ability.