A Case Study Of English Reading Instruction In Senior High School Based On Mind Mapping

English reading,as an essential part of English learning,occupies a key position in English teaching.As a visual tool,mind map has its unique advantages.In mind map,keywords,pictures and colors are employed to attract students’ attention and cultivate their divergent thinking.The application of mind maps in high school English reading teaching can greatly improve students’ reading efficiency and increase their interest in English reading.Based on the theory of knowledge visualization,schema theory and brain science theory,this research chooses 49 reading classes from the 14^th to 16^th Sessions of National Senior High School English Teaching Demonstration Classes as the research subjects and mainly uses the classroom observation method to explore the application of mind maps in senior high schools’ English reading teaching.And this research chooses 10 typical classes to make a deep analysis.This research attempts to answer two questions:（1）What is the general situation of mind map application in reading class of the 14^th to 16^th Sessions of National Senior High School English Teaching Demonstration Classes?（2）How do English teachers apply mind maps in different reading stages?The results show that: 1.Mind maps are widely used in senior high school English reading teaching and it is in a growing trend.Students play the main roles in mind mapping.But the types of mind map application are not diversified,tree mind map and spider map being used mostly,while the proportion of other types of mind maps is small.2.The application of different types of mind maps in different reading stages can enforce teaching effects.In pre-reading stage,most teachers use spider maps to draw students’ attention to the topic and activate students’ content schema and make a prediction of the topic of the text.Besides,spider maps are used to activate students’ vocabulary schema to help them reduce the difficulty of comprehending the reading text.In addition,mind maps are used to activate the formal schema of students,guiding them to predict the structure of the reading text and making good use of multi-model information,such as videos.In while-reading stage,teachers tend to use tree mind maps to clarify the structure of the text and to deepen students’ understanding of the reading materials.These prominent teachers also tend to utilize mind maps to improve students’ think abilities.In post-reading stage,teachers use different mind maps to widen students’ horizons and train their thinking abilities.However,there also exist some problems that need to be solved.Firstly,teachers seldom use multiple-modal texts in mind maps,verbal texts being the major element.Secondly,they have not fully worked out the functions of mind maps,like the cultivation of students’ learning strategies.In order to make English reading teaching more effective,the author proposes the following suggestions.Firstly,teachers could constantly update their teaching methods and to apply them to English teaching appropriately.Secondly,when designing mind maps in teaching,teachers could apply suitable mind maps based on the article genres to help students master various types of article genres;they could involve multiple-modal texts in mind maps in different stages of reading,such as pictures;and they could apply mind maps to help students cultivate their learning strategies.