| In Chinese senior high schools, more and more English teachers have been aware that English writing teaching is very important recently. Writing has a positive effect on learning English. However, although both teachers and students have paid much attention to writing, the result cannot satisfy them. The teaching model is quite old, and students are not interested in writing. They think writing is not practical and not useful. Besides, lacking certain vocabulary and certain writing skills, they do not know what to say. The improvement of students’ writing has been a difficult problem for most English teachers. Thus, measures need to be taken to change the current situation. English writing teaching based on Mind Mapping is proposed.Mind Mapping is a process of generating a diagram which is used to present the words or ideas that are radically arranged around a central topic. It is the natural structure which radiates from the center, following the thinking process of divergence and following a set of simple, basic and natural rules which are easy to be accepted by the brain. Besides, Mind Mapping transforms difficult texts into acceptable, lively and interesting and highly organized maps which are easy to remember. In this way, Mind Mapping reduces the burden of memory. It can be applied to visualize the thinking process, structure the information and classify the ideas which are very helpful to finish writing task. The research aims to adopt Mind mapping and applies it to the teaching of English writing, hoping that it would be effective to change the current situation in teaching writing in senior high school.The research adopts the method of quasi-experiment. 102 subjects are from two parallel classes in Xinglong Senior High School. The two classes served as experimental class and control class separately. And both of them are taught under the same teacher who is the researcher. The experimental class is taught under the guidance of Mind Mapping, while the control class is taught by the traditional method. The instruments include questionnaires, tests and interviews. And the hypothesizes are in the following:(1)Can Mind Mapping stimulate students’ interests in writing?(2)Can Mind Mapping promote students’ writing ability in terms of cohesion, grammar, and vocabulary?(3)Do students of different levels(high-score group, middle-score group and low score group divided by their pre-test scores of writing) make different extent of progress in writing?The result of the research proves that with the training of Mind Mapping, students are able to stimulate their interests in writing. Students in the experiment class do better in the writing than students in the control class. Besides, students of different levels do make different extent of progress in writing. Mind Mapping is especially suitable for students of low-score group.Based on the results of the research, some suggestions have been made for future English teaching: It is of great necessity for teachers to create an active atmosphere for students in the English writing teaching. Mind Mapping Model can be applied to English writing practice so as to stimulate students’ writing interest. English writing teaching plans should be improved on the basis of Mind Mapping. |
