An Experimental Research On The Application Of Mind Mapping To Senior English Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary is the basis of language learning. However, vocabulary learning in senior high schools is not always effective. As a senior school teacher, the author often hears the teacher complain that students are too reluctant to broaden their vocabulary size, while the students always argue that vocabulary learning is time consuming and of poor effects. Therefore, finding out an effective memory strategy or a vocabulary teaching method to help them out is in great need.Mind Mapping, as a radiant thinking tool, can enhance learners’ memory ability by means of colors, codes, and images, and has gained a lot of attention since it was introduced by Tony Buzan. Experts have done a lot of research to testify the effects of Mind Mapping on teaching, but the research on senior high school students’ English vocabulary teaching is still quite limited.This study aims to assess the effect that Mind Mapping plays on senior high school students’ vocabulary teaching. The study is guided by the following three questions: 1) Compared with the traditional teaching method, can Mind Mapping effectively improve Senior High school students’ vocabulary achievements? 2) Compared with the traditional teaching method, can Mind Mapping significantly improve students’ vocabulary learning strategies? 3) Will students of different levels(high-score group, low-score group and middle-score group divided by their pretest vocabulary scores) exposed to Mind Mapping differ in their vocabulary improvement?Experimental method was used in this study. The instruments adopted include test, questionnaire, and interview. The subjects of the research are students in senior one from two parallel classes of Bei daihe High school which were chosen randomly. The experimental group adopts the Mind Mapping vocabulary teaching method, while the control group adopts the traditional vocabulary teaching method. Both classes are under the instruction of the same teacher, and use the same kind of teaching materials.The major research findings are as follows: 1) Compared with the traditional teaching method, Mind Mapping can effectively improve Senior High school students’ vocabulary achievements 2) Mind Mapping can significantly increase students’ interest in learning vocabulary and improve their vocabulary learning strategies. 3) Mind Mapping can improve students’ vocabulary achievement of different levels. However, it is more suitable for the students in the middle-score and low-score group.Based on the findings of the research, some implications have been made for future English teaching: 1) vocabulary teaching methods play an important role in our teaching practice. Teachers should try to adopt as many teaching methods as possible and try to develop students’ vocabulary learning strategies. 2)vocabulary teaching should attach great importance to the connections between words.Word association, classification should be used as a deep processing of vocabulary to improve the students’ vocabulary learning skills. 3) Mind Mapping can be used in vocabulary teaching to improve students’ vocabulary achievement and learning strategies.