An Empirical Research On The Application Of Mind Map And Concept Map In English Reading Teaching In Junior High School

Reading is one of the primary ways of language input. And junior high school is the critical period for English learners to lay foundation for future study. English reading in junior high school is of great significance to both English teaching and learning. However, traditional grammar-translation method which still dominates the reading teaching, may lead students to fail to get the general idea and comprehensive understanding of the reading passage, and can not satisfy students'learning needs and arouse their reading interest. Therefore, it is urgent to explore effective ways in improving English reading teaching.Mind map and concept map, as effective visual thinking tools, can be used to visualize knowledge, promote thinking, as well as enhance creativity and memory based on the theory of knowledge visualization, left and right brain thinking, schema theory and meaningful learning theory. And they also can be used as instructional tools in English teaching and are very helpful to students for learning efficiently. Therefore, the research aims to test the feasibility and effectiveness of the application of mind map and concept map in English reading teaching in junior high school.The empirical study mainly highlights three research questions:1) Can the application of mind map and concept map enhance students' interest in English reading?2) Can the application of mind map and concept map facilitate information retention of the reading materials? If yes, how?3) Can the application of mind map and concept map improve students'reading achievement and examination performance? If yes, to what degree?There are two parallel classes from Grade 7 which involves 96 subjects in Haibin Middle School. One is randomly chosen as the Control Class (49 students) with the use of traditional teaching method; the other is chosen as the Experimental Class (47 students) with the application of mind map and concept map. The experiment lasts for 16 weeks with the application of questionnaires, interview and tests. SPSS 16.0 is used to analyze data and get results of the study. Here are the findings of the research. Firstly, the application of mind map and concept in English reading can arouse students'interest in English reading. Secondly, the application of mind map and concept map in English reading can facilitate information retention of reading materials. Thirdly, the application of mind map and concept map in English reading class can improve students' reading achievement and examination performance. Therefore, the application of mind map and concept map has positive influence on reading teaching in junior high school.