An Empirical Study On The Application Of Mind Mapping To The English Writing In Vocational High School

As one of the basic language skills in English,writing is an important index to reflect students' comprehensive ability in English and it plays an important role in teaching process.At present,the teaching of English writing is influenced by traditional teaching model.The traditional teaching model requires students to recite the composition templates and ignores students' initiative and creativity.However,the effect of writing teaching is not optimistic,which presents in these aspects as following: lack of interests in writing,shortage of vocabulary and lack of ability to construct the framework of writing.On the one hand,English foundation of students in vocational high school is relatively poor.On the other hand,due to lack of self-confidence and enthusiasm for writing,their learning motivation is not strong.The effect of writing teaching is not satisfactory.Therefore,this study aims to change present situation of English writing and put forward a method of using mind mapping in writing teaching.Mind mapping was proposed by Tony in 1970 s.Mind mapping,known as the brain's military knife,is a visual chart and a tool of thinking.It interprets brain's track.Mind mapping is a bridge that connects past and present knowledge effectively and it focuses on providing students with writing materials,framework and article outline.Therefore,mind mapping applied to English writing helps students solve the dilemma that students do not know how to write and what to write.Based on the present situation of English writing,this study attempts to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of mind mapping applied in vocational high school.The study is based on brain science,knowledge visualization and Constructivism.In this study,108 students from vocational education center in Xinjiang country are randomly selected as research subjects.The experiment lasts four months.The experiment mainly aims at three questions:(1)Can the application of mind mapping to vocational high school writing cultivate students' interest in learning?(2)Can the application of mind mapping to vocational high school writing improve students' writing strategies?(3)Can the application of mind mapping to vocational high school writing enhance students' writing ability?This research studies writing ability of two parallel classes(experimental class and control class)by experimental research and questionnaire survey.Control class adopts traditional writing method while experimental class applies mind mapping to writing teaching.In this study,the experimental data of tests and questionnaires are analyzed by SPSS17.0.The author understands the writing situation through pre-questionnaire and pre-test and analyzes the changes between two classes through post-questionnaire and post-test.The results show that the application of mind mapping can help students improve their writing ability and writing interest.At the same time,writing strategies have also been enriched.Therefore,mind mapping is effective in teaching writing in vocational high school.The research has some limitations and puts forward some suggestions for further research.