A Research On The Application Of Mind Mapping To The Teaching Of English Writing In Junior High School

Mind Mapping,which was put forward by famous British educator Tony Buzan,is a kind of visual thinking tool that uses key words and images to store,optimize and output information.Meanwhile,it is a radioactive tool to cultivate logical thinking.The author started teaching practice in The New District School of No.1 High School of Pingdingshan in the Autumn of 2018.At the beginning of teaching practice,the author conducted a survey on the types of learning styles in three classes of Grade 2017.It can be seen from the survey that visual learning styles accounted for the largest proportion among the students of Class 1,which was suitable for the research on Mind Mapping.Therefore,the author took Class 1 Grade 2017 as the research subject to carry out the classroom action research on Mind Mapping to the teaching of English writing and focused on three questions: What changes will take place in the application of Mind Mapping to the teaching of English writing in junior high school? What are the problems with the application of Mind Mapping to the teaching of English writing in junior high school? What are the causes for these problems? What measures could be taken to solve these problems in the application of Mind Mapping to the teaching of English writing in junior high school?The author conducted a four-month action research under the theory of brain science and constructivism from September,2018 to December,2018 by employing questionnaire,teaching journals,student interview and writing tests.The research showed that Mind Mapping applied to the teaching of English writing has aroused the students’ interests in writing and changed their attitudes of being afraid of writing.Meanwhile,it has cultivated the students’ creativity and logical thinking.Moreover,it has improved the students’ information integration and induction,language expression and writing ability.However,some problems emerged in the application of Mind Mapping to the teaching of English writing in junior high school.The problems were as follows: due to the lack of vocabulary,and the differences in Chinese and English writing layout,some of students were afraid and resisted in the process of drawing Mind Mapping.Besides,they had a weak sense of information,poor logic.Therefore,in order to solve those problems,firstly,the teacher paid more attention to those students through interviews and individual tutoring to enhance their confidence in writing.Secondly,the teacher adopted many thinking training methods,designed various thinking questions by using English teaching materials,guided the students to think and reprocess the topic from different aspects,and gradually cultivated their thinking ability.Finally,the teacher guided the students to read authentic English reading materials with Mind Mapping and stressed that full attention should be paid to the writing ideas and structure.