The Application Research Of Mind Mapping On English Writing Teaching In Junior High Schools

As one of four basic skills of English learning,writing is a very important part.Nowadays,the current situation of English writing in junior high schools is not optimistic.As the education reform advances,English writing is developing rapidly in teaching methods.Among various teaching methods,mind mapping is a popular and creative way.Mind mapping,known as a map based on radioactive thinking,systematically organizes and summarizes complex knowledge systems.Researches on mind mapping have become quite mature in foreign countries,but have a limited effect on domestic education.In recent years,mind mapping has gradually been promoted in many Chinese schools,mainly on English reading and vocabulary.There are few researches on English writing.This research explores the effects of applying mind mapping to English writing teaching in junior high schools,which are mainly divided into the following two aspects:(1)What effects does mind mapping teaching method have on students’ attitude towards English writing?(2)What effects does mind mapping teaching method have on students’ ability of English writing?From September 2017 to February 2018,this research selected total 71 students in two parallel classes in the eighth grade of Jijialou Experimental School in Huai’an,Jiangsu as research participants.One class was randomly selected as the experimental class and the other became the control class.The research adopts the questionnaire,interview and writing test to evaluate the effects of two teaching methods.According to the questionnaire data,after the teaching experiment,42.86% of students thought that English is important in the control class,while the proportion of the experimental class is 83.33%.At the same time,72.22% of students in the experimental class like English and are willing to participate in English class while 42.85% of students in the control class think so.In addition,83.33% of students insisted that mind mapping can increase enthusiasm of English writing in the experimental class.Some students were interviewed before and after the teaching experiment.The main difficulties which they encountered in the writing process were: lack of writing content,improper vocabulary expression,grammar mistakes and logic confusion.Students in the control class suggested that traditional teaching methods could improve the problems but not solve them.In the experimental class,students held the opinion that mind mapping was not only a teaching method,but also a learning way.Mind mapping helped self-learning,so it could solve those problem effectively after you have realized where the problems are.Therefore,mind mapping can stimulate students’ interest in English writing,encourage students to like English writing and participate in English writing classes and make students willing to use mind mapping to practice English writing after class.Before the experiment,the average writing scores of the control class and the experimental class were 10.043 and 9.944,which meant the initial level of English writing for two classes were almost equal.Through a semester of teaching experiment,the average writing score of the control class was 10.586,while that of the experimental class was 12.694.The Sig value of the independent sample T test of two classes in the post-writing test was 0.982 and Sig value(2-tailed)was less than 0.05,showing the difference was statistically significant.The analysis of the test proves that mind mapping can effectively improve students’ ability of English writing and raise the English writing scores.The class observation of two classes shows that compared with traditional teaching methods,mind mapping encourages students to actively participate in English classes.In the process of drawing mind mapping,the teacher pays more attention to the communication with students.The English writing class has become a lively classroom for teachers and students to interact with each other under the guidance of mind mapping.Mind mapping can improve teaching quality and efficiency.Therefore,teachers should apply mind mapping to English writing teaching and encourage students in junior high schools to use mind mapping in the daily study.