| Modal verbs,as a member of the verb system,are mainly used to express the speaker's subjective tendency and personal opinion of events,which is an important way for people to express emotions.Modal verbs play an indispensable role in daily communication and grammar learning.However,due to the polysemy of modal verbs,it is difficult for beginners to grasp the meaning and proper employment of modal verbs in the specific context.In addition,the first language-based way of thinking also has some negative transfer effect on the learners' use of modal verbs.More importantly,the systematic study of modal verbs is mainly started on the stage of junior middle school education,and the traditional grammar teaching method cannot effectively help students use modal verbs properly.Therefore,modal verb teaching has become a tough teaching task.Based on the research background above,this study attempts to apply the mind map to modal verb teaching,taking the advantage of the visual and neatly textured features of mind maps to understand the multiple meanings of modal verbs.It is aimed at helping students comprehend the grammar of modal verbs and developing students' ability of self learning and creativity.This study uses the concept of mind map as a theoretical framework and combines the mind map and modal verb teaching,attempting to explore an effective method of grammar teaching.The study will analyze the effect of the mind map on students of different English proficiency levels,and testify the immediate and delayed effect of the mind map-based teaching method.The teaching practice was carried out in two parallel classes,Grade Eight in a junior high school in Jinan.One class was set up as experiment class and the other was control class.Either of classes has 41 students and the length of the teaching experiment is three months.The modal verb teaching based on mind maps is performed in the experiment class,and the English proficiency of the students in both classes is tested before and after.The teaching experiment employs such methods as testing,questionnaires and interviews.This study uses the independent sample test,paired sample test,and Wilcoxon rank sum test in SPSS 23.0 to analyze the data.At the same time,the test results,questionnaire results,and interview results of the students are collected and analyzed.Findings:1.The mind map-based teaching method of modal verbs helps to improve the efficiency of students' grammar learning.The test scores after the experiment are significantly higher than those before the experiment.2.The mind map-based teaching method of modal verbs has a positive impact on students' understanding of modal verbs.The influence degree from mind map on students with different English levels are various.Students in low score groups have more room for improvement than those in high score groups.3.For more proficient English learners,the immediate effect of mind map-based English model verb teaching is slightly more significant than its delayed effect;for less proficient learners,there is no difference between the immediate effect and the delayed effect?This study takes two modal verbs “can” and “may” as examples to illustrate the mind map-based teaching method and analyze its effect.The study suggests that this teaching method can enhance students' interest and confidence in learning grammar,improve their ability of understanding,and develop their ability of self learning and independent thinking.The mind map-based teaching method is effective in teaching modal verbs,and it is supposed to be useful in some other complex grammar teaching. |
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