A Study Of The Application Of Mind Map To Teaching English Reading In Junior High School

Reading is an activity to get information from the written text and it is a fundamental skill a person can acquire.Meanwhile,reading comprehension is assumed as the basic of all language skills as well as the ultimate goal of the reading process.However,in China,it seems that English reading learning is the main difficulty students face because it is hard for most of them to read which lowers their incentive.Mind map based on schema theory and knowledge visualization theory is getting more and more attention in teaching reading.Thus,the purpose of this study is to search the use of mind map and its influence on students’ reading comprehension in reading teaching,and to study students’ views on learning English reading comprehension by using mind map and to find out how to apply mind map in teaching English reading better.The study investigates the application of mind map in a junior high school from Xichang in 2019/2020 academic year.This study is an experimental research with pre-test and post-test in control group and experimental group.The study participants are consisted of64 students.38 students constitute the control group(Class 12)and 36 constitute the experimental group(Class 6).The experimental group is taught by using mind map while the control group is given traditional classroom instruction.Teachers’ use of mind map is researched by using classroom observations in experimental classes.The influence of mind map on the development of students’ English reading comprehension ability is studied by analyzing the pre-test and post-test in the experimental group and the control group.It is conducted through the analysis of scores from reading tests and the reading tests are in multiple choice form.At the same time,students’ attitudes towards English reading comprehension are studied through questionnaires after receiving the teaching of mind map.According to the analysis of classroom observation,the teacher applies different types of mind map in different texts and for different aims.Applying mind map aims to help students sort out information,logical relationship and topic.Also it aims to help students understand the structure of the text and summarize the content.What’s more,it aims to activate students to think to search information and help them to form a way of thinking.Through t-test analysis,the two classes share the same level of word meaning ability,the reasoning ability and the judging ability before the experiment,which is of reference significance.After the treatment,the results reveal a obvious difference between Class 6 and Class 12.It is due to mind map works in experimental class.Thus,mind map in teaching English reading can obviously improve students’ reading scores from the aspect of word meaning,reasoning,and judging.A questionnaire is administered to the control class after the treatment.The results show that the role of the mind map is beneficial and students agree with the teacher’s teaching method of mind map.Thus,it can be concluded that there are significant effects of teaching reading comprehension by using mind map strategy at the seventh grade students of one junior high school,which means the use of mind map can enhance the students’ English reading comprehension.So,it is suggested for English teachers to use this strategy in reading teaching practice.By observing and analyzing the use of mind map in reading class,some suggestions and strategies are put forward to improve the employment of mind map in reading teaching from the perspectives of teachers’ ideas,learning environment and teaching methods.