The Application Of The Mind Map To English Grammar Teaching In Senior High School

Grammar plays a significant role in high school English teaching in China.For many English learners,they have to grasp the basic knowledge of English grammar to get a good command of English(Cheng Xiaotang,Zhengmin,2002).However,many studies have shown that the majority of high school students think that the grammar knowledge is complicated and boring,and as a result,they have trouble learning it efficiently.In the traditional English grammar teaching class,teachers spend most time teaching the rules and students practise them over and over again,which reduces students’ interest and confidence in grammar learning.Thus,it is particularly necessary to explore a new efficient grammar teaching method.The Mind Map,as a visual tool,greatly improves the understanding and grasp of knowledge by connecting the complicated items through colors,pictures and lines.At present,in teaching field,the mind map is familiar to the foreigners.However,in China,among many studies of the mind map,most focus more on vocabulary,reading and writing rather than grammar.This thesis will apply the mind maps to the grammar teaching to solve the following three questions by setting the attributive clause as an example.Q1: Can the mind maps arouse students’ interest in the grammar learning?Q2: Can the mind maps improve students’ ability of the grammar learning?Q3: What the influences on students’ attitudes towards the application of the mind maps to grammar teaching?First,based on the literature research,this thesis analyses the feasibility and significance of the application of mind maps to grammar teaching.Second,the thesis tests whether the mind map can improve students’ performances and interest in grammar learning.Third,the thesis investigates students’ attitude and emotions to the application through the questionnaire survey.Lasting about two months,the experiment involves 100 students of two classes from Grade 1 of Anhui Huaibei Experimental High School.The two parallel classeswith the same number and the same learning ability are selected randomly,and one is selected as the experimental class,adopting the the grammar teaching method based on the mind maps,while the other one as the control class,adopting the traditional grammar teaching method during the two-month experiment,besides which the teaching content is the same.What I have to mention is that before the experiment,the100 students are tested by the same test to ensure there is no difference in the command of the attributive clauses.And they will be questioned as well to know the basic situation about the the attributive clauses grammar learning and teaching.After the experiment,the students will be tested again.And the data collected from the experiment will be analyzed by SPSS.The students of the experimental class will do another questionnaire to know their interest and feeling about the application of the mind maps to grammar teaching.Finally,the thesis draws the conclusions by the analyses of the data.From the fact that the result of the experimental class is much better,the author finds that the application of the mind maps to the grammar teaching contributes to improving students’ interest and grades of the attributive clause and also students hold the positive attitudes to it.