Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
(1) In the early 1960s, Mr. Tony Buzan, the British scholar and the “Father of World Memory”, puts forward the concept of Mind mapping and Radiant thinking. Mind mapping is a kind of graphical tool with radioactive thinking. It can clearly present thinking in front of human beings in the form of “map”, which makes it visible. In the process of presenting thinking, mind mapping combined with words to show a series of information in a colorful, funny and visual way and easy to be memorized. It uses a headword combined with other keywords and images to expand around constantly along with thinking, which extends a range of knowledge (Yang Guolan, 2017).
(2) The initial inspiration of mind mapping is derived from the brain neurons, which presents a pergent mesh image that is the real embodiment of the brain thinking. Therefore, the way of thinking for mind mapping and the brain itself is unified. It is a mode of thinking by using the brain’s language. Only by using the brain’s own language to think about problems can maximally stimulate the brain’s association and creativity. Mind mapping can make your thinking clear and logical. More importantly, every aspect of thinking will not be forgotten (Li Si, 1999). Sukhomlinsky believes that “A real school is a kingdom of positive thinking.” Therefore, it can be seen that inspiring and developing the ability of students’ thinking should be the main theme of teaching and classroom (E Teacher on Line, 2004).
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1.2 Research Objectives
(1) According to the research on mind mapping and subject teaching at home and abroad, there are the following problems: 1) At present, the application of mind mapping in the teaching of science is relatively more, and less in arts and English. In the study of the English subjects, mind mapping has been studied in reading and writing in middle schools and universities, but there are few studies on vocabulary memory in primary schools. 2) Mind mapping is an important teaching strategy. It has to go through a process to change the traditional thinking mode and establish the radioactive thinking mode of mind mapping. Previous studies are more theoretical and less experimental, and there are few in-depth experiments, so that mind mapping strategy is difficult to become people's habitual way of thinking. 3) Vocabulary teaching has always been ignored, while its importance is obvious. But there is no corresponding learning strategy, so learning is more difficult. The study of vocabulary learning is very weak. Therefore, this study focuses on the application of mind mapping in English teaching in primary school, trying to provide reference in order to spread it to other teaching in English, such as grammar, reading, writing and so on.
(2) The thesis selected the students in Grade Five as the objects, who are from Tou Qiao Primary School in Guiyang, Guizhou. This school is an ordinary school. The overall situation of students belongs to the lower middle level compared with other key schools, such as Huanxi, Nanming, Jiaxiu, etc. Mr. Buzan puts forward the idea of mind mapping, and at the beginning he aims at helping those who are “learning disabilities” and making them be good learners. The author also wants to follow Buzan’s original intention to select two classes from Touqiao Primary School as the experimental objects. With the study of vocabulary learning as starting point, boldly carrying out the practice and exploration of mind mapping in teaching. As an English teacher in primary school, the author understands about the learning situation of primary school students.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Related Studies Abroad Mind mapping is popular in Europe and the United States. It is widely used as a learning strategy in western countries. The research abroad on the application of mind mapping in teaching has been relatively mature. In recent years, there have been some researches on mind mapping at home.
2.1.1 Mind Mapping and Related Concepts
The core idea of mind mapping invented by Tony Buzan is to combine image thinking with abstract thinking, so that people’s left and right hemispheres can work simultaneously in the process of thinking. Mind mapping can change boring information into a map, which is full of colors, easy to be memorized and highly organized. Beane (2003) thinks it is consistent with the natural way the brain processes things, which can describe knowledge information visually. Buzan believes that mind mapping has four basic characteristics： Firstly, the focus of attention is clearly on a central picture or keyword. Secondly, the main topic as the center diffuses branches around. Thirdly, the branches are composed of a key picture or keywords written on the curved lines. The less important topics are also presented on the branches and attached on the higher-level ones. Fourthly, each branch forms a connected node structure. So, mind mapping is represented as a structure like a tree (Li Si, 1999).
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2.2 Related Studies at Home
In China, the research on the application and practice of mind mapping in different subjects’ teaching has been increasingly emerging in recent years. However, it is still rare to study on English subject from the perspective of mind mapping. At present, Dr. ZhaoGuoqing of Beijing Normal University and others have carried out in-depth research on mind mapping, and studied the application of concept mapping and mind mapping in college students’ elective courses. The first-line teachers like Qi Wei gave their methods and experiences of applying mind mapping and concept mapping in physics and other subjects, and advocated the use of mind mapping in teaching has played a very positive role. However, the introduction of each subject is mainly from the perspective of general review, and the content outline of each knowledge section is introduced in the form of mind mapping, which makes a beneficial attempt to the application of mind mapping in the subjects, and the same for English. But how to apply it to the daily teaching needs further research.
2.2.1 Studies of Mind Mapping at Home
The search in CNKI shows that there are hundreds of relative application in domestic literature using mind mapping as the topical subject according to the statistics on academic journals and papers from 2006 to 2015. The statistics show as the follows:
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Chapter 3 Research Design………………….18
3.1 Research Questions………………………..18
3.2 Research Method…………………..18
3.3 Research Participants………………………19
Chapter 4 Results and Analysis…………………..27
4.1 Results and Analysis of the Questionnaire……........27
4.2 Results and Analysis of the Interview…………………..29
4.3 Results and Analysis of Pre-test and Post-test……………………..31
Chapter 5 Conclusion……………………45
5.1 Major Findings……………………..45
5.2 Implications…………………...47
Chapter 4 Results and Analysis
4.1 Results and Analysis of the Questionnaire
The thesis designed pre- and post-test questionnaire to students for analysis. There are ten questions in the pre- and post-test questionnaire respectively. In the table of pre-test questionnaire to students, Q1 means Question one, and so on. For example, the first question is “Do you like English?” 80% of the students answered yes, 15% of them said a little, and the rest said no. In the table of post-test questionnaire to students, the first question is “Do you like the teaching method of mind mapping?” 75% of the students like the way of teaching, and 20% of them said a little, and the rest said no.
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Chapter 5 Conclusion
5.1 Major Findings
The author finds that it plays a positive role in promoting English vocabulary teaching in primary school through the experiment and application of mind mapping. Further and in-depth study should be done in order to promote the application of mind mapping in English vocabulary teaching.
(1) The experiment verifies the effectiveness of mind mapping in English vocabulary teaching in primary school, which is mainly reflected in improving English teaching quality and effect, greatly arousing students’ interests in learning English vocabulary, and also promoting teachers’ thinking on traditional teaching. On the basis of classroom application, this study carries out ten tests in the experimental and control class and makes a comparison to analyze the differences in English vocabulary memory between the two classes. By making a series of comparison and analysis, such as pre-and post-test questionnaire to students as well as interview to teachers and students, the author finds the changes of students’ learning attitude, thinking mode and learning enthusiasm before and after the experiment. Mind mapping is not only a visual learning tool, but also an effective teaching strategy. It guides students to classify and sort out the boring words, using pergent thinking and association to form word plates and word groups according to the similarity of word structure, such as synonyms, antonyms, idiomatic phrases, etc., and finally to form a mind map which is easy to memorize, can be kept in a long-term memory, extracted and reproduced.
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