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Thus, a new teaching mode is in need to polish up the way of writing teaching and improve students’ writing ability.
1.2 Significance of the study
The current English curriculum standards have clearly written specific requests for writing which has be put on the list of the goals of comprehensive English language skills. Writing, an indispensable important factor in successful learning English, is regarded as the best feedback for reading, listening and speaking, which can not be replaced by other forms of learning.
The learning of writing should be run through the whole process of learning a foreign language. However, the current English writing teaching in China’s Junior Middle Schools has some common issues: less time allocation, small amount of training, single teaching method, which inevitably results in students’ poor learning ability. Thus, English writing has been a very difficult task for most Junior Middle School students. As far as this situation is concerned, a very important reason is that students lack appropriate writing trainings and necessary learning strategies.
Up to this day, in the field of foreign language teaching in Junior Middle School, Mind Map yet plays a guiding role in the theoretical framework. The researcher beliefs that one of the effective methods to improve students' English writing ability is to apply Mind Map into the writing teaching. The introduction of the concept of Mind Map is consistent with the teaching of writing related to students’ cognitive psychology—from easy to difficult. In the textbook— New Standard English, each module has a writing practice which has a topic related to students' lives, so the teacher can use mind maps to construct a relationship between what students have learnt and what they are going to write. What is more, those mind maps can also help students learn to use the new words and sentence structures in their writing practice. Through such writing training, students both imitate and innovate, which not only reduces the difficulty of writing for students, but also fully mobilizes the students' writing enthusiasm.
The purpose of this study is to apply Mind Map in Junior Middle School English writing teaching, so that students can understand the knowledge of English writing strategies, and be able to write effectively.
1.3 Organization of the thesis
The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction. It states the importance of English writing and the present English writing teaching situation in Junior Middle School. Thus, it points out the significance of the study. Chapter Two presents relevant literature review which defines the definition of Mind Map and talks about its theoretical foundation. Chapter Three is an empirical study in a Junior Middle School in the researcher’s hometown, lasting for 5 weeks. Chapter Four summarizes major findings, presents limitations of the research, and mentions some suggestions for further study.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Concept of Mind Map
2.1.1 Definition of Mind Map
Originated in the early1960s, Mind Map is a concept raised by the Chairman of the Brain Foundation, Tony Buzan, who is also a famous educator and a psychologist. Although the original purpose of raising this concept was to train people who have reading disabilities and learning disabilities, it has been widely used in varies of fields, such as note taking, writing, discussion, meetings and other design aspects, affecting millions of people around the world to help them improve their ability to understand and memorize.
Mind Map, also called Mental Map, presents the process of thinking, which is a perfect tool to express the radiant thinking. As Buzan (1993) has defined, Mind Map is a powerful graphical technique which aims to maximize the untapped potential of human brain. In his book, Tony Buzan (2004) makes a comparison of human brain to a super biological computer and likens the synapses of nerve cells to lines of thinking. With regard to the method of generating a mind map, it always starts from a core word, and radiates a series of concepts related to the central topic from the center to the edges, finally shaping an ordered diagram. Thus, Mind Map, a simple and natural way easily accepted by the brain, turns a bunch of dull information into concrete images, symbols, lines, colors, etc. which helps to improve people’s memory. Simply speaking, a mind map is like a map of a city. The central topic represents the center of the city, expressing the core ides, while the thinking processes of the main idea shows as the main roads radiating from the center of the city. Then, the branches of the main roads represent lower-lever ideas. Figure2.1 is a sample of a Mind Map.