Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Language is the bridge of communication while vocabulary is one of the three basic components of anylanguage; besides, it is also the foundation of any language. So the vocabulary teaching is very importantpart in language teaching and learning. D.A.Wilkins (1987) once stated the important status of vocabularyin his Linguistics in Language Teaching “without grammar, very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary,nothing can be conveyed”. That is to say, without vocabulary, the functions and five skills of language willbe made impossible and we can’t communicate with others and do anything. In short, as an essentialelement of language, vocabulary is the cornerstone that supports the large system of language, Englishvocabulary included. As a result, it has been aroused many people about how to teach English vocabularyin an effective way in the language field in recent years.As we all know, pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary are the basic components of language. In theEnglish learning process, learners spend different times in learning these three critical components, learningpronunciation may be just spending a few weeks; maybe it just costs about few months or years aboutlearning grammar, but the accumulation of vocabulary is a lifelong process, it’s also the bottleneck of themost English learners in learning English process. For English teacher how to effectively improve the rateof the learning English vocabulary has become a serous problem. While a study shows that vocabularies arenot isolated in the brain, they are interrelated regarding a key word as the center. The hierarchical networkmodel, semantic relation theory, spreading activation model and the prototype theory also proved that thereis a connection between vocabularies. In this study, the mind map-aid method is an effective way forEnglish teachers to teach English vocabulary. There are different ways to teach English vocabulary, whilethe mind map-aided method is a new one. The mind mapping is a scientific method and tool which has thecharacteristics and meets the needs of the times of trimming, processing and knowledge managementinformation. It can help English teachers to teach learners with vocabulary, graphic, figure, logic, color andspatial awareness. In the mind map-aided method, the interrelations of the vocabularies are very simple andobvious, so it’s helpful for English learners to remember. In this way, it also improves the efficiency oflearners’study ability, at the same time; their language learning quality can also be enhanced.
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1.2 Significance and purpose of the Study
According to the basic concept requirements of the new English curriculum standard for vocational and technical college, the education should arouse and cultivate the students’ interests and motivation,help students establish self-confidence and master the effective learning methods, enhance theself-directed learning and improve learners' comprehensive cultural qualities. What’s more, the Englishclass is the main place to realize quality-oriented education, students is the central in the English teaching,if you want to improve the teaching results; the important thing is to play the subjectivity of the students'learning. However, the first step of leaning English is English vocabulary study which decides thestudents’ skills level in listening, speaking, reading and writing, but for the most students, especially forthe vocational and technical college students, the English vocabulary learning is their first difficulty tolearn English well. About that, if the English teacher can teach vocational and technical college studentsvocabulary in good method to cultivate their learn vocabulary ability, their learning interests andmotivation can be enhanced and the ability of learning vocabulary also can be improved.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Definition
The concept of mind mapping was proposed by British Tony Buzan in 1960s. At first, he like us alsoexperienced the difficulties in information absorption, sorting out the knowledge and rememberingsomething, and then he also tried his best to find some related materials, but he was told that there weren’trelated materials at that time; therefore, he realized that there was a field which was not discovered andstudied, hence, he began to do the best he can to study and find ways to solve these problems in this field.At last, Tony Buzan found that if we combined the functions of the left brain and the right brain, therewould be higher work efficiency. In the beginning, the mind mapping was used to teach people withlearning disabilities and who loss of reading ability; as a result, these people became the outstanding person.So Tony Buzan was called the father of the memory.
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2.2 The Difference between Mind Mapping and Concept Map
About the difference between the definition of mind mapping and the definition of concept map, thereare three different opinions at present. The first is about equivalent point. Professor Li Jiahou once statedthat “The human use all of the illustrations used to express their own thoughts that is called ‘concept map’,while ‘mind mapping’ directly reflects that this is the map to guide people to think. The method is shownclearly, I think this view is also very good” (2003(9): 34-36). The second is about no distinction. Qi Wei who is a teacher with abundant experience in front-line teaching thinks that adopting what concepts are notimportant for the using of the front-line teachers, there is no need to make a distinction between the twoconceptions of mind mapping and concept map. The third is about the distinction between mind mappingand concept map. According to the Zhao Guoqing’s opinion that there is the distinction between mindmapping and concept map, the author summarizes the distinction of them in historical origin, definition,creation method and application fields and so on. Please see the table below: (Zhang Dan, Liao NingNormal University)
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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework..........16
3.1 Knowledge Visualization Theory.... 16
3.2 Cognitive Processing Hierarchy Theory........17
3.3 Spreading Activation Model.....18
Chapter Four Research Design........20
4.1 Research Questions.....20
4.2 Subjects.........20
4.3 Experimental Methods.......214
4.4 Experimental Procedures..........23
4.5 Sample Teaching.........26
4.6 Data Collection.... 30
Chapter Five Date Analysis and Results........32
5.1 Pre-testAnalysis..........32
5.2 The Data Analysis of Dictation........32
5.3 Post-testAnalysis........35
5.4 The Data Analysis of Questionnaires..... 35
Chapter Five Date Analysis and Results
5.1 Pre-testAnalysis
The table shows that the results of data analysis in the pre-test of class one and class two. We can seefrom the table that F= 2.24, sig. = 0.14, and the Standard Deviation has the homogeneity of variance. Itdoesn’t need to be corrected. The Mean of the class one is 59.54, and that of class two is 57.66, and P= 0.38＞ 0.05, that is to say, there is no significant difference between class one and class two in English level.Therefore, the author can randomly be divided these two classes into experimental class and control class,and then the author regards class one as experimental class, and class two as the control class. Through the three months’ research and experiment, the students in experimental class insisted onusing mind mapping to help them learn English vocabulary, and had immediate dictation test after learningthat unit to test the results of their short memory; from the second unit, every vocabulary test added towords which they have learned before in other units to test whether their long memory improved, and at thesame time, it could supervise and urge students to accumulate the English vocabulary. There were theresults of 6 vocabulary tests in the experimental class and control class. The first, third and fifth tests wereabout the short memory tests which just dictated the words of they learned in that unit; the second, thefourth and the sixth tests were about long memory tests, we also called them delay tests. See the table 5-2.Before these six tests, students weren’t told the dictation scope in order to test whether students have mastered the English words they have learned.
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Conclusion
The author finds the mind mapping has positive effect on promoting students’ learn English vocabularythrough the experiment and application of mind mapping used in English vocabulary teaching. Thisresearch will further promote the classroom application of mind mapping in the teaching of Englishvocabulary. The conclusions are listed as follows：The experiment proves that mind mapping has the effectiveness to promote the Englishvocabulary memory for vocational and technical college students, such as improve the rate of correctspelling, and increase the number of words extraction and representation. This research which based on theclassroom application adopts the comparisons of the dictation in the usual teaching and the post-testbetween experimental class and control class, the author finds that there is significant difference betweenexperimental class and control class in English vocabulary memory by statistical analysis and the changesof the students in learning style, emotional attitude and thinking habits between the pre-experiment andpost-experiment in experiment class.
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