开题报告

一、选题背景与意义

  Without grammar, you can just express little, but without vocabulary, you can convey nothing (D. A. Wilkins, 1972). We cannot express anything perfect without vocabulary; even we cannot carry on the basic language communication if there is no vocabulary in the mind. Vocabulary occupies an important position in the English learning and English teaching which directly affects learners’ learning in all aspects (listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translation). Teachers attach great importance to vocabulary teaching and students spend ample time in vocabulary learning, however, much effort is being expended with little apparent result. Many experienced teacher found that due to the expansion of the vocabulary size in junior high school, the grasp of word is getting increasingly difficult for the students：They always fall into a bad circle of memorizing to forgetting with their rote vocabulary learning---- through teacher’s explanation and word reciting.

With the continuous deepening of the curriculum reform, the ideas of new curriculum have been widely accepted by teachers in China. New ideas and methods have been explored and adopted in vocabulary teaching. The application of mind mapping has become a new research direction in English vocabulary taching in the past decade.(Jia hong;Sui Xiao bing, 2014:298) Many researches about the application of mind mapping in vocabulary teaching can be found in the academic paper and  teaching research journal. Scholars and teachers draw many positive findings in their studies. And Mind mapping approach has been recommended in some teaching reference books in the part of vocabulary teaching instruction.

However, as a kind of new teaching approach, the application of mind mapping in junior high English vocabulary teaching still remains at the primary stage, which needs further study. The empirical research on application of mind map in Chinese classroom is still necessary and instructively meaningful.

With the above said in mind, a teaching practice were carried out in order to see whether mind-mapping-assisted vocabulary teaching can go smoothly in Chinses junior high school. What’s more, this paper attempts to analyze the effects of the mind-mapping-assisted vocabulary from the teaching case. Some suggestions are discussed in the end of the  paper.

二、研究的基本内容与主要特点、创新点

I.  Introduction

A. Research Background and Purpose

B. Research Questions      

II. Literature review

Previous study and theoretical basis about:

  A. Mind map

  B. Studies about the Application of Mind Mapping in English Vocabulary Teaching

III. Methodology

A Case Study:

A. Design of Teaching plan

The teaching material, the basic framework of the mind map, the teaching process and activities will be carefully designed

B. Teaching implementation and teaching observation

This part is implicated in the actual teaching practice applied with mind mapping. Descriptions about speech, manner, involvement, interaction, etc. of both students and the teacher are noting down in the paper.

IV. Data Collection and Analysis

A. Analysis of the teaching observation

B. Analysis of the mind mapping work

C. Analysis of the questionnaire

D. Analysis of the interview

V. Conclusion

A. Summary of this thesis

B. Limitations

C. suggestions

References

Appendices

三、研究方法与措施

1. Literature research:

A. Review of the Previous study:

On the application of mind maps in teaching and learning both at home and abroad, and especially those related to English vocabulary teaching.

B. Theoretical Framework

a) Theory of Brain science

b) Theory of Knowledge visualization

c) Theory Spreading Activation Model

d) Theory of Constructivism and Schema