According to Malekzadeh and Bayat (2015), “Mind Mappings contain visual frameworks like figures, diagrams, or charts utilized to display structural knowledge. They are influential in that they assist students communicate information because they can explain complex notions in simple, meaningful representations so that learners can expand a comprehensive comprehension of the content to be learnt” (page 82.) This is a graphic demonstration that show how a single definition or concept is related to others in the same categories. Also, it is a technique of taking notes enabling us to memorise the information with abundance.

Mind mapping can help to tackle the shortage of vocabulary in memorizing some words from the reading passages. Mind mapping can assist the students to grasp key information and linkages among ideas of the given texts. From that, readers can reinforce their reading comprehension. There are three common types of maps which are being used in teaching English including Network Tree Map, Event Chain Map and Spider Concept Map. They represent three different structures and diagrams to link ideas of a reading text together. Especially, these three kinds of mind map are highly suitable to the content of the units of English at high school.

The first type is Network Tree Map, in which the main ideas are made in a quadrangle and other words written in the line. It is suitable for visualizing a cause and effect relation, and technical terms are used to explain the correlations.

The second type is Event Chain Map. The event chain can be used for giving steps in a procedure, which is illustrated as follows.

Next, Cycle Concept Map is suitable to show a correlation how a combination accident is interacting to produce a group of results repeatedly.

Finally, the Spider Concept Map is suitable to visualize something which is not based on hierarchy, a category which is not parallel, and result of sharing opinion.

Reference

Malekzadeh, B., & Bayat, A. (2015). The effect of mind mapping strategy on comprehending implicit information in EFL reading texts. International Journal of Educational Investigations, 2(3), 81-90.

Phan Thị Huê
Giáo viên tiếng Anh - Trường Quốc tế Á Châu