The Application of the Mind map in the Primary
Chinese Text Preview
Wu Wenyan
South China Normal University, China
908289855@qq.co m
Chen Zhengqing
Zhongshan Road West Primary School, China
Zhengqingchen@163.com
Zhang Zhenwei
South China Normal University,China
526555406@qq.co m
Abstract: Previewing before class can cultivate the students' self-study ability, has a guiding role on
students' classroom learning, and helps teachers to personalized teaching. The Visual Thinking Tool: mindmap, can help students to make the thinking process present clearly and visually. In this article, we havemade an experimental study on the application of mind map in Chinese text preview, and the role of thedevelopment of students' thinking ability , so as to improve the situation of the neglect of the preview andthe process of “knowledge processing” and “problem solving”.

Keywords: Mind Map, Preview Study, Thinking Ability, Visual Thinking Tool

1.

Research BackgroundThe new “Primary Ch inese Curriculu m Standard” points out that in the development of language skills , atthe same time, enhancing the development of thin king skills, stimu lating imagination and creat ive potential, learningscientific way of thinking, and gradually develop a realistic, true knowledge of scientific attitude(Lu lu 2012).
Therefore, the language learning process is closely related to students' thinking in language teaching. However, in the
traditional teaching class, the process of “knowledge processing” and “problem solving” are not visib le, bothteachers and students are focused more on the answers but not the thinking process (Hu Jianmin 2011).
Preview study is a very important but easily overlooked aspect by the teachers and students in thelanguage teaching. The effect ive preview study can improve their language literacy and ability, as well as form their
independent study habits .

2. Research Questions


How to use the mind map to make the Chinese text preview study more effective?
How to make the generation process of the answer visualization so as to improve their thinking skills?
What’s the application effect?

3. Research Methodology
3.1 Research Objective
In order to make the Ch inese text preview study more effective, we introduce mind map to help students
do the text preview study, and help them to learn knowledge fro m all levels, so that they can learn to think, learn toquestion, and develop the habit of thinking while study.
3.2 Research Samples
32 pupils of grade 5 from Zhongshan Road West Primary School, Tianhe, Guangzhou, China.
3.3 Methodol ogy
Two methodologies were main ly used: experimental research and interview research. We interviewed theteacher and students on how do they do the preview study before this experiment, and after the practice, if they meetsome questions while previewing with the mind map and how to overco me it. Besides, we interview them to get theinformation about the application effect.

4. Analysis of the application activities
Through interviews, we find that it is not easy for s tudents to use mind map for prev iewing. As before theexperiment, students haven’t use the mind map in their study, they have many questions on how to use it and how tobetter use it. Overall, there are four stages in the experimental period:
Stage One, Beginning (December 2012)
At the beginning, they couldn’t preview the text from kinds of perspectives, expand or extend theknowledge points. For an example, one of the student’s work—<The discovery of childhood>, it includes the word,words’ parsing, text content and paragraph, but as we know ,words and word parsing belong to the same knowledgenode, so the integrity, scalability and hierarchy of the text content fail to be reflected.
Stage Two, Skillful (January to February 2013)
Based on the mode g iven by the teacher, students can preview fo llo wing by the rules, and graduallydevelop the preview habits with a mind map. Picture one is the mode given by the teacher, and Picture two is one of
the student’s word based on it.

Pic. 1 Thinking mode of the text preview study
Pic. 2 Student’s Word based on the thinking modeThis Mind Map includes seven dimensions of thought: writ ing background, words, sentences, paragraphs,
the main content and the central idea of the whole text.
Stage Three, Indivi duati on（ March 2013）
After two months, students can carry out personalized learning with the mind map, and draw the mind map

focused on the importance and difficulties they meet. Like the following two pictures:

Pic.3 Student’s work
Pic.4 Student’s work
By co mparing with the two works, we can find that each student think in different angle, and the teacher
encourage them to read the text from different points of view to enhance the development of students' personality.
Stage Four, Innovation (April 2013)
At this stage, students are able to carry out creative preview. They are ab le to choose the right thinking
tools for different problems, and comb ine a variety of thin king tools for preparation flexib ly, and develop thecapabilities of combing and inducting knowledge.

5. The role of the mind map in the primary Chinese text preview
On the April, 16th 2013, we made an interview with teachers and students, and find that the application ofmind map in text preview is of great help for students’ learning and teachers’ teaching.
For teachers, they can find the difficu lties of students’ study, so that teaching is more targeted byhighlighting the d ifficult ies and co mplementary o f missing points. This teaching method requires teachers to change
the traditional teaching concepts, abandon comprehensive indoctrination, non-discriminatory ideas. Finding thedifferences in the work of students’ to apply individualized counseling and individualized teaching.
For students, the impacts are mainly reflected in the following aspects : Promote students to self-construct knowledge
The application of mind map is to change students' cognitive style, which is different fro m the traditional formof cognition based on memo ry. Using mind map, students learn by understanding, and with the link between
knowledge points, construct a complete system of knowledge.
 Facilitate the exchanging and sharing of knowledge
In the beginning of each class, the teacher will allow students to exh ibit their works, and some students to reporton the work, other students can ask them questions, so that to find their own strengths and weaknesses , which canstrengthen the sharing and exchanging of knowledge between students.
 Enhance the ability of students' self-learning
The application of mind map in text preparation can make the prev iew study concrete and actionable, which
stimulates their interests in learning. In the text prev iewing, students can think to solve problems independently, andto seek knowledge in the investigation, in order to cultivate the awareness of independent learning.
 Promote the development of students' thinking ability
Mind map can help students to specific the information of read ing materials’ and use drawings to assimilate
new knowledge. It can help them to establish the link between knowledge and expand knowledge points, so that tothink deeply, and form a good cognitive structure of their thinking process.

6. Conclusion
Experimental results show that, the mind map can expand students' breadth and depth of the thinking, put theinvisible process and method of thinking clearly, help students better understand, remember and use knowledge,
enable students to understand their thin king process, find the advantages and disadvantages, and promote thedevelopment of students thinking ability. The mind map can help students effec tively in Ch inese text preview study,
cultivating students' autonomous learning ability, so as to gradually form a good preview habit.

Literature Reference[1]Lulu. “Primary Chinese Curriculu m Standard” in 2012 [DB/OL].The blog of Haiyan Experimental
PrimarySchool.http://www.zjhysyxx.co m/jsblog/2007/list.asp?id=14253, 2012-3-15.
[2]Hu Jian min. The exp loration of the relationship between lan guage and thought based on the theory oflanguage relativity[J]Periodical of Youth Writers, 2011,18:170.