2.1 Mind Mapping 3

2.1.1  The concept of Mind Mapping 3

2.1.2 The theoretical basis of Mind mapping 4

2.1.3 The previous studies of Mind mapping 5

2.2 English Word Mapping and vocabulary memory 7

2.2.1 The concept of vocabulary 7

2.2.2 The Function of English word mapping 8

2.2.3 Five kinds of English word mapping 8

2.2.4 Word mapping and word memory 10

3. Research Design 12

3.1 Research Questions 12

3.2 Participants 12

3.3 Research tools 13

3.3.1 Tests 13

3.3.2 Questionnaires 14

3.3.3 Interviews 15

3.3.4 Data collection tools 15

3.4 Procedure 15

3.4.1 The experiment 16

3.4.2 Questionnaires 16

3.4.3 Interviews 17

4. Results and Discussion 18

4.1 Results and Discussion of research question one 18

4.1.1 Results of Research Question One 18

4.1.2 Discussion of Research Question One 22

4.2 Results and discussion of research question two 23

4.2.1 The results and discussion of the questionnaires 23

4.2.2 The results and discussion of the interviews 25

5. Conclusion 27

5.1 Major Findings and Implications 27

5.2 Limitations and Future Expectations 28

References: 29

Appendixs: 32

1. Introduction 

1.1 Background of the research

It is said that pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary are the three key factors for one’s language learning, among which vocabulary plays a quite important role. Just as what the famous linguistician Wilkins once said “Without grammar, very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed”, marking the significance of vocabulary retention in English education. Since vocabulary is the basic unit of a sentence, to some extent, the capacity of grasping words is one of the vital elements for one’s linguistic competence. However, for quite a long time, the remembering of English words has been a dilemma for most Chinese students. And the difficulty even increases when the learners are primary school students, who know few or even nothing about some rules of vocabularies reciting.