In order to get in-depth information for the effectiveness of using mind mapping in teaching and learning reading comprehension, an interview was conducted with 12 students of The experimental group divided into 3 sub-groups in comparing between pre-test results and post-test results. The group getting higher scores was
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Always Usually Sometimes Never
marked HG with four students (HG1, HG2, HG3, HG4); the group getting lower scores was marked LG (LG1, LG2, LG3, LG4); and the one remaining the scores was marked SG. After the interview with 8 main questions, the responses were presented as follow:
4.3.1. Importance of reading comprehension in learning English
When asked about the importance of reading comprehension in learning English, all 12 students of 3 sub-groups asserted that reading played an essential role in their language learning. “Reading could not only help me enrich my vocabulary stock but also help me get more knowledge and use them to practice other language skills” ( HG1, HG3, LG2, SG4). HG2 added one more reason why reading is important. “I am a mechanical engineering student, so we have to read a lot of materials in English. If I don’t have good reading comprehension skill, it is not easy for me to grasp the knowledge”. These responses did not make a big surprise because they seemed to repeat the results of questionnaire.
4.3.2. Students’ opinion about mind mapping
That mind mapping was a new technique to enhance reading comprehension in class was stated by all students. HG2 shared that “I used to do the same way to summarize the lessons in other subjects but it was simpler by listing the key information. Now, I know it is mind mapping and it is so effective”. In addition, all of students expressed their preference for mind mapping more than the conventional technique. One student was eager to say: “I like mind mapping used in reading lesson.
It made the leering atmosphere active and warm. I feel not stressful and bored with
the lessons any more” (SG1). “I prefer mind mapping…” (SG3, HG1, HG4, SG2).
Therefore, most of them wished their teachers to frequently use mind mapping in lessons. “I want to have more reading courses using mind mapping to encourage me to study”(HG4). “I would like to use it more in the future …” (HG2, SG3, SG2, LG4).
However, there was a fact that the students in HG and SG group expressed their positive ideas towards mind mapping in keenness more than those of LG. HG and SG students often used “prefer”, “my preference”, “love” ... when giving their opinion about mind mapping.
4.3.3. Results and factors affecting the tests
When answering for the differences between the pre-test and post-test scores, students in HG group were excited to express their proud because they got the great improvement in reading comprehension. HG1 shared “I am so happy when I see my reading comprehension skill making a progress, my post-test score was 2 marks better than pre-test score”. HG3 was a little bit happy because “I just got 4 for post-test.
Although it was better than pre-test score, it was still a low mark. I want to spend time practicing more”. In contrast, two students in LG and 3 students in SG were unsatisfied with their results. LG2 admitted “I was sad because my score felt down from 6 to 5. I’m not sure but maybe I felt more nervous in the post-test”.
When finishing the pre-test and post-test, there were some changes in students’
attitude. Most of students (10/12 students) felt more confident to do the post-test. All of four students of HG group admitted that they were eager to join in the post-test because they wanted to apply what they learn from mind mapping to the test (HG1,
HG2, HG4) and “to check whether there occurred any improvement during the learning process with mind mapping” (HG3). “I see reading comprehension was not as boring as I thought, it was joyful and creative”, LG3 shared.
However, some of students recognized that there were some factors that affected their test results. Physically, the weather was too hot and sunny in the day taking the post-test, this “made me tired and sleepy” (LG2, LG3). In addition, LG4 explained that “I have got the flu that day, so I did not pay attention on the test well”.
Whereas, there were no ideas for the mental factors affected them during the test taking time. In contrast, the students from HG and SG did the test smoothly without any interference of physical and mental factors.
4.3.4. Characteristics of mind mapping
Two questions about the advantages and difficulties of using mind mapping in classroom were asked to figure out the main characteristics of mind mapping that students could recognize. Majority of students asserted mind mapping helped them a lot in comprehending reading texts. Thanks to mind mapping, the students could remember the words, the content of the text easily (HG2, HG3, SG1, SG4) and even grasp the connection between the paragraphs (HG1, HG4, SG3). “Now, I am so confident to work in group because I know how to assign my role and what I should learn from the other members in my group. It is interesting, also” (SG2).Moreover, students agreed that they were motivated and encouraged when participating in the mind mapping activities in class (SG1, SG2, HG1). However, besides the advantages, mind mapping still remained some difficulties when using it in classroom. The first
difficult that the students of three groups faced in common was the limited vocabulary stock. “I sometimes felt hard to complete a mind map because I needed more time to look up the unknown words in the text”, SG2 admitted. In addition, all of students agreed that they spent amount of time presenting mind maps on papers. “ I and my group’s members often discussed and drafted the mind map for the reading text in a half of time, the other half we presented it on papers with colors, pictures and key words”, HG2 shared.
4.3.5. Summary
To sum up, the results from the interview indicated that all of students realized the importance of reading comprehension to their language learning. They also admitted that mind mapping was a great technique in order to help them engage in reading comprehension because of its advantages about enhancing motivation, facilitating the learning process, improving creativity and group work skills that they could recognized when their teacher introduced it in class. However, the problems of time consuming and lack of vocabulary were mentioned as the difficulties of using mind mapping for reading comprehension lessons in class. In addition, there occurred positive changes in the attitude of most of students. They preferred the mind mapping rather than the conventional technique in reading comprehension. Interestingly, there were some physical factors such as the weather or illness which affected students who got lower scores in post-test.
4.4. Chapter summary
All the data in the tests, questionnaire and interview have just analyzed. The results of the tests showed that the students in the experimental group made a great progress when using mind mapping in reading comprehension. The presented data in questionnaire and interview exposed a fact that the mind mapping had a great effect on improving reading comprehension ability of students in three main aspects. First of all, enhancing students’ motivation in learning reading was the obvious advantage that students could recognize from the application of mind mapping. Using mind mapping in class created the learning environment which was exciting, lively and even free for students to exchange their ideas. Secondly, mind mapping was also the effective technique to stimulate and facilitate students’ reading comprehension process via developing students’ brainpower as well as helping students be more proactive. In addition, being easy to understand and apply mind mapping into the lessons helped students grasp the writers’ opinions and linking between the paragraphs logically and clearly. Consequently, students could not only understand the lesson right away but also remember it longer and easier. Thirdly, improving students’ creativity and group work skill was the considerable benefit that was agreed by the majority of students.
Besides the proved benefits of mind mapping, there still occurred some constrains of this application. It took students a lot of time to create a mind map on papers. Moreover, it was hard for students who lacked of vocabulary and for the ones who didn’t directly make a mind map.