(1) The importance of English reading

(2) Teaching status of junior middle school English reading

Considering these two aspects, I put forward the research question, a topic how to design an efficient reading class which has been worth studying for teachers and researchers working on the frontline. I try to combine the mind map with English reading to improve students' reading efficiency.

1.1.1 Research Background

the importance of English reading

In current society, the updating cycle of knowledge is becoming more and shorter in the result of the rapid development of science and technology. In the face of the these ever-changing new knowledge and new skills, we only keep learning to adapt to the needs of this society and development. As an important learning skill, reading is the main way for learners to exchange knowledge. In real life, second language learners have good reading ability, so they can better use this advantage to learn foreign culture than those don’t acquired.

teaching status of junior middle school English reading

In English teaching, besides the traditional listening, speaking, and writing teaching, reading teaching is also an important segment. It is not only an important way for students to acquire knowledge, accumulate vocabulary and cultivate language sense, but also an important channel for students to obtain information. Secondly, English reading is also an important window to broaden students' world culture. English reading should not only convey the language knowledge, but also deeply dig into the reading materials.

       In our traditional reading teaching class, teachers are the masters of the classroom. Teachers teach hard, but most students can't read very well. The teacher takes the reading course as a grammar lesson and the teaching process excessively emphasizes the explanation of the language knowledge, leading to the students only understand the superficial meaning of the article, but cannot dig deeply into reality. This kind of reading teaching method ignores learners' subjective initiative and cannot be conduced to the cultivation of learners' reading ability.

1.1.2 Research Issues

Reading is the most important means of understanding and absorbing language information. It not only provides students with rich learning resources, but also helps students enlarge their vocabulary and understand the social culture. However, in the actual English learning, the reading text is persified, the vocabulary and information are large, and the structure of the text is more complex. To select the topics, we not only pay attention to the understanding of the details of the article, but also pay attention to the overall structure. In the current reading study, most of the students adopt the way of doing a large of exercises. In this way, their understanding of the language is only on the superficial layer, but their ability would not be improved. How do teachers and researchers organize effective English reading activities in class? This is a topic worth be explored by all of us.

Mind map is a visual tool to express pergent thinking. Mind map's pictures, shapes and colors make the learning process lively and interesting, not as boring as before. In many occasions, a vivid picture is better than one thousand tedious words. It helps learners learn new knowledge, assimilate or adapt new knowledge to the original knowledge structure, form knowledge network, and speed up the process of knowledge acquisition and retrieval. 

I find that English reading has always been a hot and difficult point in the study of English teaching. Although the research on reading teaching is increasing at home and abroad, there is always a lack of effective practical method. During that period, though reading teaching has been greatly improved through the efforts of many scholars, there still exist some shortcomings.