Using mind-Map to improve writing skill for 11th graders at Thai Nguyen high school

ely. By using mind maps, 
learners can learn writing with their own 
imagination. Besides, they can use mind maps 
to clarify their thoughts by grouping related 
ideas and creating their visual images to 
remember supporting sentences easily. 
2. Literature review 
2.1 The concepts of writing 
Nunan (2003, p. 88) [1] states that writing is 
an intellectual activity of finding the ideas 
and thinking about the way to express and 
arrange them into a statement and paragraph 
that is clear to be understood by the people. It 
indicates that the writers are demanded to 
show the thoughts and organize writer's 
concept in understanding an issue which is 
shown to the public. It requires the integration 
of idea systematically written. Writing is 
considered as an active creation of text 
involves on the one hand lower-order 
transcription skills such as handwriting, 
punctuation and spelling, and on the other 
hand, higher-order self-regulated thinking 
processes such as planning, sequencing and 
expressing the content [2]. It requires the 
writer to express the content of writing into a 
good composition by considering the aspects 
of writing to be understood by the readers. 
Harmer (2004, p. 31-33) [3] states that there 
is some the importance of learning writing. 
Those can be seen the following points: 
- Writing encourage students to focus on 
accurate language use because they think as 
they write. It may provoke well development 
as they resolve problems which writing puts 
in their mind, 
- Writing has always been used as a means of 
reinforcing language that has been taught. 
Teachers use writing skill to make a note 
about recent learnt grammar in the learning 
process. 
- Writing is frequently useful as preparation 
for some other activities, in particular when 
students write sentences. The students are 
given the time to think the ideas and asked to 
write sentences 
- Writing can also be as an integral part of a 
larger activity where the focus in on 
something else, such as language practice, 
acting out or speaking. The teacher asks 
students to write short dialogues which they 
will act out. 
2.2 Mind-map 
According to Tony Buzan & Barry Buzan 
(1996) [4], Mind Mapping, which “provides a 
Vu Dinh Bac et al TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 61 - 64 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 63 
universal key to unlocking the potential of the 
brain”, is the creative technique to take note 
the information. He stated that mind maps 
make full use of our mind in an effective way 
since they have the structures and features 
designed to be suitable with the function of 
our brain – in a radiant rather than linear 
manner. Besides, he pointed out that “a 
Radiant Thinking brain should express itself 
in a radiant form which reflects the pattern of 
its own thought processes [...] the Mind Map 
is that form.” 
2.3 Advantages of using mind maps 
In “Mind Mapping Evidence Report”, the 
author summarized from many scientific 
researches about mind maps and pointed out 
that mind map technique is actually an 
effective learning method. He indicated some 
following advantages of using mind maps in 
learning: 
- Boost memory 
- Foster creativity 
- Promote active learning 
- Encourage critical thinking 
3. Methodology 
The study utilized writing analysis to find 
authentic information. The participants of this 
study are11th graders at Thai Nguyen High 
School. The total number of participants are 
10. The researcher divided all of them into 
two groups, each group has 5 members: the 
experimental group and the control group. 
The experimental group has learnt how to 
build a mind map and advantages of the mind 
map technique. They listed as many topic 
sentences and supporting sentences relating to 
the essay possible in a mind-map. Then, they 
wrote an essay using these all the ideas given 
in the mind map and gave to the research. The 
control group practices writing as they are 
learning in their curriculum. The research 
collected 20 essays which were written by the 
experimental group and 20 essays by the 
control group in 4 weeks. The purpose of 
collecting articles of both groups to see the 
effectiveness of using mind maps to write 
essays through the comparethe writings of the 
experimental group with the ones of the 
control group. 
4. Findings and discussions 
For more accurate information to test the 
results when applying mind map method to 
improve students’ writing skill, the researcher 
chose 10 students out of total all of students 
in grade 11 at Thai Nguyen High school. The 
researcher divided 10 students into 2 groups: 
5 students in an experimental group and 5 
students in a control group. The study was 
held for 4 weeks, on Mondays and Fridays 
every week. Every week, students wrote two 
essays about 350 words in 60 minutes. In 
week 1, the researcher collected 20 essays 
from 10 students and from this pointed out 
that all of them lacking some vital supporting 
sentences that of the topic sentences. 
From week 2 and week 4, 10 students 
continued to write essays, but all of students 
on the experimental group built a mind map 
before writing an essay, the control group did 
not. After 60 minutes, the researcher collected 
10 essays. After 4 weeks applying this 
method, the researcher had the following 
results: From the result of the study in 4 
weeks, the researcher can make the following 
conclusion. Obviously, when there is not 
mind map method, students have missed out 
some supporting sentences in the article. On 
the contrary, when applying this method and 
giving the students the right way once they 
have indicated their mistakes, they no longer 
make mistakes. Specially, a student on the 
experimental group had the first and the 
second essays with lack of supporting ideas. 
During the study, 5 students on a control 
group constantly missed out supporting 
sentences. Based on the results of the study 
after 4 weeks, it is possible to see mind map 
Vu Dinh Bac et al TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 61 - 64 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 64 
method is a specific feasible and suitable 
method to help students improve their 
writing skill. 
5. Conclusion 
Using mind map method is not new in 
Vietnam as well as around the world. 
However, organizing this method of how to 
bring it best effect is very important. The 
study of this paper again reaffirms the 
effectiveness of this approach to improve 
grammar skills for students in writing. 
Students can work in pairs or groups, they can 
compare and discuss their ideas, perhaps 
adding to their mind maps as they go. This 
stage also provides the opportunity for peer 
teaching, as other may be available to provide 
the English word for the idea that was noted 
down. Teachers can walk around, examine 
students’ practice and assist where there are 
any questions. This technique brings us 
various benefits. It can make the atmosphere 
in the class became free and comfortable. In 
addition, using mind maps to plan and outline 
your essay will not only make your writing 
process a lot of easier, it will also enable you 
to work through sources more efficiently and 
help you find information more quickly. 
However, during the teaching process, 
teachers face many difficulties in organizing 
this method. Teachers can hardly control the 
activity of all students in a class because the 
number of students in a college classroom is 
usually quite large, ranging from 50 to 70 
students. In addition, students who do not 
have high professional qualifications, as well 
as negative attitudes towards English, also 
reduce the efficiency of this process. 
Therefore, the teachers with the expertise, 
attention to students also cannot make the 
school more effective, as well as this method, 
is desired. 
In summary, after analyzing the experimental 
results as well as observing the attitudes of 
students participating in this method, it can be 
said that this method is a perfectly suitable 
method in the seminar class at Thai Nguyen 
High school. This research comes from many 
paragraphs as well as essays of 11th graders 
at Thai Nguyen High School which still lack 
of supporting ideas. Besides, students are not 
actively working in groups, most of them also 
study alone, so they cannot have more ideas 
for their essays. This study was conducted at 
Thai Nguyen High School, but it is hoped that 
it will be useful for other schools in Vietnam. 
Based on the results of this study, it is hoped 
that the mind map method will be used more 
frequently during writing hours. In addition, 
this method can also be used to improve the 
remaining 3 skills, especially the reading 
skills of the students. This method improves 
students’ writing skill with the hope of 
improving exam results, especially the IELTS 
exam. This research also wants to provide 
some effective suggestions for organizing this 
method during the writing lesson to help 
students have a good essay. It is hoped that 
this study could be useful for students and 
teachers to limit the problems in scholarly 
writing as well as other forms of writing. 
REFERENCES 
[1]. Nunan, D. Practical English Language Teaching. 
Singapore: Mc Graw- Hill Company, 2003. 
[2]. Berninger V. W., Abbott R. D., Abbott S. P., 
Graham S., Richards T. “Writing and reading: 
Connections between language by hand and 
language by eye. Journal of Learning 
Disabilities”. Special Issue: The Language of 
Written Language. 35(1):39–56. [PubMed] 
[Google Scholar], 2002. 
[3]. Harmer, J. How to Teach Writing. England: 
Pearson Education Limited, 2004. 
[4]. Buzan, T. and Buzan, B., The Mind Map 
Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to 
Maximize Your Brain’s Untapped Potential, 
Plume, New York, NY, 1996.