Learn a Foreign Language Using Visual Mind Mapping
Learning and retaining any new information is not always easy, and foreign languages are no exception. For those looking to learn a new language, remembering the pronunciation and meanings of words is often the greatest challenge of this task. Many people therefore, resort to the use of note cards or other memorization techniques to aid them in mastering a new language. Yet, few, if any of these techniques will contain the advantages found in Visual Mind Mapping. Research on learning has shown that the “brain functions best when it compares, integrates, and synthesizes” the information it receives.1Visual Mind Maps allow users to process information in this manner through use of a unique, spatially constructed, highly associative and quickly processed diagram.
With Mind Maps, foreign language learners, therefore, have the ability to learn words in an effective, creative, and intuitive manner.
What are Visual Mind Maps and How Are They Created?
A Visual Mind Map is “a means of organizing information that allows individuals to create diagrams, pictures, and other graphic visuals in order to show the relationship between ideas or other types of information”.2 With a Visual Mind Map, the creator makes use of colors and symbols to construct the map and represent his or her ideas in a non-linear format. When creating a Visual Mind Map, the individual usually begins by showing the key concept or main idea of the information as a graphic image, located in the center of the map. Any themes surrounding the main idea are shown on “branches” that are attached to the central image. Subsequent themes of less importance are then attached to these branches using “child branches”, and so on. The resulting diagram is a “map” of the ideas and information presented that includes the images, visual graphics, and colors the individual associates with each of the themes and ideas.
Creating a Visual Mind Map for Foreign Language Learning
Suppose that a student is trying to learn French as part of her foreign language requirement. Having found little success memorizing vocabulary words and their pronunciations using note cards, the student decides to try Visual Mind Mapping. She starts her Mind Map by placing a graphic representing France in the map’s center. She continues by listing the vocabulary words she needs to learn for an upcoming test on “branches” that are attached to the central image. On “child branches”, the student lists the word pronunciations and their meanings. Throughout her map, the student makes use of graphics and colours to make the words easier to conceptualize and remember. When she has finished her Visual Mind Map, it looks something like the attached Mind Map diagram.
Foreign Language Recall Using the Visual Mind Map
As the student memorizes each new word, she makes sure to note the visual and color associations shown alongside the word. These associations help the student to internalize word meanings and pronunciations more comprehensively than she did when she used only note cards. With note cards, the student had the task of conceptualizing words that were listed in a non-visual, linear manner. She, thus, lacked the many visual cues contained in the Visual Mind Map that help her process information more naturally. As a result of her learning her vocabulary words using her Mind Map, the student found it easier to remember these words, giving her a much better grasp of the French language. Visual Mind Mapping has, therefore, made the usually difficult task of learning a new language much simpler and more enjoyable for the student than would otherwise have been.
- Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/k-12-education-articles/mind-maps-maximize-your-learning-power-1417918.html
- Farrand, Paul; Hussain, Fearzana and Hennessy, Enid (May 2002). “The efficacy of the ‘mind map’ study technique”. Medical Education 36 (5): 426–431.
Tags: education, intuitive, language, learning, memorization, techniques
