Abstract:

Topic-mapping techniques, or the use of graphic organizers, reduce large amounts of information into smaller key ideas while indicating the interrelationships between them. The use of mapping techniques has been promoted as an educational tool for learners to organize their knowledge of multi-faceted subject information. The use of mapping techniques has been found to improve retention of related concepts in general education, particularly in relation to the Cognitive load theory where topic-mapping reduces a learner’s cognitive load to overcome the limitations of working memory.

Topic-mapping was introduced and practiced to help multilingual learners of English in an Intensive English Language program at a university in the United States. The main objective for integrating the mapping technique was to develop a better level of vocabulary retention and organization while synthesizing information of related topics within a theme. Therefore, through an incremental development of the topics in more detailed mappings, including collaborative sharing of their topic maps, students learned to produce well-developed maps that beneficially assisted in both spoken and written output in English. Topic mapping has been shown to be effective in not only improving second language learners’ achievement, but also increasing their level of self-efficacy and self-regulation.

The objective of the study is to determine if topic mapping leads to improved spoken and written output in discussions and writing tasks based on the theme. The correlation of the students’ development of the topic mapping and scores on a final written task will be analyzed. A follow-up survey about the students’ perception of the mapping technique will also be collected. It is hypothesized that learners with both a more developed mapping of the theme and a more positive perception of the task will result in a better writing task score.

The mapping technique was used after the second and fourth texts of a themed unit with four texts related to news media. Following each of the mapping techniques in which they progressively further developed their maps with newer information from the texts, the students were put into small groups to discuss the information with a short set of questions. It was found that the students with more developed maps were able to speak more about the overall topic and the various relationships of the texts. Results of the post writing assignment based on the topic of the mapping indicated that students with more developed topic maps were able to elaborate more on the supporting details than the students with less developed maps. This indicated a beneficial retention of language and connections of the content since the students were given the opportunity to review their topic maps prior to the writing assignment.

Keywords:

Topic Mapping, vocabulary, associations, self-efficacy.