USING CONCEPT MAPS IN ENGLISH TEACHING

Abstract

English teaching has been a matter of great concern among faculty especially those teaching in technical institutes. Students of such colleges do not bother much about taking care of grammar. They have their own ideas related to English as a language as also for Communicative English. In this paper the use of concept maps in teaching certain concepts of English grammar has been explored. Concept maps have been used across different subjects for betterment of student learning. They can enable teachers to shift their students from an environment of rote learning to that of meaningful learning. Students can think more analytically once they can link the different concepts.Besides the enhancement of cognitive skills, the concept maps also encouraged learning among students based on principles of constructivism. When students construct their own knowledge, it helps to transform information from short-term memory to long-term memory.An attempt has been made in this paper to study the response of engineering students who were taught using concept maps. Endeavour has also been made to observe the different purposes for which teachers used the concept maps. It is well known and realised by teachers now that traditional lectures will no more fit into our system once we talk of outcome based education. Therefore, it is also intended through this paper to inspire teachers to use other techniques in classroom teaching for better involvement of students.