what a mind map of your student..

" A mind map is a way of getting all you know about a topic in a diagram by brainstorming ideas showing the connections. [Ok, so far, very good, but then] Sometimes it is radioactive." ? ? ?

having introduced the concept of mind maps to many of my students previously, i can tell you that very few if any used them in their own work assignments. the reason being is and this is my observation, that a great number of chinese students aren't able to see the whole picture/topic before they are to introduce or write about it. they can only see tiny bits here or there out of it and that's how they usually piece their own work with their main ideas and supporting details into it. that's how their writing or speaking/presentations/answers often are not organized, cohesive and that how these students give only a little to fail overall. when you explain to them why their scores are so low, even though they've given "so much" to you...they're usually clueless.

here are one of my students questions to me: "why i get low score when i write 1000 words?" "is my grammar not ok?" my answer follows; "oh, you wrote a lot and well in english, but i couldn't understand it well enough to give you a higher score."

once, and i hope this isn't too much of topic, i had an exercise on describing pictures and my students could tell me so much about whatever was in the background of their pics and they could not get either the main parts of their pics or the reasons why the pics were taken. that brings me to the chinese students' abilities to see bits of pics better than us, although the main parts and reasons are often lost ..in translation or something :)

IF CHINESE STUDENTS ARE TO GROW IN THE "ROOT OF MEMORIZATION" EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, THEY'LL PROBABLY NEVER LEARN HOW TO BRAINSTORM THEMSELVES FOR THE BEST IDEAS THEY HAVE FOR THE TOPIC TO WRITE ABOUT. FURTHER MORE, IF THEY AREN'T ALLOWED/DON'T LEARN HOW TO USE INTERNET FOR THEIR SCHOOLS WRITTEN ASSINGMENTS APPROPRIATELY, THEY'LL ONE DAY BURN THEIR FUTURE COMPANIES WITH THEIR WRONG DECISIONS AT WORK.

cheers and beers to our experiences in the biz