MIND MAPS AS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR DEVELOPING LISTENING SKILLS IN TEACHING A FOREING LANGUAGE FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE

Abstract

The given article studies Mind Maps as one of the efficient tools to develop listening skills in students learning a foreign language for a specific purpose. Listening to authentic texts is an integral part of any language course, as well as the hardest one among the other communicative activities. Thus, it is vital to develop and implement modern techniques and methods which will enhance the communicative competences necessary for the students’ future professional activity. Having analysed the works by foreign and home scientists related to Mind Maps, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that Mind Maps prove to be a very effective tool for organizing communicative activities, which was studied in the author’s previous work, as well as mastering listening skills during foreign language lessons. Mind Maps as a graphical way of presenting some information help students to get ready for doing listening tasks, logically arrange the perceived information, and use Mind Maps as a visual support while checking and discussing it. It boosts students’ confidence and motivation during lessons. Due to their nature, Mind Maps provides the teacher with various ways of planning the students’ work during the lesson: to eliminate difficulties, mini-group interaction, individual work and so on, which allows the teacher to meet different learning needs, engage all the students in speaking activities irrespectively their level and competence; as well as to come up with interesting and interactive tasks to do. There have been offered the approaches of applying Mind Maps in pre-listening, while-listening and after-listening tasks along with some practical advice how to work out the communicative tasks according to the lesson’s objectives, how to organize students’ work while accomplishing the tasks, especially in groups with different levels of language command and communicative skills. It has also been outlines the further perspectives for developing and introducing Mind Maps into teaching foreign languages for a specific purpose in higher educational institutions.