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AsiaCALL Online Journal (ISSN 1936-9859) 2014 – Special Issue – AsiaCALL2013 Proceedings, Le Huong Hoa & Le Thi Hong Duyen 
 

 
 

 

Applying mind–maps as a teaching and learning strategy to English for 

Special Purposes (ESP) 

Le Huong Hoa 

Police University, Vietnam 
hoalehuong@yahoo.com  

Le Thi Hong Duyen 

Haiphong Medical University, Vietnam 
hongduyen.yhp@gmail.com  

 

Abstract 

Questions are being raised in Vietnam whether ESP programs are difficult for students to study, and whether 

teachers are capable of providing students with sufficient quality of knowledge to meet the demands of ESP 

programs. Many researchers nowadays advocate for syllabi change in ESP programs, the use of authentic, real-

world based materials, and for reconceptualization of pedagogic models that inform the teaching strategies in 

these programs. This article reports on a study designed to explore the possibilities of mind-mapping in ESP 

teaching and learning in the hope of improving students' learning effectiveness.  

 

Keywords: ESP, mind–maps 

 

 

Introduction  

Nowadays, English has been widely used in many areas such as politics, economics, tourism, telecommunication, 

culture, science, technology, so on. Since Vietnam carried out the open door policy towards the regional and global 

integration, the English language has become more and more important for people of all ages and careers 

nationwide. Therefore, there is great demand for teaching and learning English throughout the country for different 

purposes.  

 

It is evident that teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has become one of the most prominent features of the 

English language teaching process (Hutchinson &Waters, 1987;  Robinson, 1991). Hutchinson and Waters (1987) 

reported that ESP is an approach for language teaching in which all decisions regarding content and methods are 

based on the learners’ reasons for learning. It focuses on using English effectively in specific academic fields such as 

business, law, medicine, sciences, etc.  

 

Holding an important position in any ESP classroom, textbooks play a crucial part in meeting the learners' 

needs, increasing their motivations, as well as facilitating their learning. In Dudley-Evans and St John's 

(1998) words, this role is more prominent in situations where English is a foreign language (EFL) and 

naturally the ESP classroom may be almost the only source of English in exposing learners to the 

language. In this regard, the essential position of reading comprehension in EFL settings has turned this 

skill to the most important one needed for learners' success in a way that it is often known as the main 

goal of English language learning in such context (Erfani, et al. 2011). However, reviewing the current 

ESP textbooks in Vietnamese academic context also shows that while the most significant skill which the 

students need for success is reading (Farhadi, 2006; Riazi, 2006), the lack of useful strategies and 

techniques in such textbooks development as well as the low face validity in such textbooks are obvious 

(Iranmehr, et al. (2010); Soleimani, 2006).  

 

The situation above urges the researcher to think of implementing a quasi-experimental research of 

applying Mind-map as a teaching and learning strategy to ESP with the hope to investigate the probable 

mailto:hoalehuong@yahoo.com
mailto:hongduyen.yhp@gmail.com


AsiaCALL Online Journal (ISSN 1936-9859) 2014 – Special Issue – AsiaCALL2013 Proceedings, Le Huong Hoa & Le Thi Hong Duyen 
 

 
 

effectiveness of using Mind-map context in ESP reading comprehension ability of Medical and Police 

university students whose syllabus mostly focuses on this skill. 

 

Mind-map and its uses  

1. Using a mind-map in teaching and learning vocabulary 

According to Nattinger (1988), words in our mental lexicon are tied to one another not only by meaning, 

form and sound but also by sight. Therefore, Mind-map is a kind of visualization which is helpful for 

memorizing vocabulary. Teachers and students can use this tool to form a net of vocabulary topics which 

cover the subject matter. For traditional way of learning, students have to learn long lines of vocabulary 

within the topics. By that way, there is no connection among words and the word lists are so limited and 

boring. With Mind-map, however, we can learn many words in a funny and effective way. The lists of 

words can be replaced by a picture of words. And as a very famous saying of Napoleon, “a picture is 

worth a thousand words”. More importantly, the words are shown in connection when we look at the 

mind-map, which enables us to learn words easier.  

             

 
Figure 1: An example of using Mind-maps to teach and learn medical terminology 

 

2. Using a mind-map in teaching and learning reading skills 

As mentioned, most ESP course books concentrate on developing the reading skills. Students learn to 

skim and scan the texts in order to comprehend them and do the exercises that follow. Because Mind-map 

can be used to organize the information, it will be a great tool for students to skim and scan the readings 

and summarize the text by the model of a mind-map. Besides, Mind-map is known as a powerful 

brainstorming tool. It is helpful to apply it in the pre-reading activities in order to exploit the students’ 

pre-existing knowledge to the topic. 

 

Figure 2: An example of brainstorming pre-reading activities 



AsiaCALL Online Journal (ISSN 1936-9859) 2014 – Special Issue – AsiaCALL2013 Proceedings, Le Huong Hoa & Le Thi Hong Duyen 
 

 
 

 

3 Using Mind-map in communicative situations 

In Vietnam, many students feel embarrassed dealing with English at work when they enter in the real 

world. Of course, one main reason is due to their poor competence of English but it is also due to a fact 

that ESP courses such as English in Medicine, Law, Engineering, Construction, etc., hardly provide 

students with communicative situations which they might encounter in their future jobs. For many 

teachers of ESP, time limitation is also one of the big problems. How can they integrate communicative 

situations into their lessons in less time-consuming way? Mind-map will be the solution. 

Mind-map can be used as an effective tool in brainstorming activities. The teachers should take advantage 

of any time when the real situations occur in order to get students to talk, discuss, and share their ideas. 

Teachers can raise a question related to a certain situation the students might cope with in their job and 

ask them to give their opinions. When students really enjoy and take part in the process of discussion, they 

are truly involved in communicative situations and develop their speaking skills. By that way, Mind-map 

facilitates the assimilation of knowledge and foster communication between teachers and students. 

 

Figure 3: An example of using Mind-maps in a communicative situation 

 

Research questions 

In line with the attempt to determine whether mind-map context has any effect on improving ESP reading 

comprehension ability, a null hypothesis was formulated as: Mind-map context with the preferred 

computer-based type has no effect on the improvement of ESP reading comprehension of university 

students majoring medicine. 

This study is further conceptualized and elaborated in the following research questions: 

1.  Is there a significant difference in the pre-test reading scores of the control group (i.e., students 

who do not participate in a mind-mapping program) and those of the experimental group (i.e., students 

who do participate in a mind-mapping program)? 

2.  Is there a significant difference in the post-test reading scores of the control and experimental 

groups? 

 



AsiaCALL Online Journal (ISSN 1936-9859) 2014 – Special Issue – AsiaCALL2013 Proceedings, Le Huong Hoa & Le Thi Hong Duyen 
 

 
 

Methodology 

 

1.  Participants  

This study involved 60 students majoring medicine at Medical University. They were chosen to serve as 

experimental and control groups. To assess their language proficiency, a standard test of English was 

given to them and based on their scores they were categorized as pre-intermediate.  

2.  Design  

Based on the purpose of the study, it followed a quasi-experimental design displaying the following 

characteristics: two homogeneous groups of pre - intermediate level students served as control and 

experimental groups. A treatment, namely mind-mapping context was offered to experimental group and 

the text-only context to control group. Two tests as pretest and posttest were administered in each group.  

3.  Procedure  

After assigning the participants to two equal groups, the experimental group was encouraged to study the 

texts along with mind-mapping. They were taught for twelve weeks and during this time and the 

participants of control group were taught through texts only. In a more precise word, this group was not 

asked or encouraged to apply this tool in the process of reading ESP passages. After instructions, a 

posttest was performed for both groups.  

4. Results & Data Analysis  

The effect of mind-mapping context on reading comprehension ability of university students was 

determined with the pretest-posttest equivalent group design. The pretest was given before students 

received reading instructions. To control for confounding variables, the control group were taught using 

the same instructional methods, except for enjoying mind-map context with the preferred computer-based 

type. At the end of the treatment, an independent sample t-test was used to analyze the data.  

To answer the research question, after scoring the tests and tabulating the scores for each subject, the 

results were put under a series of statistical analyses. Next, an independent t-test was used to verify the 

pre-test results on both groups.  

At the end of the study, the posttest was given to the groups and to confirm or reject the hypothesis, a t-

test was used.  

 

Table 1: Pre-test means (M) and standard deviations (SD) 

 

Reading 

Control (n=30) Experimental (n=29)  

T-test 
M SD M SD 

Written test 3.6 1.4 3.9 1.2 1.65 

 

Table 2: Post-test means (M) and standard deviations (SD) 

 

Reading 

Control (n=30) Experimental (n=29)  

T-test 
M SD M SD 

Written test 9.3 1.8 12.3 1.4 6.3 

 



AsiaCALL Online Journal (ISSN 1936-9859) 2014 – Special Issue – AsiaCALL2013 Proceedings, Le Huong Hoa & Le Thi Hong Duyen 
 

 
 

Considering (t-observed = 1.65 < t-critical = 2.00) at the pretest and (t-observed = 6.3> t-critical =2.00) at 

the posttest shows that a remarkable difference between the two groups at the posttest stage is obvious. 

After comparing the two mean scores through t-test calculations, the researcher felt justified that the null 

hypothesis could be rejected. While the two groups were not significantly different at the outset of the 

study, they scored differently on the posttest and the difference was statistically significant.  

Conclusions and implications 

The present findings seem to lend support to most of the related available findings in the field of ELT. 

The present study, as an attempt to integrate mind-map context in ESP, has focused on the extent to which 

mind-map context can enhance ESP reading comprehension of university students. Finding revealed that 

it could be cogently argued that this strategy do aid ESP reading comprehension of university students.  

This study was an attempt to seek ways to develop students into independent readers in the hope of giving 

students a love for reading, a thirst for it. The results of the study suggest that a well-conducted mind – 

map program can make a significant on reading proficiency. However, some limitations may have 

occurred. 

 

For example, the condition in which the research was conducted was too good: the students were tested 

through both tests: the Placement test and the pretest, which may not be very practical for carrying out on 

a large scale. The sample size was not big enough. Therefore, the result drawn from the study may not 

have been of high representativeness. During the one-month treatment, some students were occasionally 

absent from class, which might have affected the result of the post-test. However, all the students were 

present at the pretest and post-test. To prevent the Hawthorn effect, the researcher made sure that the 

students did not know about the research. To control for short-term memory effects, the pretest-post-rest 

papers were neither corrected by the teachers nor returned to the students in both classes. 

 

In conclusion, from a research perspective, the two groups would, ideally, have continued the control and 

experimental treatments for a longer period and on other subjects to see if the effect remained, if the 

experimental group continued their impressive progress and if the study may have been of high 

representativeness. 

 

Students who are not currently skilled, enthusiastic readers face unnecessary and serious obstacles to 

realizing their potential contributions to themselves, their families in particular and to society in general. 

Thus, it is time for the teachers to create and implement programmes to help students to get motivated in 

studying as well as students who fall behind in learning ESP. The model set in this study suggests that 

mind-map can play an important role in assisting students to improve their level of reading proficiency, 

and reading skill as well as the benefits that flow from them are essential if students are to become people 

who understand the word to know what are changing around them. 

 

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AsiaCALL Online Journal (ISSN 1936-9859) 2014 – Special Issue – AsiaCALL2013 Proceedings, Le Huong Hoa & Le Thi Hong Duyen 
 

 
 

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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0889490696000075
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