Maybe you have already noticed that some of my posts, probably majority of them, contain some kind of strange picture or even more of such pictures. These are pictures of Mind Maps which are the graphical representation of the content of that particular blog post (usually). Not at all times.
I found the Mind Maps very useful. I think that this tool, which is available on Internet in many cases for free (in my case I paid some small amount of money to be able to offer you some additional funcionality). They can be valuable tool also for our language learning. I can imagine a lot of applications – for example:
To use them for our “loved” grammar – to make it visible, obvious, not hidden behind the veil of strange foreign terminology. Yes, the grammar is valuable to learn too. Yes, later ;-)
Other application of Mind Maps for language learning could be so called „vocabulary trees“. I only hope that such term exists. If not, I invented that just now ;-) Imagine for example the tree of FOOD, one branch could be MEAT, other FRUITS, DIARY PRODUCTS … and the „leaves“ are examples of appropriate food.
Or kind of „associative trees“. Make some word or expression, use it as the central topic and try to recall from your memory the relative expressions to it, somehove associated with that term. Create new main branches and sub-branches as long as you are able to do it... By the way, I think that the training of the associative memory is in case of language learning one of the most important activities. Our BrainSpeakActivator program puts a big attention to this kind of ativities.
You can use Mind Maps to „catch the meaning“ of some article or speech instead of making classical notes, just use the schematic Mind Map with main lexical units (words), draw the connections between them, some picture :-) ... – then you can use it to try reconstruct the speech (or reading) as your active exercise (practicing the speaking or writing).
You can use the Mind Maps to prepare your own speech or writing. In this case I do not have any such preparation though (and it is my disadvantage new, the writing is not so easy)
So, these are some of the possible applications of Mind Mapping (by the way invented by Tony Buzan) which go to my mind now, probably there are much more of them... you can, if you want, suggest to me and to the other readers some in the comment of this post.
But today I would like to ANNOUNCE you a new feature of this BLOG! I noticed and maybe some of you too, that it is getting to be a little chaotic, unstructured, such kind of mix of posts. In reality is it not, is has some logic, but it is obscured by my inherent „sense of mess“ ;-) So, I decided to make it a little bit structured by creating this MIND MAP OF THE BLOG – the bigger picture of it you can see above and the smaller one, which will be there „for ever“ on the right side of the screen. This Mind Map will be up to date all the time and will show the entire structure of my blog. Its global picture. You will be able to see, what is connected together, in which order, what it contains and you could chose what you want. You will see the logic of this blog and will be able to navigate through it with ease. (At least it was my intention)
On some branches of that map (or tree if you want) you can see the symbol of the „link“, a small chain – it is this one:
I found the Mind Maps very useful. I think that this tool, which is available on Internet in many cases for free (in my case I paid some small amount of money to be able to offer you some additional funcionality). They can be valuable tool also for our language learning. I can imagine a lot of applications – for example:
To use them for our “loved” grammar – to make it visible, obvious, not hidden behind the veil of strange foreign terminology. Yes, the grammar is valuable to learn too. Yes, later ;-)
Other application of Mind Maps for language learning could be so called „vocabulary trees“. I only hope that such term exists. If not, I invented that just now ;-) Imagine for example the tree of FOOD, one branch could be MEAT, other FRUITS, DIARY PRODUCTS … and the „leaves“ are examples of appropriate food.
Or kind of „associative trees“. Make some word or expression, use it as the central topic and try to recall from your memory the relative expressions to it, somehove associated with that term. Create new main branches and sub-branches as long as you are able to do it... By the way, I think that the training of the associative memory is in case of language learning one of the most important activities. Our BrainSpeakActivator program puts a big attention to this kind of ativities.
You can use Mind Maps to „catch the meaning“ of some article or speech instead of making classical notes, just use the schematic Mind Map with main lexical units (words), draw the connections between them, some picture :-) ... – then you can use it to try reconstruct the speech (or reading) as your active exercise (practicing the speaking or writing).
You can use the Mind Maps to prepare your own speech or writing. In this case I do not have any such preparation though (and it is my disadvantage new, the writing is not so easy)
So, these are some of the possible applications of Mind Mapping (by the way invented by Tony Buzan) which go to my mind now, probably there are much more of them... you can, if you want, suggest to me and to the other readers some in the comment of this post.
But today I would like to ANNOUNCE you a new feature of this BLOG! I noticed and maybe some of you too, that it is getting to be a little chaotic, unstructured, such kind of mix of posts. In reality is it not, is has some logic, but it is obscured by my inherent „sense of mess“ ;-) So, I decided to make it a little bit structured by creating this MIND MAP OF THE BLOG – the bigger picture of it you can see above and the smaller one, which will be there „for ever“ on the right side of the screen. This Mind Map will be up to date all the time and will show the entire structure of my blog. Its global picture. You will be able to see, what is connected together, in which order, what it contains and you could chose what you want. You will see the logic of this blog and will be able to navigate through it with ease. (At least it was my intention)
On some branches of that map (or tree if you want) you can see the symbol of the „link“, a small chain – it is this one:

If you click that, the appropriate post will be open and you can read it. Down the open Mind Map you will see another possibilities - what you can do with that Mind Map. I will not describe it here. Play with it – it is not too complex thing :-)
You can use also your mouse to move the map here and there, you can click the “–„ and „+” to collapse and expand the branches, you can use mouse wheel to zoom it “IN“ or “OUT“… Yes, it is fun. Play with it. Enjoy it. The game is the best way to learn. Not only to learn the languages.