ELT 11
TRAINING IN BRAINSTORMING AND DEVELOPING WRITING SKILLS
Why writing?
• Stimulates thinking
• Helps students concentrate and organize ideas
• Improve summary analysis and criticism skills
• Reinforces learning and reflecting
Cognitive theory: Learners;
• Select and organize input
• Relate it to prior knowledge
• Decide on what is important
• Use the information appropriately
• Reflect on the outcomes
Review of literature
• Focus on strategy training
• Use of brainstorming in writing as a strategy
The study
• Aim: to investigate the effect of training in brainstorming on writing development
• Subjects: 118 sophomore students in a university in China
• Data collection and analysis: the same wrirting task as pre and post test and attitudinal survey
• Three groups: one control group and two experimental groups
• Control group: traditional product-based approach (controlled writing exercises from simple sentences to paragraphs according to a model)
The procedure for experimental groups:
1.Thinking individually: five-minute thinking about the topic (here education)
2.Verbalizing ideas in pairs or groups: sharing and draft organization of ideas
3.Brainstorming ideas in oral and note forms: on the blackboard
4.Classifying brainstormed ideas into proper categories: organizing ideas and deciding on
connectors
5.Completing the writing task in 30 mimutes
The results and discussions
• Higher increase in grades by experimental group students in the post-test
• Positive comments about brainstorming strategy
The advantages of brainstorming strategies
• Stimulates thinking
• Helps students concentrate and organize ideas before writing
• Activates background knowledge and wriring skills
• Encourages interaction through pair, group and whole-class work
• Involves students in the writing process
• Helps the change from product-based approach to process-focused approach
• Is based on cognitive theory
• Keeps students mentally alive
• İs effective in improving students’ writing performance
The final remarks
• Step 3 is the most important one
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