ULIS- VNU, FELTE Fast-track sophomores’ difficultiesin brainstorming ideas for writing academic essays
Do Thanh Thao,
B.A., Fast-track Division, Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University - Hanoi
Abstract: Academic essay writing has become one of the challenges that students of University of Languages and International Studies have to confront in their English study. The following research is conducted to identify the difficulties in brainstorming ideas for academic essay writing, with the sophomores of FELTE, Fast-track division as the main subject. By using the survey questionnaires (N=50) the study has come to two main findings. First, a variety of difficulties in brainstorming ideas for essay are detected among the students, with background knowledge being the most popular problem. Secondly, Mapping and Discussion clock are the most effective methods utilized by the students to deal with brainstorming difficulties. Therefore, this study could provide some recommendations for both English teaching and learning to enhance students’ performance in writing essay tasks.
I. Introduction
In academic English learning, writing has always been one of the most fundamental skills to evaluate learners’ proficiency. Beside demanding grammar and vocabulary accuracy, writing also requires significant knowledge as well as creativity in generating ideas. One of the most effective ways to think of ideas in writing is “brainstorming”. According to Richards (1990), brainstorming is a useful technique to develop ideas. Rao (2007) also pointed out that students being trained in brainstorming techniques and practiced them in the course of 1 year performed more impressively in writing tasks.
In Vietnamese university system, especially English specialized school, including ULIS- VNU, brainstorming technique is also widely taught to students in Writing lessons, especially in FELTE. This technique helps student have a great variety of ideas choices, along with categorizing them.
In Fast-track program, students stand many chances to approach brainstorming technique in learning English language, particularly in writing-academic-essay assignments, namely writing portfolio. Nevertheless, some students in this program still face difficulties in fully utilizing this method, leading to their lack of satisfaction in writing performance.
Therefore, this issue prompt the researchers to conduct a study named “ULIS- VNU, FELTE fast-track sophomores’ difficulties in brainstorming ideas for essay writing”.
II. Literature review
Brainstorming is a term that was popularized by Alex Faickney Osborn in the 1963 book Applied Imagination. According to Osborn (1963), “brainstorming is a group creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members”. Although the term brainstorming was originally created in group, there are variations of the term, including individual brainstorming, which is more widely used by the subjects of this study, as they also have to write the essay individually. According to Furnham, A., & Yazdanpanahi, T (1995), "Individual brainstorming is the use of brainstorming in solitary. It typically includes such techniques as free writing, free speaking, word association, and drawing a mind map, which is a visual note taking technique in which people diagram their thoughts.”
In this study, both group and individual brainstorming will be discussed. In FELTE, ULIS, while group brainstorming is mostly used in class activities, individual brainstorming is more widely used in tests or exams.
Scott G. Isaksen and John P. Gaulin’s (2005) study found the following:
Three major categories of barriers explain the improved performance of nominal groups over real groups. These are: the emergence of judgments during generation, members giving up on the group, and an inadequate structure of the interaction. (p.2)
Each of these barriers is thoroughly reviewed with detailed evidence from previous articles. The authors also analyze two solutions for these problems, namely the use of technology and the use of facilitators. Bradley Christmas (2010) also suggests using the Charette Method and Reversal/ Provocation.
Regarding individual brainstorming, Alex Case (2012) mentions some difficulties when brainstorming with mind maps, problems with language level, space and planning.
Considering the techniques to brainstorm individually, David K. William (n.d.) suggests 8 methods such as free writing, looping, listing, clustering or nut-shelling.
There are some articles comparing individual and group brainstorming. Furnham, A., & Yazdanpanahi, T. (1995) states that “Individual brainstorming is a useful method in creative writing and has been shown to be superior to traditional group brainstorming”. Bradley Christmas (2010) finds out in his article that individual brainstorming can generate a larger quantity and more diverse ideas. However, this study will only detect the problems in each type, not decide which one is more effective, as students in Fast-track program need to master these skills in order to work best in class and also in exams.
In conclusion, this brief review suggests there are many difficulties in brainstorming ideas, both in group and individually. However, most of the studies covered in this review just focus on brainstorming in general, not essay writing in particular. In addition, most articles were published a long time ago and the subjects are not Vietnamese students. In the context of nowadays’ Vietnamese education, the brainstorming problem may be different. Therefore, this article aims to address this gap.
III. Methodology
1. Participants
The research was conducted to study the difficulties in brainstorming ideas for academic essays writing on the Fast-track sophomores and identify their frequently-used brainstorming techniques. 50 students from three classes E1, E2, and E20 of QH.2014 FELTE Fast-track Division in academic year 2014-2018 were the participants of the questionnaire.
2. Data collection instruments
The questionnaire was constructed including 3 types of question: multiple-choice questions, assessing questions and explanation questions. By multiple-choice questions, the researchers could specifically identify participants’ difficulties in brainstorming. Furthermore, using assessing questions, researchers were able to receive participants’ opinions toward the effectiveness of their usual brainstorming techniques. The explanation questions could clarify the reasons for subjects’ choices. There were seven questions in the questionnaire.
3. Data analysis procedure
First, the online form of the questionnaire was piloted for 10 students. After receiving the respondents’ feedback, the researchers edited the questionnaire to create a final version.
Afterwards, hard copies of the questionnaire were directly delivered to the respondents.
IV. Data analysis and major findings
1. Data analysis
Via the questionnaire, quantitative data are collected.
Figure 1 - Students' preference between 2 types of brainstorming
To investigate students’ preference and their perceptions towards the effectiveness and limitations of these two types of brainstorming in academic writing, students were first asked to give their preference to only one among two choices, which are in individual or in group. The responses of 50 students demonstrated that individual brainstorming was preferred by more people rather than group brainstorming, since individual pattern occupied 76% of the whole population (parallel to 38 people), and the rest 24% are accommodated by group pattern (parallel to 12 people).
To explain for their choices, students came up with personal opinions towards strengths and weaknesses of two types of brainstorming. The responses are categorized in the following main themes:
Figure 2- Reason why participants only choose individual or group brainstorming
By Figure 2, it is concluded that students opting for individual brainstorming thought that this type of brainstorm helped them think independently, self-manage the personal thinking ability, and avoid group conflicts which happened popularly in group work. Besides, participants who were of group brainstorming supposed that this technique led to ideas variety, enhanced critica; thinking ability, and helped them gain more knowledge from other teammates.
Next, the questionnaire included 2 questions that in each of them, participants were required to choose which their main problems with each type of brainstorming are.
Figure 3- Students' difficulties in group brainstorming
As observed from Figure 3, evaluations from friends on students’ ideas was claimed as the most common problem among the whole research population, followed by group structure and the dominant role of rich-idea members (respectively with the number of 30 students and 28 students). Participants were also asked whether they face other problems which are not mentioned in the four options; however, the figure of response is zero.
Figure 4- Students' difficulties in individual brainstorming
Figure 4 presents the problems that participants struggled with individual brainstorming. It is reported that limitation on background knowledge of the topic was the most popular difficulty, since this option was chosen by 46 students, followed by the overwhelm of irrelevant ideas poping up during the brainstorming procedure (34 students), and the problem of time pressure (32 students), and the difficulty in realizing the main concepts of ideas for the topic (29 students).
Next, the questionnaire asked the participants about the methods they usually use to deal with brainstorming difficulties.
Figure 5- Strategies used by students to deal with brainstorming difficulties
As depicted by figure 5, Mapping is the most frequently used method, with 35 students, which accounted for 70% of the population. Ranking in second is Discussion clock, which is utilized by 29 students, occupying 58% of the population. The Listing method also earned a relatively large number of users, with 23 students. Meanwhile, only 3 students (6%) chose the method “Asking journalistic question”. More surprisingly, 0% of the students chose free-writing as a strategy to deal with brainstorming difficulties.
Figure 6- The effectiveness of the methods
As illustrated in figure 6, 23 students out of 35 rated the Mapping method as slightly effective and very effective, which was the highest rated among the methods given. Notably, this method received 0 votes as “not effective at all” or “not very effective”. The discussion clock strategy also earned positive ratings from the students, with 16 out of 29 students rated it as slightly effective and very effective, and only 3 rated as “not very effective”. Meanwhile, 9 students responded to the Listing method as “not very effective”, and 8 responded as “neutral”.
2. Major Findings
The research has come to some major findings after conducting the questionnaire. Regarding brainstorming ideas in individual, lack of background knowledge is the most concerned problem of students. Overwhelm of irrelevant ideas, time pressure, and ability to recognize idea concepts are also significant difficulties of participants in brainstorming, right after knowledge shortage. In terms of group brainstorming, the most problematic impediment is the peer pressure, followed by inefficient structure of group and dominant role of productive students which discourage idea contribution of each member to group outcomes.
In addition, after analyzing data, it comes to a conclusion that Mapping is the most frequently-used by the subjects and also the most effective methods in dealing with brainstorming with difficulties. The discussion clock is also widely applied and receives positive review from the students.
V. Conclusion
1. Summary of major findings and suggestions
After analyzing data, this article has come to two main results. Firstly, lack of background knowledge was detected as Fast-track division, FELTE, ULIS-VNU sophomores’ most popular difficulty in brainstorming individually for essay writing. Meanwhile, peer pressure was recognized as the largest obstacle when students brainstorm in group. Secondly, Mapping and The Discussion Clock were rated by the students as effective in dealing with their brainstorming difficulties.
Therefore, the researcher suggests these techniques be more thoroughly lectured to the students in Writing class. Students who are still struggling to find an appropriate technique in brainstorming can also refer to Mapping and The Discussion Clock methods
2. Limitations of the study
Although the questionnaire is able to answer both of the research questions, there are some limitations that should be put into consideration.
Due to the lack of time, researchers were unable to conduct quantitative data collection instruments such as interviews or observation. The questionnaire with mostly multiple choice questions may lead to vague results. More sufficient clarification from the respondents would be well achieved in interview or observation methods.
The number of participants was about 50, which accounts only a small percentage of the total number of students in the FELTE, ULIS-VNU. Therefore the findings may not represent the common situation of the university.
It is suggested that further research on the same matter manage to conduct more detailed data analysis, with more diverse methodology such as interviews or observation. A larger number of participants is also highly recommended, which can bring more in-depth results. Hopefully this research will be able to set grounds for further study with more accurate results.
REFERENCES
Case, A. (2012). Brainstorming in EFL- problems and solutions. Retrieved from http://www.usingenglish.com/articles/brainstorming-in-efl-problems-solutions.html
Christmas, B. (2010). The role of brainstorming in improving student writing performance in the EFL classroom. Retrieved from http://sydney.edu.au/cet/docs/research/
Furnham, A., & Yazdanpanahi, T. (1995). Personality differences and group versus individual brainstorming. Personality and Individual Differences, 19, 73-80.
Isaksen, S. G., & Gaulin, J. P. (2005). A Reexamination of Brainstorming Research: Implications for Research and Practice. Gifted Child Quarterly, 49(4), 1-2.
Osborn, A. F. (1963). Applied imagination: Principles and procedures of creative problem-solving.
Rao Z. (2007). Training in brainstorming and developing writing skills. ELT Journal, 61(2), 100-106. Oxford University Press.
Richards J. (2009). New Trends in the Teaching of Writing in ESL/ EFL . Papers presented at the International Symposium on Teaching English in the Chinese Context, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing.
William, D. K. (n.d.). 8 Brainstorming Strategies for Generating New Writing Ideas. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from http://webwriterspotlight.com/8-brainstorming-strategies-for-generating-new-writing-ideas.
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