Brainstorming activities in writing lessons

THANH HOA TRAINING AND EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
THIEU HOA UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL
EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE
TOPIC:
BRAINSTORMING ACTIVITIES 
IN WRITING LESSONS
 Performer: Trần Xuân Diệu
 Position: teacher
 Subject: English
THANH HOA 2017
INDEX
I. INTRODUCTION. Page 
1.1. The reason for choosing the theme. 2
1.2. The purpose of study. 2
1.3. The object of study. 3
1.4. The methodology of research. 3
II. CONTENT. 
2.1. Theoretical basis. 3
2.2. Real basis before applying this innovation. 4
2.3. Problem solving. 5 - 16
2.4. Result Analysis. 16 - 17
III. CONCLUSION AND PETITION 
3.1. Conclusion. 17
3.2. Petition. 17 - 18
Appendix: Model teaching plan (power point).
I. INTRODUCTION.
1.1. The reason for choosing the theme:
 We are living in the 21st century – the century of modern civilization and information technology. Our nation is currently in a development period whose foundation is knowledge economy and a policy with the focus on education, particularly on innocation of teaching and learning qualities, as a top priority, for the purpose of training the human resources for the industrialization and modernization of Vietnam. In order to survive and develop to keep up with other developed countries, we must master the latest achievements.
 Thus, the curricula in schools today should aim at such practical issues. English as a subject in school curricula was popularized later than other subjects, but it is the key to the human beings’ treasure of knowledge. It can lead us to the world, cooperate with other nations and help us acquire the best knowledge available. 
 Currently at high level, English program has been renewed in terms of content, form and methods of teaching. The purpose of foreign language teaching in general and English in particular is not aimed at students in the study of the language system, but to help them use the system language as a communication tool, meant to train students communicative competence. This communication capability is represented by two production skills: speaking and writing skills. In the two mentioned skills, the writing skill is considered difficult for students. It requires learners not only to have extensive knowledge about the topic you want to write, but also to have vocabularies, master the rules of grammar and sentence structures to be able to express their ideas.
 One difficulty students encounter when writing is that they often lack the necessary ideas to write. So we need to help students apply their knowledge available, exchange each other to share the good ideas or knowledge to the article which contains full, rich content.
 To meet actual demand, every teacher needs to find an optimal teaching methods, matching each real object of each student to achieve good results that is the problem, the purpose for which each teacher has to concern, to think.
 Through the process of teaching, exploring learning, refering to many types of books, apply many different teaching techniques, I bravely choose and write up the experience initiative "Brainstorming activities in writing lessons."
1.2. The purpose of study:
 With researching this experience initiative successfully, it will help teachers get the following experiences:
1. Using appropriately and exploiting effectively the teaching writing techniques.
2. Finding out the way to boost the students so that they have motivation to learn writing skills.
3. Accumulating the methods when conducting an effective writing lesson.
1.3. The object of study:
 The research topic focuses on designing writing skill lectures for some writing sections in 10, 11, 12 grades of high school program, mobilizing students’ background, developing dynamics for student in writing skills, designing lessons at each stage to be able to apply the appropriate teaching techniques to the circumstances of each classroom, each object type so that they can write effectively.
 The objects of the study are students in10, 11, 12 grades.
 When researching this topic, I had to perform the following tasks:
- Look at the documentation of teaching and learning English, the teaching techniques in writing skills.
- Remove the faculty, teaching experiment.
- Exchange professional knowledge with colleagues, learn from experience.
- Inspect and assess the the results of all students in holding knowledge, so that there is a reasonably additional adjustment.
1.4. The methodology of research:
- Observational method.
- Experimental method.
- Exchangeable and discussible method.
- Investigational method.
II. CONTENT
2.1. Theoretical basis:
 As soon as students learn English, they have to get in touch with four basic skills of language: listening, speaking, reading and writing. These are teachers’ important skills in transmitting knowledge to students. All in all, writing skill is difficult for learners. Teachers are expected to find out effective teaching methods and to practise well the rule "Learning accompanies with practising."
Starting from the opinion “learners are the centre”, learning and teaching methods have basically changed. Teachers are not the only to seize the knowledge and to transmit. They are the guiders, supporters, consultants and inspectors. Learners are not passive ones in acquiring knowledge. They are the centre of the teaching and learning process. Learners are always active in learning with a view to gaining high results in learning as well as making use of in real life.
 In teaching foreign language in general and English in particular, teaching method innovation is a matter of great importance. Besides mastering the language knowledge, practising listening, speaking, reading well; writing skill plays an important part as well. Teaching writing skill is one of the basic contents and it is really a subtle combination in teaching other language skills.
 From the above theoretical point, how to apply teaching writing methods to help students practise a good English writing (making sure that it is accurate in writing request, grammar and creation) is very important.
2.2. Real basis before applying this innovation:
 High schools have been using new textbooks, students are expected to develop four skills equally in a textbook and writing skill is the one that learners need spend much time practising in order to get a coherent and clear article. 
 To make sure the right and sufficient teaching and learning according to the curriculumn, and widening to practise the four basic skills, especially writing skill for students, teachers need study, collect and use a variety of practical forms in accordance with each school’s material facility condition so that it can improve students’ English standard.
 English is a quite interesting subject but learnrers are required to be highly labourious or the knowledge is easily interupted and forgettable. On the way to look for the experience, collecting materials and studying colleagues’ experiences, taking part in Thanh Hoa training and education department’s professional training courses, I have integrated modern learning methods into the periods, especially in arid writing lessons. During empirical progress, my students have gained some relatively encouraging results; the writing classes are less boring; students are more active and better at writing; many students’ compositions are highly creative.
 Advantages and disadvantages at Thieu Hoa high school when this innovation is applied:
* Advantages:
- The school managing board always care about and create favourable conditions in terms of material facilities and professional documents for teaching: CD players, overhead projectors ..
- The local government and other associations inside and outside schools always support teachers in the their job..
- The teachers of English always receive support in the same professional group and colleagues.
- Most pupils in class like learning English and properly prepare books, notebooks and other learning tools. 
- Almost all pupils’ parents always provide necessary care and good conditions for their children’s learning.
* Disavdantages:
- The majority of pupils do not know effective writing learning methods. Their parents find it difficult to check or instruct them in their self-study at home, because not all parents know English. 
- They are not fully aware of the significance of English, and it is a difficult subject, so some become fed up with it. 
- They rarely have chances to write in English, and they tend to be afraid when it comes to writing in English. 
- Most of them are in difficult situations, so they do not have many reference books to improve their vocabularies, structures or phrases, apart from that provided in their course books. 
* Specific investigation:
 In the process of teaching, with the sense of both researching students’ learning situation features and carrying out to learn from experience, from the beginning of the school year, I've driven myself specific plans and methods in order to actively investigate the students’ learning situation in the classes I directly teach. The specific survey results are:
Table 1: General information about students participating in the survey:
Class
The number of students
Good
Rather good
Medium
Weak
Bad
11E
 49
4,1%
50,9%
38,8%
6,2%
0%
10M
 43
0%
41,8%
46,5%
7,0%
4,7%
11B
 50
0%
38%
52%
8%
2%
2.3. Problem solving:
 To perform an effective writing lesson, each lesson is ensured three main parts: pre - wrting, while - wrting and post - wrting.
+ Pre - writing: This is the initial phase of a writing lesson, Teachers guide students the topic, provide linguistic data for students to prepare to write as words, phrases, and some necessary structures for the later writing. Apart from the structures, students need to have ideas to complete a good composition. In the step to find ideas, teachers have students operate in groups such as: speaking activities to find out the opinions, interviewing and reading ones to get information. If students are at lower level, teachers can get students to read the model essays or to write a completed text from the suggested words.
+ While - writing: Teachers have to guide students clearly, briefly specifically and easily understandable so that students can write the right form of a composition. Students use the prepared information to rewrite by their own vocabularies. They can work individually, in pairs or in groups.
+ Post - writing: This is the stage that students complete their compositions. Teachers hve students correct the mistakes themselves before teachers give feedback.
* The implementation solutions:
- Mind - map method:
 In order to help students find out the ideas, I have applied the mind – map method (spider’s web or branch forms):
Topic
Idea 1
Idea 2
Idea 3
Idea 4
 Spider’s web mind – map
Idea 1
 Idea 2
 Idea 3 
Idea 4
 Main ideas
Branch form
 Depending on the theme and content of the article, teachers can choose suitable diagrams. For the topic with less main themes and the short auxiliary parts, the spider’s web mind – map should be used. 
 And for those with more main ideas, auxiliary parts in phrase forms, we should use the branch forms.
 The topic of the mind – map diagram is the composition’s theme. From the main theme, teachers will guide students to discuss, exchange to figure out the main ideas by drawing more branches revolving around themes. From those branches, students continue drawing the small branches indicating the supportive idea for the main theme.
Example 1: Unit 13 ( English 11 ) – Writing about a collection
Teachers can use the following diagram for students to brainstormYour collection 
.
Example 2: Unit 1 (English 12) – Writing about family rules
Family rules 
 During the students’ discussion to find the main idea for the theme, the students’ difficulties is that they will find insufficient ideas or excess necessary gist for the article. So to avoid this situation, teachers should give the guiding questions and suggest the main ideas before asking students to brainstorm to fill the mind – map. For the auxiliary ideas, teachers should let students exchange themselves, discuss and encourage students to find out as many additive ideas for each main theme as possible.
Example 1 : - When teaching Unit 13 (English 11) – Writing about a collection. After giving the mind – map, teachers should bring about a suggested question:
	- What should you tell when you describe a collection ?
Students can answer:
- (We should tell about ) the name / how to collect, keep and classify / when and why to collect and the plan for the future.
For the lower level students, teachers can give more specific questions such as: 
- What is the name of your collection ?
- How do you collect them ?
- When did you start your collection ?
- How do you classify them ?
- Why do you collect them?
- What is your plan for the future ?
Example 2 : Unit 1 ( English 12 ) – Writing about family rules.
Teacher’s questions:	
- What rules do you have in your family ?
or : - What are ( aren’t ) you allowed to do in your family ?
Students’ answers: 
- I have ( don’t have ) to ..
	or : 	- I am (not ) allowed to 
For the lower level students, teachers can give more specific questions such as: 
- Do you have to do housework ( get up early .) ?
or : - Are you allowed to use a mobile phone ?
 	 go out late at night ?
	 smoke / drink wine ?
 play sports after school ?
	 .. ?
 After this part, students have basically found out the main ideas and drawn the following diagram: 
Example 1:
Your collection 
How to keep
Future plan
When 
Why 
Name
Classify
How to collect 
Example 2:
Have to
Not have to
Allowed 
Not allowed
Family rules 
 Next, teachers require students to brainstorm to find out the auxiliary ideas for each main theme by drawing the continued branches around the main one.
In this process, the teacher should go around to manage, test, and help students as needed. 
 After brainstorming activities, students will have full thought diagram as follows: 
Example 1:
Shelves
Box 
Broaden knowledge
Your collection 
How to keep
Future plan
When 
Why 
Name
Classify
How to collect 
Book 
 Stamp 
Doll 
Collect more
Sell
Give
Donate 
Exchange 
Size
Shape
Type
Ask friends / relatives 
Color
Buy 
Safe
Album
When I was
Know more about ..
Last year
5 years ago
 Coin
At the age of
Example 2:
Have to
Not have to
Allowed 
Not allowed
Family rules 
Share housework
Prepare meals
Go out late at night
Get up early
Go out with friends
Drink wine / smoke
Play sports after school
Use the family motorbike
Wash clothes
Go to bed on time
Example 3: Unit 8 (English 10): The story of my village.
 Thus, after brainstorming activities to complete the mind – map, students have relatively necessary ideas for the composition. Teachers only guide students some structures, how to verbalize students’ ideas and disposition, from that students can perform their own articles. The advantage of this method is that it can bring into play students’ activeness and creation.Due to the brainstorming, discussion, exchanging the ideas, students will find out more ideas and their compositions’ contents are not only more sufficient but also various.
- Using table method:
 Aside from the mind – map, table method is also very effective to organise the brainstorming activities in the writing skill period. 
With this method, teachers have to prepare the table (under the learning note form). It is dependable on the contents for which teachers design the table suitably. Normally, I use the following table:
Topic
MAIN IDEAS
CONTENTS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Example 1: Unit 13 ( English 10 ) – Describing a film.
Describing a film 
MAIN IDEAS
CONTENTS
1. Name of the film
2. Kind of the film
3. What the film is about
4. Where the film is made
5. What it is based on
6. The main character (s)
7. What you know about the character (s)
8. Ending
 Teachers fill the information in the MAIN IDEAS column (the gist of the article), the CONTENT column is the one that students have to fill the information by brainstorming.
 After delivering the table, teachers ask students to think about and fill the missing information in the table.
 During the process, students think and exchange the ideas and fill the information in the table, taechers should go round to help students because they may have difficulties in vocabularies.
 After brainstorming, each group (or individual) will have a table with different information on the same topic. Students can write about films like Harry Potter / Tom and Jerry / Romeo and Juliet ... Teachers can ask students to swap tables together to share information with each other.
Example:
Describing a film 
MAIN IDEAS
CONTENTS
1. Name of the film
Romeo and Juliet
2. Kind of the film
Love story film
3. What the film is about
Tragic love between Romeo and Juliet
4. Where the film is made
Italy
5. What it is based on
A true story in Verona City in Italy
6. The main character (s)
Romeo, a handsome and gentle boy/ Juliet, a nice girl.
7. What you know about the 
character (s)
They fell in love at the first sight / They were not allowed to get married/ Their parents hated each other. 
8. Ending
Unhappy (They killed themselves to keep their love )
After finishing brainstorming activities, students completed information sheet about the topic you want to write. Next, the teacher guides students structures, how to verbalize and link that information together and then ask students to write a paragraph or a complete article.
The use of table method to organize activities aimed at exploiting knowledge and understanding (knowledge base) of students on the topic posts. Students are free to write about what they know or they like.
Example 2: Unit 4 (English 10) - Special education.
What were advertised
What happened to you 
- Native teachers only
- No more than 20 students per class
- Free books and cassettes tapes.
- All air-conditioned rooms
- 5.30 pm – 8.30 pm
- Only one native teachers / All Vietnamese teachers
- About 50 students in class
- Paid 100.000 VND for books and cassettes
- Only one ceiling fan in classroom
- Start late but finish early, teacher arrived late.
* The implementing measures:
- Organizing group activities (Work in groups)
 In a class, students’ level of knowledge, thinking can not absolute uniformity. This requires teachers to organize appropriate activities and forms of learning to create an interaction between the students. Operating group activities during the brainstorming ones is a really effective measure.
 Group activity creates the environment for discussing and debating in community. Each individual’s reviews are revealed, confirmed or rejected, thereby learners can improve to a new level. Group activity increases learning efficiency, reduces dependent phenomenon. The character and the capacity of each member are shown. For the method of using diagrams to organize learning activity, teachers should organize group activities. The teacher divides the class into small groups (4-5 students) and asks the groups to act to complete the mind – map according to the topic.
 Teachers can also split the theme of the article into subthemes, and divide the class into groups with the corresponding numbers so that each group can practise and complete a diagram about a topic of small threads.
 After brainstorming activity, teachers ask the groups to share the results with each other and eventually to gather the results of the group for the synthesis of knowledge about the topic of discussion. 
Example 1: Unit 7 ( English 10 ) – Writing about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media. 
Teachers divide the class into six groups to have a discussion about the six following topics:
	- Group 1: Advantages of the Internet.
	- Group