Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS an investigation into the effectiveness of collaborative brainstorming at the pre writing stage in intermediate english classes at a university in hanoi

Rationale

At intermediate English level, many students may feel that they are no longer making progress like at previous levels (Oxenden et al, 2006) This was true to the situation of teaching and learning English at intermediate level at our school, University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH)

Non majored students at the university attend the intermediate English course of integrated skills A topic is covered in a unit in which students can practise reading, listening, speaking and writing skills The syllabus is designed based on the text book, and different types of writing can be taught in different units To be specific, in a semester, students have 22.5 class hours for writing To intermediate level, writing skills were becoming more challenging to students as besides familiar writing forms like letters, they needed to learn new types like stories, film reviews and articles In a meeting held for teachers who were teaching current intermediate English classes in the semester in October 2013, the middle of the second semester, academic year 2013-2014, the teachers including my colleagues and I shared concerns about the teaching and learning and discussed actions to improve students’ learning outcomes In terms of writing skills, most teachers agreed that many students had produced incomprehensible pieces of writing, which was due to lack of ideas, poor vocabulary and grammar structures More importantly, a lot of students had problems generating ideas and/or arranging ideas logically for the writing In fact, I had tried to suggest my students, and even provided them with guiding ideas to write However, despite such efforts I made in class writing lessons, I still encountered frustration from checking my students’ writing papers

From my observations in my class and from communicative practice with my colleagues, I came to realize that it was time to critically study my own pedagogical actions Hence, on coming across action research, I found that it would be a tool for me to carefully and systematically explore the classroom issues I would conduct a study to find what could be done to improve my practice as a teacher in my class

To be more specific, this thesis reports a process of making changes in my teaching along with research practice In the study, my students’ needs and perspectives were investigated, and students’ responses to the pedagogical actions were taken into considerations The research is believed to be a useful experience for my real teaching career and my colleagues

The research started with an exploration into the students’ idea generation for writing in my class through semi-structured interviews with nine students The results of the interview made me highly surprised to realize that there were many drawbacks in what I did to prepare students for their writing Few of them appreciated warm-up games for the writing lessons, and many of them said that the idea preparation activities organized by teacher did not encourage them to think of their own ideas They would prefer chances to work with their peers before consulting the teacher

Students’ perspectives motivated me to search for solutions to the class I read about idea generation in groups, and became interested in group brainstorming

Brainstorming allows writers to quickly generate a large numbers of ideas and have good ideas to write because students can create lists of words or ideas related to a topic, and then choose ideas for their writing (Berne, 2009) However, some researchers argue that group idea generation could be less effective than individual (Mullen et al, 1991) Many studies have been carried out to explain for the productivity loss in this type of group work and to search for solutions (Diehl &

Stroebe, 1987; Mullen et al, 1991; Brown & Paulus, 1996; Brown & Putman, 2006;

Putman & Paulus, 2009) Especially, there has been a module to train people to generate more ideas and higher quality of ideas in problem solving (Baruah &

Paulus, 2008) Regarding training my students to generate ideas for writing topics, I supposed that there would be similarities to the literature of group brainstorming, yet changes should be made to suit the students and the teaching context

With all reasons above, I developed procedures to train my students on collaborative brainstorming, and investigated influences of collaborative brainstorming on the ideas expressed in their writing The training sessions and the techniques were applied in writing letters and articles, the two main genres of writing at this level The training sessions were also observed and critically reflected by a colleague of mine.

Aims and research questions

The study is divided into two stages: the first one is investigation and the second is intervention Therefore, aims of each stage are different

Firstly, the research aims at exploring how students generate ideas for writing and investigate the effectiveness of idea generating activities employed in the class under students’ perceptions To be specific, the objective of the first stage is to answer the two questions:

1 How do students generate ideas for writing?

2 How do students perceive the effectiveness of idea-generating activities employed in the class?

After the results of the first stage are analyzed and problems identified, training procedures on group brainstorming are developed When strategies of idea generation and idea construction are implemented in the class, it is essential to study effectiveness of the group brainstorming activities and influences of group brainstorming on quantity and quality of ideas in students’ writing papers In addition, students’ responses to group brainstorming activities are investigated The questions for the second stage are following:

3 How does group brainstorming influence the quality and quantity of ideas in students' writing papers?

4 How do students perceive the effectiveness of group brainstorming activities?

Significance of the study

First and foremost, the study is an important experience in my own teaching practice and doing research It provided chances for me to critically reflect the way I taught my students After that, solutions were searched and implemented in my class with a firm theoretical basis, experiments and critical feedback I was happy when my students had been working enthusiastically with the idea generation training activities, and they were more motivated in learning writing

The study might be practical for teachers in terms of pedagogical lessons and their research practice It will give an alternative to teachers’ support of students’ idea construction, which will help to develop learner autonomy or independence

Besides, teachers can understand more about students’ strengths and preferences in idea generation to create and apply appropriate pre-writing techniques.

Scope of the study

The research focuses on one type of group work at pre-writing stage in my class - an Intermediate English class The class is typical for intermediate classes in my school, with both males and females students of different majors

To better writing, one needs to improve idea generation, idea organization and importantly language (structures, lexical items) to express the ideas As my students reported that they had difficulties generating ideas for the topic and they supposed that they would benefit from group discussion for ideas, I started this study on idea generation at the pre-writing stage While group brainstorming was implemented in my class, the procedures needed to be critically reflected by the students and my colleague who observed the class Also, the study focuses on the effectiveness of group brainstorming on students’ generation of ideas for writing, but not ambitiously on overall writing skills improvements.

Methodology

The participants for this study are the researcher and twenty students of three males and seventeen females in one English class at intermediate level The students are of different majors at the university

The study has typical features of action research as it was conducted by me, the researcher as a practitioner In the research, I explored classroom issues, intervened to improve practice and reflected on the process To be specific, the research began with an investigation of idea generation for writing in my class, and training procedures on group idea generation skills were developed aiming at improving the class After the interventions, observation of the results, data analysis and discussions, there would be implications for futher study, which have made the teaching and learning on-going cycles of searching solutions to problems

In order to find out the results, these following data collection instruments were used:

The pre-intervention interviews were conducted with nine students in my class to investigate students’ ways of generating ideas for writing at intermediate level and students’ perceptions on the effects of idea generating activities in the class

Students’ pre-intervention writing test papers

The students did a written test without discussion with their peers Then, the test papers were collected to serve as data of the research

After the students were trained on group brainstorming with my procedure, they did real practice on group brainstorming and did a written test

Then, some other instruments were used to collect data:

A colleague was invited to observe the class and take notes of the process Before the observation day, I discussed with her my research plan and the lesson plan when the process took place

Besides, the conversations of the groups brainstorming for the test were recorded

The conversations would be analyzed to compare with the training procedure given

Students’ post-intervention writing papers

The students’ post-intervention writing papers were collected to compare with the pre-intervention ones

Students were asked to write a small reflection about 100 words in Vietnamese on group brainstorming activities they had participated in class

In-depth interviews were conducted with nine students in my class to find out students’ perspectives on influences of group brainstorming on writing In addition, my colleague who observed my class was interviewed to reflect on the process

To sum up, in the first stage, interviews were important because they were used to investigate problems and test my observations of the class In the second stage, intervention stage, multiple sources of data were used for triangulation The two writing papers of students were compared to see the influences of group brainstorming on student’s idea production Audio records were to check if students worked well with the training procedures The critical colleague helped to observe the class and could give comments on the lessons Students’ journals provided opportunities for all the students in the class to freely give their feelings, thoughts and feedback on the group brainstorming activities Post-intervention interviews were to check the reliability of the journals and observations, as well as for the interviewees to add any issues that they did not mention before

The data collected were processed by using qualitative methods In the first stage, data were sorted, categorized and analyzed The nine students’ interviews and the students’ test papers were compared to see differences in the quality and quantity of ideas between pre-intervention and post-intervention The transcriptions of recorded conversations, students’ journals, and interviews with the colleague were also analyzed qualitatively to critically reflect on the processes.

An overview of the research report

In the first part, the researcher will give the reason why this topic is chosen based on the practical context The research aims, questions and methods will be also included in this part

Part B: Development Chapter 1: Literature Review

The first chapter deals with key terms related issues about the research problem, which found the theoretical basis of the research Previous studies are also reviewed in this chapter

Reasons for choosing participants for the research will be explained in the second chapter Next, data collection instruments, procedure and analysis will be also carefully described in this chapter

The third chapter will analyze results from the interviews, observations, students’ writing papers and students’ journals and then some possible comments on those results will be made

The last part will synthesize findings of the study It also discusses contributions, limitations of the research and suggestions for further study.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Process approach to teaching writing

The process approach is an approach to teaching writing to language learners in which the process of writing a text is highly focused before the final product is achieved (Brown, 2001) Under the process approach, learners have opportunities to think thoroughly and critically and write until they complete their final written version (Brown, 2001) As noted in Hyland (2003), the process approach has significant influences on the teaching and learning of writing skills

As a process, the approach involves many steps which compose a repeated procedure of prewriting, drafting, sharing and responding, revising and editing, and publishing (Hyland, 2003; Unger & Fleischman, 2004) In short, there are three main stages which are prewriting, drafting, and revising Of the stages, pre-writing, or planning what is going to be written, is an essential step in the writing process (Unger & Fleischman, 2004) It may take even good writers a lot of time to organize and plan what is going to be written (Hillocks, 1986) In language teaching, to help students generate ideas at the pre-writing stage, teachers can help students practise some strategies such as free-writing and brainstorming (Berne,

1.1.2 Advantages of the process approach

Language learners should need a lot of training and practice to achieve language proficiency, especially in writing skills (Pugh et al., 2000) Unger (2004) indicates that writing process is an effective method to train students to be good writers

Under this approach, students are taught and have opportunities to share and communicate their ideas (Unger, 2004) In classroom, students share ideas for the writing, write their draft, and then exchange their writing with peers through writing conferences or peer editing There, peer learning/teaching contributes to developing writing skills for individuals

In fact, since the 1980s, the process approach has been applied into writing classes because of its effectiveness for learners (Raime, 1983; Nunan, 1991; Brown, 2001)

The effectiveness can be demonstrated in some main ways First, the process approach provides learners opportunities to refine their written product (Hyland,

2003) Students are instructed to develop their abilities to define writing topics, plan to write then come up with the first writing version (Hyland, 2003) Teachers can assist learners to move on to the next stage of the writing process by providing responses to their first draft by giving feedback or organizing peer editing sessions

Commenting and rewriting may be repeated some more times before the final version is handed in (Hyland, 2003) Second, the process approach can improve thinking skills and boost cognitive abilities for learners (Brown, 2001; Michelon,

2006) Brown (2001) states that the process approach lets students manage their own writing by giving students chances to think as they write In this way, students can practise critical thinking skills through the stages of the writing circle of writing, sharing, revising, and editing Cognitive abilities are complex matters, and can improve if exercised (Michelon, 2006) The stages of the writing process may help learners to improve such abilities through writing and self and/or peer reflecting Third, the process approach can enhance language learning motivation (Raimes, 1983; Nunan, 1991; Brown, 2001) According to Brown (2001), the process approach is beneficial to students in language learning because when students are creators of language, they need to take responsibility for their work, and their motivation for writing will be increased Raimes (1983) indicates that the writing process is a process of discovery for the students Through thinking and editing, students are able to discover new ideas and new language forms to express their ideas Obviously, the process of discovery would engage students more in language learning Nunan (1991) also affirms that the process approach also encourages collaborative work among learners as a way of enhancing motivation and developing positive attitudes towards writing Therefore, the process approach is advantageous to students

1.1.3 Criticism of the process approach

However, there are concerns about the process approach in teaching and learning writing For example, Leki (1992) indicates three main problems existing with the process approach: many EFL teachers lack specific training to teach writing, many ESL/EFL teachers tend to associate with traditional views (of using product approach, for example), and there are teachers and researchers considering the process approach to overemphasize on personal experience In addition, Horowitz

(1986) believes that the process approach is impractical because it may create a gap between practice and performance in academic exams In exams students are not able to go through as many drafts as when they practise in class Therefore, students may lack skills of producing single writing under restricted time The writing process approach can also be time-consuming in class, as lot of time should be spent on the stages of revising or editing (Horowitz, 1986)

Criticism like above should be considered However, language skills, particularly writing skills may require a lot of training for development (Pugh et al., 2000); and students are targeted to develop language skills but not just skills for taking exams

Regarding the problems mentioned by Leki (1992), the first two can be solved by increasing training for teachers and encourage them to renovate their teaching practice Other problems can be solved with teachers’ creativity and flexibility For example, teachers can assign students to work more with each other at home or create online conferences outside class to save in-class time Moreover, these days, the process approach has been applied specifically with different writing task types, or combined with the so-called genre-based approach to teaching writing In other words, changes and techniques have been made to the process approach to improve its effectiveness in teaching and learning writing skills.

Group work

Group work is briefly reviewed because collaborative brainstorming is a kind of group work organized in a language classroom

In my research, group work refers to learning groups in a language classroom In classroom group work, students will work together towards the learning goals of the group (Nation, 1989; Blatchford et al, 2003) Therefore, each student should consider himself/herself an essential part of the group so that he/she will make best contribution to the group as a whole (Blachford et al, 2003) During students working in group, the teacher may be a facilitator and group members actively exchange information and complete the tasks (Blatchford et al, 2003)

Group work yields many advantages to students (Totten et al, 1989; Gillies, 2003;

Blatchford et al, 2003; Dooly, 2008) Firstly, students can benefit from different perspectives of group members when sharing and negotiating ideas (Nation, 1989;

Gillies, 2003) and their knowledge will be widened as a result of this In comparison with individual learners, students working in groups are able to concentrate more on the lesson, thus achieve better outcome (Dooly, 2008)

Secondly, working in group can motivate students and make students more interested in the lesson (Dooly, 2008) This may be due to the influences of the working spirit of group members on each individual Also, that students are working with their peers can make them relaxed to express their ideas Thirdly, participating in discussion with different people and taking responsibility for their work, students can improve their critical thinking (Totten et al, 1989) Gillies (2003) summarizes that students working in group are capable of developing their learning performance as well as interpersonal skills.

Collaborative brainstorming (group brainstorming)

For decades, people have used brainstorming to generate ideas, and to come up with creative solutions to problems Madison Avenue advertising executive Alex Osborn developed the original approach to brainstorming (Osborn, 1953) Since then, brainstorming has been a popular activity in many organizations and in various fields for generating ideas (Paulus, 2000)

In language learning, specifically writing, Bauer (2009) states that brainstorming is the way a writer visually organizes information for the writing It expresses free associations with the topics through words, phrases or possible perspectives In brainstorming, the writer conducts exploration of the topic According to Berne

(2009), brainstorming is similar to free-writing in that they aim at taking away the barriers that keep people from thinking creatively This technique relies on either verbal or written lists of components In brainstorming, students create lists of words or ideas related to a topic, and then choose ideas among the generated ideas for their writing (Bern, 2009)

Brainstorming is considered a useful strategy to prepare learners to write (Berne,

2009) Brainstorming could be applied individually or collaboratively (in group – group brainstorming) However, some literature has revealed that the effectiveness of group brainstorming on idea productivity should be taken into consideration (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987; Diehl & Stroebe, 1991; Mullen et al, 1991; Paulus et al, 1995; Nijstad & Stroebe, 2006, Brown &Paulus, 2002; Putman & Paulus, 2008)

1.3.1 The effectiveness of group brainstorming

There are a number of researchers who believes that group brainstorming could enhance idea productivity Osborn (1963), known as the founder of group brainstorming, claims that a group brainstorming collaboratively can produce more ideas than a group with the same number of people brainstorming individually if they follow four rules: “(i) criticism is ruled out, (ii)‘free-wheeling’ is welcomed, (iii) quantity is wanted, (iiii) combination and improvements are sought” (Osborn,

1963, p 109, 110) In fact, the rules are to instruct group members to feel free to express any ideas, not to deduct ideas of others, increase quantity of ideas and develop previous ideas (Putman & Paulus, 2009) With such rules, group members are encouraged to increase quantity as well as quality of ideas It is explained that collaborative brainstormers can benefit from different perspectives and abilities of their peers because people in a group can cognitively stimulate each other to generate ideas (Osborn, 1957; Paulus et al, 1998) Other researchers like Paulus et al (1995) report that most people believe that group brainstorming is effective;

Baruah & Paulus (2008) state that group idea generation is beneficial in terms of quantity and quality of ideas generated

1.3.2 Productivity loss due to group brainstorming

On the other hand, a number of studies examine the hypothesis that brainstorming groups could outperform individuals (Mullen et al, 1991) and the results are negative Some researchers have explained that interactive brainstorming is counterproductive (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987; Mullen et al, 1991) According to Mullen et al (1991), there are three factors that cause productivity loss in group brainstorming: people interrupting each other, the effect of the group on the individuals, and free riding In their research, the three mechanisms are examined using several aspects including group size, experimenter presence, response mode and types of groups Similarly, Diehl and Stroebe (1987, 1991) identify the major causes of productivity loss in brainstorming groups that are free riding, evaluation apprehension and blocking

In fact, literature has revealed at least four factors that may cause productivity loss in collaborative brainstorming First, free riding happens when group members feel that their individual contributions to the group are less significant than they work alone (Diehl & Stroebe, 1991) Hence, the feeling that their ideas add little to the group outcome demotivates group members to produce ideas Moreover, in collaborative brainstorming, brainstormers may not be confident or comfortable to speak out their ideas because of their concern about possible evaluations of their peers (Diehl & Stroebe, 1991) In this case, evaluation apprehension can limit their contributions to the group, which causes group productivity loss Next, production blocking refers to opportunities for group members to raise their ideas In group, one member can speak at a time; but when waiting for their turn, people may forget the ideas at the time the ideas occur in their mind If a person tries to keep the ideas in his/her mind, he/she may not think of further ideas Both individual and group productivity in idea generation will be reduced as a result of this (Diehl & Stroebe,

1991) Last, performance matching is the comparison of performance level of group members When brainstorming in a group, individuals may not want to outperform others (Brown & Paulus, 1996) Therefore, they may decrease their performance of raising their ideas if they perceive that other members are not working as hard as them Consequently, the group productivity may be affected These factors are of high importance to understand the nature of collaborative brainstorming, accordingly to find how to improve group brainstorming techniques

1.3.3 Ways to improve group brainstorming

The finding that group brainstorming is less effective than individual has stimulated much research investigating the causes and ways to improve group brainstorming (Nijstad & Stroebe, 2006)

Paulus and some other researchers carry out a number of studies on cognitive potentials of brainstorming groups (Brown, Tumeo, Larey & Paulus, 1998; Paulus, Dugosh, Dzindolet, Coskun& Putman, 2002) Brown and Paulus (2002) highlight two factors that affect collaboration and may make successful collaboration:

“accessibility” and “attention” (Brown & Paulus, 2002, p 209 & 210)

Accessibility could be understood as how familiar the topics are with a person

Brown and Paulus (2002) claims that idea generation of the topics may depend on how related the topics to a person’s conditions When people have few ideas about the topics that are not related to their knowledge or conditions, the topics are labeled

“low-accessible categories” (Brown & Paulus, 2002, p 209) For example, how to improve the situation of parking will be a low-accessible category for a student living on campus in a dormitory He will need suggestions from fellow students who commute to school to generate some ideas about that topic Suggestion for group members on low-accessible categories can increase the number of ideas generated in group, and enhance individual productivity in the brainstorming process

Attention refers to the extent group members pay attention to others’ ideas (Brown

& Paulus, 2002) Brown and Paulus (2002) predict that if group members pay more attention to others’ ideas in their group, the productivity of the group will be increased In contrast, when people pay less attention, the overall performance of the group will decline In addition, with low-accessible categories, one can benefit from others if he pays close attention to peer’s ideas

Brown and Paulus (2002) study three brainstorming procedures that can enhance group brainstorming These include combining group and solitary brainstorming, having group brainstormers interact by writing instead of speaking (brainwriting), and using networked computers on which individuals type their ideas and read the ideas of others (electronic brainstorming)

Osborn (1957) believes that effective brainstorming should consist of individual and group sessions Osborn (1963) proposes that the best order may be working individually before working in group In fact, there have been different perspectives on the effectiveness of the sequence of the two sessions (Baruah & Paulus, 2008)

Related studies

Brainstorming is not a new concept in the world, and has been researched for a long time It was developed by the advertising executive Alex Osborn (1953, 1957,

1963) as a technique to increase the effectiveness of group sessions at his advertising agency These sessions were called “brainstorming sessions” because

“brainstorming means using the brain to storm a problem” (Osborn, 1963, p 151)

Osborn derived four rules for idea finding: “(i) criticism is ruled out, (ii) ‘free- wheeling’ is welcomed, (iii) quantity is wanted, (iiii) combination and improvements are sought” (Osborn, 1963, p 109, 110)

Later, Diehl and Stroebe (1987, 1991) studied productivity of brainstorming groups

In their 1987 article, they identified free riding, evaluation apprehension, and blocking as the major factors that might be causes of productivity loss in brainstorming groups They also carried out experiments to test the three major explanations of the productivity loss in brainstorming groups

Paulus is a researcher who has dug deep into brainstorming He in cooperation with other researchers has had many studies on group idea generation For example, Paulus and Dzindolet (1993) carried out a series of studies examining the role of social influences in group brainstorming These studies indicated that matching of performance level might decrease productivity of group brainstorming In 1996, Brown and Paulus conducted a further study on two social factors influencing group brainstorming productivity – production blocking and performance matching (Brown & Paulus, 1996) Paulus (2000) reviewed and suggested that interaction in groups and teams could be an important source of creative ideas Next, Brown and Paulus (2002) proposed three ways to enhance group brainstorming that are alternating group and individual brainstorming, brainwriting and electronic brainstorming Paulus, Nakui, Brown and Putman (2006) conducted a study in which clear benefits of additional rules for group brainstorming were found In

2008, Baruah and Paulus proposed a training procedure for group idea generation and found that training could increase both quality and quantity of ideas generated and that the order solitary to group brainstorming sessions could be more effective

Putman and Paulus (2009) investigated the effectiveness of additional rules in group brainstorming In the study, additional rules could increase the productivity of idea generation but not idea originality (Putman & Paulus, 2009)

In English language teaching, brainstorming has been applied as a technique in the teaching of general skills, vocabulary, and ESP Brainstorming is believed to be effective for learners (Cullen, 1998; Rao, 2007; Christmas, 2008; Case, 2012;

Ariana & Mirabela, 2012) For instance, Cullen (1998) reviewed a lot of brainstorming techniques used in EFL classroom such as simple word list, brainstorming with pictures or song, lists based on principle, and so on He found that these techniques could help gather ideas from learners in a short time In reading, brainstorming at pre-reading helped students to generate related ideas to given texts, and created stimulating atmosphere (Saed, 2011) In teaching vocabulary, through brainstorming, students could associate words to a topic, making them remember the words better (Ariana & Mirabela, 2012) Brainstorming is a useful strategy in teaching writing (Rao, 2007; Christmas, 2008) Rao (2007) argued that students practising brainstorming techniques over a period of time could achieve higher results in writing tasks Christmas conducted action research applying two brainstorming techniques in his academic writing class and his students perceived that the brainstorming techniques were useful and effective in preparing them for the writing tasks

In fact, brainstorming in EFL/ESL classes has been applied more individually than in group If learners brainstorm in group, there will be three stages in the process: before, during and after (Pauling, 2008) First, students are divided into groups of four or five; they will choose the group leader and a secretary; and the brainstorming topic is introduced Second, groups of students participate in brainstorming session with the rule accepting and writing down all ideas Third, the groups conclude by eliminating same ideas, summarizing similar ideas and removing inappropriate ideas

Besides some advantages for learners, there exist several problems in brainstorming techniques According to Case (2012), the biggest problem in group brainstorming is performance level of group members: some students contribute much more than others He also argues that it may be difficult for students to take note information

More importantly, in the procedure by Pauling (2008) although there are some rules developed from Osborn rules, the productivity of group brainstorming may be reduced due to some factors like free riding, blocking and performance matching (Diehl & Stroebe, 1991; Brown & Paulus, 1996) Therefore, there need to be improvements for brainstorming sessions in language classes

In Vietnam, brainstorming has been applied as one of the renovating techniques for interactive learning (Vo, 2009; Nguyen et al, 2012; Duong, 2013) Brainstorming has been implemented in different classes such as geography, chemistry, foreign language for different types of learners from secondary to university In class, brainstorming can be organized individually, with the whole class or in groups of students In group, the brainstorming process also goes through three main stages which are before, during and after (Vo, 2009; Duong, 2013) Some rules are instructed during brainstorming: do not criticize, list as many ideas as possible, summarize ideas (Nguyen et al, 2012; Duong, 2013) The benefits for learners are improving creativity and problem solving skills (Nguyen et al, 2010) However, some similar drawbacks are seen: some group members contribute more than others; group members find it hard to summarize ideas In the group brainstorming process, some rules by Osborn have been selected but factors that affect the productivity of group idea generation have not received much concern Therefore, ways to improve brainstorming still need to be studied

An extensive body of research on group brainstorming exists explaining the factors that influence productivity of group idea generation and ways to improve the effectiveness of group brainstorming Yet, the studies are about group brainstorming for creativity tasks in which number of ideas and originality of ideas generated are targeted Group brainstorming has been studied in searching for creativity in problem solving (Osborn, 1963; Paulus, 2000; Brown & Paulus, 2002;

Baruah & Paulus, 2008) In English language teaching, brainstorming has been applied individually or collaboratively, yet there have been a lot of room for improvements

From reflective practice, it was realized that my students needed to develop idea generation skills for writing topic and to have sufficient ideas for writing It was also necessary for students to increase quality of ideas in their writing papers The research literature was highly useful because it offered me a deep look into group brainstorming before implementing into my class However, I needed to develop training procedures to improve idea generation skills for students to apply in writing During the process, some more rules were added to suit writing lessons.

METHODOLOGY

Research methodology

The present study employs method of action research Action research is carried out by practitioners (classroom teachers) rather than outside researchers (Cohen &

Manion, 2007) In doing this kind of research, classroom teachers explore classroom issues, plan and implement improvements, collect data and reflect on the procedures (Whitehead & McNiff , 2006; Cohen & Manion, 2007) In light of that, my study has typical feature of action research as it was conducted by me, the researcher as the teacher of the class The research began with an investigation of students’ idea generation for writing in my class, and then collaborative brainstorming was developed and applied aiming at improving students on idea generating and planning at pre-writing stage The procedures were observed, reported and refected with data from audio recordings, interviews, students’ journals and observations After the interventions, there were implications for futher study, which made the teaching and learning on-going cycles of searching solutions to problems

Action research is appropriate for my situation As this type of research is used to

“bridge the gap between research and practice” (Cohen et al, 2007, p 298), it allowed me to find solutions to problems systematically from a theoretical basis of group brainstorming More importantly, when conducting this action research, I came to realize that research was far more helpful and practical for my teaching career than what I had been viewing of research before

The subject of the study was non-majored English students who were learning at intermediate level at University of Social Sciences and Humanities The course of intermediate English is the final level that non-majored students attend at university

Therefore, it is important to the students because it offers them last chances for language skills before graduation As Oxenden (2006) states that at intermediate level students may feel that they are no longer making progress as they were before, my students agreed and added that the course was much more difficult than the two previous levels (elementary and pre-intermediate) Hence, how to improve the teaching and learning at this level has been significantly considered In fact, at my university, intermediate students have been the subject for a large amount of research

Among four skills of language learning (listening, speaking, reading and writing), writing was chosen for the studies for some reasons Firstly, as my observations prior to the research, my students had difficulties developing their writing My colleagues held similar opinion that many students produced very poor writing

Secondly, the course book offered helpful topics and writing types, but not ways to develop students’ writing skills My students complained that they would imitate the writing sample in the book Lastly, I would like to investigate my own teaching practice to find out the gaps between my teaching and the students’ learning writing, from which remedies would be applied to improve my class and hopefully give some suggestions to fellow teachers in similar situations

The teacher as the researcher

The researcher of the study was me, the teacher of the class As action research is conducted by classroom teachers rather than outside researchers aiming at improving the class (Whitehead & McNiff , 2006; Cohen & Manion, 2007; Burns,

2010), my roles in the study were appropriate with the research method To be specific, I took part in all steps and stages of the research The research offered me opportunities to systematically investigate my own teaching and search for improvements for the class

There were twenty students in my class and all of them were equally significant participants in my research I asked them to take part in my research, and all of them were enthusiastic to support me This was important, because I would need their writing papers, journals and interviews with them for the data The students were assured that their real personal information would be kept confidential, but not used in the research report In the paper, pseudonyms were employed instead of real names of the student participants To be specific, all the names of participants mentioned in the report are pseudonyms which were used to fulfill an ethical aspect in research dissemination (Ogden, 2008)

Before starting the research, I had been teaching the students for two months and through their writing papers and their performance, I could generally categorize them into three groups in terms of English at this level: strong, average and weak students The purpose of such categorization was that in group work, students of the three different groups would be mixed so that students within one group could assist each other This is one thing that a teacher should care for in a class, because students usually sit next to each other or form group based on the intimacy among them In fact, students in my class study different majors at university, and they usually sit with those who study the same majors

The age of the participants ranged from 19 to 21 years They come from different provinces, but most of them are in the north of Vietnam Therefore, they share typical features in culture and education background

In my study, I invited a colleague of mine to participate She also teaches intermediate students, so she understands the subject of my study She is an experienced teacher and I believe that her roles were of great importance in my research When I gave her the research proposal and discussed with her my plan, she was willing to help, and she even pointed out some issues that I needed to read further Specifically, she helped me to take note of the lessons through the observation forms designed Besides, after training sessions she was interviewed for her comments on the lessons In deed, by involving my colleague, I could have critical feedback from a teacher’s perspectives on what I did With her experience, she gave me helpful reports and critical comments on the lessons Importantly, I hoped that she would learn something from my intervention lessons, so that if group brainstorming was effective, it would be applied in her class and possibly other classes.

Research instruments

Interviews were one of the significant instruments to collect data because they “can be used to gather background information or tap into the expert knowledge of an individual” (Harrell & Bradley, 2009, p 24), and “are valuable sources of data and capture the live responses of people to the situation” (McNiff & Whitehead, 2002, p 96) In one procedure in my research, interviews were used in both stages: pre- intervention interviews and post-intervention interviews The interviews were semi- structured and were conducted in person The interview questions were open-ended

They were translated in Vietnamese in interviewing the students because at the students’ English level, speaking in Vietnamese would ease them from hesitation or barrier, which would help me to understand their ideas and opinions more easily

I believe that this type of interview is appropriate to data collection According to Harrell & Bradley (2009), in semi-structured interviewing, the interviewer can decide the order of the questions, and provide interviewees with probes to ensure that the researcher is covering appropriate topics and keep the interviewees stay on the matters discussed In the study, these interview techniques were taken advantage of For example, when I asked students questions for their ways of generating ideas for writing and their opinion of pre-writing activities which include idea-generating activities (Appendix 1), I needed to guide the student interviewees to help keep them stay focused on the main purposes of the questions In fact, as the teacher- researcher who wanted to improve the class, I really needed to involve my students into class writing activities by initially learning more deeply about their opinions and their ideas about learning writing After the interventions, semi-structure interviews offered chances for me to understand students’ perspectives

The interviews were divided into pre-intervention interviews and post-intervention interviews In the pre-intervention stage, I interviewed nine students in my class

The nine students represented for three groups: three for strong students, three for average students and three for weak students There were five questions in the interviews and they focused on the two questions in the first stage of the research (Appendix 1) Moreover, relaxing conversations between the students and me were created to found deeper interaction Therefore, through interviewing this group of students, I could have an overview of the whole class In fact, the interviews helped me to test problems that I supposed the students have faced

In the post-intervention stage, those nine students were interviewed again There were seven questions about the effectiveness of group brainstorming activities on writing and what students expected more from the activities (Appendix 2D.1) I needed to get the feedback of the students on group brainstorming activities and had face-to-face discussions with them for improvements for the next cycle to be built up Furthermore, my colleague who participated in the observations was interviewed (Appendix 2D.2) Through seven questions, the effectiveness of group brainstorming procedure was reflected by her, another teacher Also, her ideas were significant for me to improve pre-writing activities in the class

Before group brainstorming activities were applied in my class, students did a writing practice without discussion with their peers Then, the writing papers were collected

After being trained on group brainstorming with my procedure, students did a written test employing the pre-writing techniques learnt in previous sections In class, the students had fifteen minutes to brainstorm and made outline for the writing topic During this time, the teacher could walk around the class and give possible help to students Then, they had 20 to 25 minutes to write about the topic

When the students finished, the teacher collected the writing papers These writing papers would be compared and contrasted with the pre-intervention ones on the quantity and quality of ideas students produced; from that I could evaluate if my students were benefiting from group brainstorming techniques

The training procedures were of great significance in the study In fact, the procedures were central parts of this research After investigation of the situation and analysis of problems, the procedures were the results of the process of searching for solutions Moreover, the procedures were built based on careful review of literature on group brainstorming, which shows efforts and creativity of the teacher to improve the class These were actually the content of interventions when changes were put into practice in the class The lessons provided opportunities for students to be trained on idea generation in group for writing topics A training procedure was summarized in the table below:

Step 1: Solitary brainstorming Step 2: Group brainstorming

Step 1: Solitary brainstorming Step 2: Group brainstorming

Part 4 Actual brainstorming for the writing test

Part 5 Writing for the test 25

Part 1: Firstly, students were divided into groups of three or four by the teacher

Strong, average and weak students were mixed so that in group work they could assist each other

Part 2 & Part 3: These two parts were for student to practise group brainstorming

There was a topic for a part in which students brainstormed individually and then came to group discussion When brainstorming alone, students were asked to note down as many ideas as possible, and students were told to follow the rules:

- work individually, do not discuss with other people

- use simple words or phrases, not necessarily complete sentences

- do not worry about grammar or spelling

- write in English, but could use Vietnamese if necessary

- write as many ideas as possible

When coming to group brainstorming, students brought their paper to discuss with their partners Each group would write down their ideas on another sheet of paper

During this process, students could discuss verbally with each other In this session, students were reminded of the rules and asked to follow additional rules These rules were selected from four rules by Osborn (1963): “(i) criticism is ruled out, (ii)

‘free-wheeling’ is welcomed, (iii) quantity is wanted, (iiii) combination and improvements are sought” (Osborn, 1963, p 109, 110), and some additional rules by Putman and Paulus (2009): “(i) stay focus on the task, (ii) keep the brainstorming going, (iii) return to previous categories” (Putman & Paulus, 2009, p.39) Several other rules were added All the rules were as follow:

- feel free to offer any ideas

- generate as many ideas as possible

- do not criticize any ideas of others

- can combine and improve previous ideas

- stay focused on the task: do not tell stories

- keep the brainstorming going: when no one is talking, a group member says

“Let’s see what other ideas we can come up with (using the red paper)”

- return to previous categories: when the group has some ideas but no one is talking, one group member says “ Does anyone have more ideas related to ( (restate an idea already suggested)?”

- give chances for every group member to express their ideas

- with ideas you find strange (or unique), you may ask others to clarify

- use simple words or phrases, not necessarily complete sentences

- not to worry about grammar or spelling

- use English, but could use Vietnamese if necessary

Several rules were added to the brainstorming process aiming at supporting the students to increase the number of ideas and be able to benefit from peers’ ideas

For instance, the rules “give chances for every group member to explain ideas” could enhance cooperation among group and promote individual contribution In this way, it could also prevent group members from free riding and performance matching (Diehl & Stroebe, 1991; Brown & Paulus, 1996) Besides, if students did not understand other people’s ideas, they could ask for clarification This rule made members pay more attention to others’ ideas and understand more about others’ perspectives (Nation, 1989; Brown & Paulus, 2002) Thus, it contributed to increasing total ideas generated and widening individual’s knowledge The other rules related to language used to express ideas could help students to feel free and focus more on generating ideas

At the end of part 4, teacher discussed with the students on the ideas for the two topics, and reminded students of the rules Students were also told that they were going to brainstorm for another topic which was for writing

Part 4: Students did group brainstorming for the topic of the writing test The same sequence was followed, individual to group brainstorming

Part 5: Students used the ideas to write about the topic

At the end of the lesson, the teacher thanked students for their cooperation

In one procedure, after the students were trained on group brainstorming, they did real practice on group brainstorming and did a written test Some other instruments were used to collect data:

Data collection procedures

The purpose of the first stage was to investigate how students generated ideas for writing and evaluate the effectiveness of idea-generating activities in class to the students

First and foremost, based on the aims of this stage, five interview questions were designed (Appendix 1A) The questions were written in English, and then translated into Vietnamese to interview students I decided the type of interview – semi- structured and wrote probes for the interview questions Also, recorders were prepared to record the interviews

After that, I reviewed notes for the lessons for students’ performance in class and the students’ writing papers In terms of writing performance, the students are categorized based on results of their writing tests and writing practice from the beginning the course Specifically, there are five tests and the tests are marked based on IELTS marking criteria There are 6 good students (higher achievers), 10 average students (average achievers) and 4 weak students (low achievers) Three students were chosen from each group as interviewees

The interviews were conducted after a lesson Nine interviews were recorded, then transcribed and analyzed for the next stage in the study

The aims of the second stage are applying group brainstorming as pre-writing activities in the class and investigating the effectiveness of the activities

First, I designed training procedures on group brainstorming for my students (Appendix 2B & 2C) The training procedures consist of six parts as described above Along with the procedure, the written tests were design Also, the observation notes, post-intervention interview questions and reflection papers were designed After that, the schedule of interventions was decided

Day 1: Students did a writing test on “write a paragraph about how to stay healthy”

They had five minutes to brainstorm and outline the writing task individually and had twenty five minutes to complete the writing After they finished, their writing papers were collected These papers would serve as pre-intervention writing papers

Day 2: The first training procedure on group brainstorming was applied in my class (Appendix 2B) The students were trained in about 40 minutes so that they could all understand the brainstorming rules and they could put the rules into real practice

They then did real brainstorming on the second paragraph writing test “What are possible reasons for the break-up of a love?”

To this step, the data were collected as follow:

Audio records were collected while students did actual group brainstorming for this test, in session 4 (described in the training procedure)

Students’ post-intervention writing papers were gathered after they finished writing a paragraph about possible reasons for the break up of a love

Students then were asked to write a reflection on group brainstorming activities they had participated in Students’ journals were collected this time

After the lesson, nine students and the critical colleague were interviewed The post- intervention interviews were recorded to serve as data for my research

Intervention 2: Letter writing: writing a letter of application

Day 1: Students did a writing test on “write a letter to apply for an internship position” They had five minutes to brainstorm and outline the writing task individually and had twenty more minutes to complete the writing After they finished, their writing papers were collected These papers would serve as pre- intervention writing papers

Day 2: The second procedure (Appendix 2C) was implemented in my class

Students were trained with two topics for the first two brainstorming sessions Then, the writing topic was writing an application letter for a position in the Olympic Games The task was in the course book First, in group students selected a position or two positions that they liked to apply for Then, they brainstormed on good personalities and related experience for the job

To this step, the data were collected as follow:

Audio records were collected while students did group brainstorming for this test

Students’ post-intervention writing papers were gathered after they finished writing a letter of application

Students then were asked to write a reflection on group brainstorming activities they had participated in Students’ journals were collected

Observation notes were collected from the colleague

After the lesson, nine students and the critical colleague were interviewed The interviews were recorded to serve as data for my research

After the second intervention, with students’ ideas, observation notes, interviews and what I had experienced in the procedure, the procedures were reviewed Data collected from the two interventions were arranged to be analyzed

It is noted that two different topics were chosen for two days of pre-intervention and post-intervention in both paragraph writing and letter writing In fact, different topics should be used so that students could respond to a new topic for each time of writing Based on this, the effectiveness of group brainstorming could be reflected

Of course, idea generation capacity of people may vary on different topics and different time However, both two topics chosen are familiar with students, which meant that I avoided choosing topics with different levels of accessibility (Brown and Paulus, 2002) If a single topic was used for two different times, idea generation capacity would vary because students would have time to rehearse on that topic

With two different topics, multiple sources of data would be synthesized to check the reliability of the effectiveness of group brainstorming on students’ writing.

Data analysis procedures

The collected data were classified according to the research questions To be specific, the first nine interviews were to answer the first two questions The answer for the third question was found through the students’ pre- vs post- intervention writing papers, students’ journals and interviews The fourth question was answered based on the triangulation of students’ journals, observations, and interviews with the students and the colleague

All the interviews were transcribed verbatim In reporting the results, data from the interviews, students’ journals and observations were translated into English by the researcher with no intention of producing grammatical errors

The first nine interviews were analyzed to see students’ ways of generating ideas for writing and students’ perspectives on effectiveness of idea-generating activities in the class, which were for the first two research questions Tables were formed to compare differences and highlight the rate of criteria

As for the third questions, students’ pre-intervention writing papers and post- intervention ones were compared Quantity of ideas was measured through counting the ideas in the papers; quality of ideas was compared based on IELTS writing marking criteria

As for the fourth question, students’ perspectives on the effects of the activities were analyzed on how well they worked with their group, how the activities prepared them to write and other benefits or effects of group brainstorming as pre- writing activities Tables were formed to illustrate the ideas of students Besides, the results were compared with the observations of my critical colleague for consistency

To sum up, the data were analyzed based on the step-by-step approach in qualitative data analysis proposed by Creswell (2009) This approach is believed to be a useful guide for practitioners conducting action research (Koshy, 2009) The steps were following:

Step 1: Organizing and preparing the data for analysis In this step, data were sorted and arranged; all the interviews were transcribed

Step 2: Reading through all the data I read all the data carefully and sometimes took notes on the margin of the paper

Step 3: Coding the data The information was coded, organized and sorted

Step 4: Generating descriptions and categories for analysis From the coding process, descriptions were formed For example, for the second research question, drawbacks of idea-generating activities in class were formed based on problems students mentioned

Step 5: Interpreting the meaning of data The data were interpreted under formed categories.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Stage 1

The first stage in the research is to investigate how students generate ideas for their writing, and how students perceive the effectiveness of idea-generating activities employed in writing classes

How do students generate ideas for writing?

The analysis of the interviews with the students points out several ways students generate ideas for writing which are summarized in the following table:

Students’ Idea Generation before Intervention

How students generate ideas for writing No of students mentioned

Using ideas suggested by the teacher 9

Consulting their peers for ideas 5

Writing ideas down (in English or Vietnamese) 5

Thinking of an idea and beginning to write 4

All students interviewed commented that the teacher’s suggestion on ideas for writing topics was useful, and they used the ideas to write For example:

“The teacher suggests ideas for us, so I think the ideas are good.” 1 (Trang) 2

“Sometimes I just don’t think of some of the ideas that the teacher suggests I think of my own ideas and I also use the suggested ideas for my writing”

“I usually lack ideas to write, so I rely on suggested ideas from the teacher.”(Mung)

“The teacher and some classmates suggest ideas for us, so why don’t we use the ideas to write?” (Nhung)

It is seen that the teacher’s suggestion was an important source of ideas for the students and students made use of the ideas to write One reason was that they might lack ideas and in students’ opinion, teacher’s suggested ideas were worth trusting Moreover, some students considered the provided ideas an available valuable source That the teacher brainstorms with the students and suggests ideas for students could assist them to prepare ideas for their writing, yet makes learning become teacher-centered As the teacher, I am aware of this, but in my point of view that time, most students lacked ideas, and thus they needed help from the teacher

There were some other ways students generate ideas for their writing when there was no teacher’s help Some students wrote ideas down in English or Vietnamese, and asked their peers for help with translation When students did not have any other ideas, they consulted those who sat around Besides, several students often started their writing after they just thought of an idea It could be seen that some students prepared ideas for writing while some others did not This could be the

1 In the research, interviews with the students and students’ comments in journals were translated from Vietnamese into English by the researcher with no intention of producing grammatical errors

2 The names in the research are pseudonyms reason why in many students’ pieces of writing, ideas were not logically organized, which resulted from poor plan before writing

The ways students generated ideas for writing revealed some problems they faced in idea generation In fact, students interviewed mentioned a few problems The most popular one was that students lacked ideas Weak students and average students lacked ideas for writing topics and even good students found it hard to support main ideas Meanwhile, some students could think of many ideas, but they had difficulties selecting ideas to write Another problem was that students did not spend time building up ideas Many students began their writing after they thought of just one idea Thus, pedagogical solutions to the problems needed to be found

In fact, the ways students generated ideas for writing could be affected by idea generating activities in class Therefore, it was necessary to investigate the effectiveness of these activities under students’ perceptions

How do the students perceive the effectiveness of idea-generating activities employed in writing classes?

Some idea-generating activities employed in writing classes included mind- mapping, brainstorming, listing and outlining The teacher used to participate in generating ideas with the whole class The ideas generated in such brainstorming sessions were mind-mapped or listed on the board or in the screen

Under students’ perceptions, teacher brainstorming with the whole class had some advantages and disadvantages

The good points were students understand the topic and had ideas from the brainstorming sessions Some typical comments are like the following:

“I understand more about the topic and I can learn from ideas suggested.”

“I sometimes lack ideas so I can have more ideas from the teacher and other classmates.” (Van Anh)

However, several disadvantages were realized through students’ opinions Firstly, such brainstorming did not include all students in the class to participate:

“I see that some students speak out their ideas and many other students keep silent.” (Thu Nhung)

“It can make some students too lazy to generate ideas” (Trang)

Because many students did not contribute ideas, brainstorming with the whole class could reduce the total number of ideas generated Moreover, individual contribution was limited due to individual’s laziness In this case, free riding could lead to productivity loss in group idea generation This is one of the three factors affecting the productivity of group brainstorming examined by Mullen et all (1991)

Therefore, to improve this condition, it was important that every individual in the class need to work

The second disadvantage was students might be distracted from thinking of their own ideas:

“There was a time when I was about to say my ideas, I heard other person say the same idea with mine Then, some other ideas came from other people and the teacher Therefore, I could not think of any more ideas, but I thought the ideas the class had were sufficient.” (Hong Nhung)

“It may stop students to think of their own ideas.” (Yen)

When the whole class brainstormed together, some students (like Hong Nhung) did not have chances to contribute ideas because they did not have turn to speak out their ideas In this case, students suffered from production blocking, which refers to opportunities for group members to raise their ideas Production blocking is one of the three factors that lead to productivity loss in group brainstorming studied by Diehl and Stroebe (1991) To improve this, every student needed to have chances to contribute their ideas

The third drawback of group brainstorming with the whole class was that it made students more dependent on teacher’s ideas:

“The ideas are good but students are influenced by the provided ideas

Sometimes, I find it difficult to support the ideas because the ideas are not mine” (Thu Nhung)

“I think that I and many other students may depend on the suggested ideas”

To sum up, the investigation revealed that the teacher’s participation in class brainstorming could contribute ideas for students to write Nevertheless, while students lacked idea generation skills, the teacher’s help did not improve the skills of idea generating or planning for students Therefore, changes needed to be made to idea-generating activities in writing class Based on results of the investigation, training procedures on idea generation skills were studied and applied in the class

The effectiveness of training was investigated and reported in the next stage of the research.

Stage 2

How does group brainstorming influence the quantity and quality of ideas in students’ writing papers?

3.2.1.1 Paragraph writing Quantity of ideas

Performance in terms of number of ideas was measured by counting the number of main ideas and supporting ideas in each student’s writing paper There were two sets of students’ writing papers: pre-intervention writing papers when students wrote a paragraph about “How to stay healthy” and post-intervention ones when students wrote about “Possible reasons for the break-up of a love” after being trained with group brainstorming activities The Mean (M) was accounted to compare the average number of ideas in the two writing papers The High shows the highest number of ideas and the Low shows the lowest number of ideas in students’ writing papers The results are showed in the charts below:

Figure 4.1: Average number of total ideas, main ideas and supporting ideas in students’ paragraph writing papers

Total ideas Main ideas Supporting ideas

Total ideas Main ideas Supporting ideas

Figure 4.2: The highest number of ideas (High) in students’ paragraph writing papers

Total ideas Main ideas Supporting ideas

Figure 4.3: The lowest number of ideas (Low) in students’ paragraph writing papers

It is seen from the charts that there is a significant improvement in the number of ideas in post-intervention writing papers

The average numbers of main ideas converge in both papers (M=3) which means that on average students write three main ideas for the topic However, in the first topic, there is difference in number of main ideas among students while in the second topic there is no difference Concerning the first writing papers, some students (six students) produce four main ideas while others (seven students) just have two (High = 4, Low = 2) In the second topic, all students write three main ideas for the topic Though there are a lot of ideas generated and written in the group brainstorming notes, students select just some of them for writing

In terms of supporting ideas, students in the class produce more ideas (approximately four times) in the second topic than the first one, with M2= 5.5 versus M1 = 1.4 The difference between number of ideas among each student is not so remarkable However, it is worth noting that in the first topic, some students (four students) do not write any supporting ideas (Low = 0) but in the second one, students write at least three ideas (Low = 3) These figures of supporting ideas show that students could make a progress in developing details for the writing topic

In general, after training and working in group, students improved their performance in terms of number of ideas in their writing papers (M1 = 4.4 vs M2 8.5)

However, the two writing topics are different (the first is “how to stay healthy” and the second is “possible reasons for the break-up of a love”), so the better performance in number of ideas in writing papers is not sufficient to show that group brainstorming activities are effective on improving number of ideas The reason is that idea generating capacity of each person may vary on different topics

For example, the second topic might be more interesting to the students, and they could generate more ideas to write If a single topic was used for two times of writing, the capacity of generating ideas would also vary on different times

Therefore, students’ comments in their journals and post-interviews were analyzed to check the influences of group brainstorming activities on number of ideas in paragraph writing

Interestingly, students commented that working in group brought more ideas:

“I can share my ideas and other members in the group also share their ideas, which helps us to have much more ideas than working individually” (Tung Anh – Journal)

“When working alone, the number of ideas will be limited; while working in group, there will be a lot of ideas for a topic When brainstorming on a topic together, all members in my group have chances to contribute ideas These ideas may be the same or different, and the group have more ideas” (Ninh – Journal)

“All members work together to develop ideas for the writing” (Tinh – Interview)

“All members in my group are eager to contribute ideas, so we have lots of ideas” (Ly – Interview)

As seen above, students explained why working in group helped them to have a lot of ideas Tung Anh and Ninh stated that group brainstorming provided opportunities for each member to share ideas and contribute ideas to the group In addition, Ly was proud of the enthusiastic attitude of her group members to contribute ideas

Moreover, according to Tinh, group members not only shared ideas, but also generated more ideas together Therefore, those examples support that group brainstorming can increase the number of ideas generated

More important than the increasing total number of ideas generated in a group, individuals benefited from working in group in terms of building more ideas for themselves:

“I can have more ideas from ideas of others in the group Sometimes, the ideas of other people help me to think of other ideas.” (Trang – Journal)

“When brainstorming together, I can share my ideas and listen to ideas of other members in my group, which is very good to develop ideas for my writing.”

“When brainstorming in group I have opportunities to share my ideas with my peers It helps me to learn ideas from other people Therefore, group brainstorming helps me to write more easily because I have time to develop ideas before writing.” (Hue – Journal)

“I can share my ideas with other group members and if my ideas are not clear enough for the topic, my peers can help to clarify Such group work makes me write better with more ideas and vocabulary” (Hanh – Journal)

Students like Trang and Nhung reported that they could learn new ideas from other ideas in their group During the process, some ideas of other members suggested other ideas to Trang Similarly, Hanh noted that her ideas were improved by other group members and then she had more ideas and vocabulary to write Hue explained in details that peer preparation of idea helped her write more easily It can be seen that when the students paid attention to fellow members’ ideas, they were able to use the ideas as basis to think of other ideas In these cases, collaborative work created condition for students to generate more ideas Attention was accordingly one of the factors that might lead to successful collaborative work (Brown & Paulus, 2002) Therefore, through what students pointed out in journals and interviews, group brainstorming was advantageous for students at the pre- writing stage

More analysis of audio recordings of group brainstorming and observations showed that students in each group cooperated to share and develop ideas This working condition also played an important role in increasing the number of ideas

“Students participate well in the activity to generate ideas together though some students seem to be more enthusiastic and talkative than others They may speak out the ideas in Vietnamese and discuss in Vietnamese, but some students look up for words in dictionary on their mobiles” (My colleague – Observation notes)

According to my colleague’s observation, generally, the students participated actively to brainstorm on the writing topic The fact that some students are more enthusiastic and talkative than others is the nature of any class where there are students of different personalities However, this would be a matter if those more talkative students distracted idea generation of other members in a group This effect was examined in students’ journals and interviews Surprisingly, there was no feedback on being distracted when generating ideas in group

With the rule “write ideas in English, but could use Vietnamese if necessary”, students were free to generate and wrote down as many ideas as possible This was also the reason why my colleague noted that some students spoke out ideas in Vietnamese and discussed in Vietnamese In fact, students in a group told each other to write in Vietnamese:

“…uhm how to say “vì người kia thay đổi” – I don’t know, just write the idea down first” (Recording – group 3)

“who knows “không hợp/ ở xa” in English? – May be “not suitable/ far”, just write both Vietnamese and English and check later” (Recording – group 1)

Conclusion

This chapter provides a vivid picture of results of an action study on group idea generation for writing at intermediate level First, students’ ways of generating ideas for writing and their perception of the effectiveness of idea-generating activities were revealed through interviews Next, the analysis of multiple sources of data of students’ writing papers, students’ journals, audio recording, observations, and interviews brought comprehensive views on the effectiveness of collaborative brainstorming

Before the intervention, most students generated ideas for writing mainly based on teacher’s suggestion Besides, students sought help with ideas from their peers, and looked up words in dictionary for English expressions It could be seen that many students lacked ideas for writing while some generated many ideas but had problems planning ideas to write In general, before intervention, students lacked idea generation skills at the prewriting stage This problem could partly result from idea-generating activities employed in class when the teacher brainstormed with the whole class By doing this, the teacher could help students with ideas for writing

However, that type of brainstorming did not include all individuals to participate, limited individual opportunities for idea contribution, and made students depend on the teacher Therefore, such brainstorming made the learners become passive and hindered their autonomy

After the exploration, training procedures of collaborative brainstorming were studied and applied into the class at two genres of writing: article and letter writing practice The results revealed that training significantly improved quantity and quality of ideas in paragraph writing but the training effects were not so significant in letter writing In addition, group brainstorming had a number of other effects on learning including revising vocabulary and grammar, enhancing thinking skills and teamwork skills, creating relaxing learning and motivating students in writing lessons Importantly, group idea selection for writing would be considered for further research Students’ expectation of collaborative writing after collaborative group brainstorming might also recommend further studies

The present study explored how intermediate students in my class generated ideas for writing and how they perceived idea-generating activities organized in class

Based on the results of the investigation, training procedures on collaborative brainstorming were developed and implemented in two writing genres The effectiveness of collaborative brainstorming was evaluated through data from interviews, students’ writing papers, students’ journals and observations The study employed method of action research with qualitative data analysis in the field of applied linguistics

As the final part of the research paper, this chapter first synthesizes the major findings of the research with reference to the research questions and in light of literature It then discusses methodological, theoretical and pedagogical contributions of the study Last, limitations of the study are mentioned, followed by suggestions for further research.

Synthesis of major findings of the study

The first part of the study investigated students’ ways of generating ideas for writing and their perceptions on the effectiveness of idea-generating activities at the pre-writing stage in the class Nine students representing three groups of strong, average and weak students were involved in semi-structured interviews The interviews revealed significant results Most students used suggested ideas in the whole class brainstorming with the teacher to write because they trusted the teacher’ suggestions and/or considered the ideas available valuable sources for writing

Many students sought peer assistance when they needed ideas while many others did not spend time generating ideas before writing Some problems were recognized: students lacked ideas for writing and students lacked idea planning skills Meanwhile, idea-generating activities in class, though helping students to have ideas, yielded some notable drawbacks The teacher generating ideas with the whole class did not involve all students’ participation, made students dependent on teacher, and distracted students from generating their own ideas Several students suggested that they should discuss in group before discussing with the whole class

Results of the investigation were deeply pondered Then, training procedures on group brainstorming were developed and applied in two writing genres: paragraph and letter writing Training had worth noting effects on quantity and quality of ideas in students’ writing papers, and students’ learning writing skills

Training with group brainstorming activities could increase both quantity and quality of ideas in paragraph writing papers All students could write sufficient main ideas for a paragraph about the writing topic Supporting ideas saw more significant increase with more details in all writing papers The improvements in quantity of ideas associated with quality of ideas The main ideas were clearer and identified more easily In addition, ideas were better organized and more supported compared with those in the pre-intervention writing papers In other words, the cohesion and coherence of students’ writing were improved

In contrast with paragraph writing, after training, the differences in the quantity and quality of ideas in letter writing papers were not significant Students were still influenced by the form of application letter with some typical expressions in this type of letter

Besides the influences on quantity and quality of ideas in the writing papers, collaborative brainstorming had significant effects on learning The most important one was that students had chances to revise vocabulary, expressions and grammar structures before writing With group brainstorming activities, students were more motivated in learning and more focused on the lessons Group brainstorming could create relaxing learning, thus engaged students more in learning writing skills

Group brainstorming also improved thinking skills, team work skills and interpersonal skills among classmates The effectiveness of group brainstorming is consistent with the advantages of group work for students (Nation, 1989; Blatchford et al, 2003; Gillies, 2003; Dooly, 2008)

The present study reinforces the findings of previous studies Training can increase quantity of ideas and the order of brainstorming sessions solitary to group brainstorming is effective (Baruah & Paulus, 2008) In addition, additional rules contribute to improving the number of ideas generated in group (Putman & Paulus,

2009) Students also benefit from paying attention of other’s ideas during brainstorming process, increasing overall productivity of the group (Brown &

Paulus, 2002) Regarding learners’ perspectives, students find group brainstorming useful and effective in preparing them to write, and they could achieve higher results in writing tasks (Rao, 2007; Christmas, 2008) Furthermore, brainstorming could enhance learning motivation and improve learning performance as well as other soft skills for students (Blatchford et al, 2003; Gillies, 2003; Dooly, 2008;

The research also marks some significant findings about the effectiveness of collaborative brainstorming The most important one is that training can increase quality of ideas in students’ writing paper To be specific, in paragraph writing, intermediate students can improve cohesion and coherence Next, training students with group brainstorming can enhance quantity and quality of ideas in just some specific writing task type In the study, group brainstorming had worth noting effects on paragraph writing, but not on letter writing Besides, with the rules in the collaborative brainstorming procedures, free riding and performance matching could be reduced, as group members encourage each other to take part in discussion Other factors like evaluation apprehension and blocking were not mentioned as problems in group brainstorming Last, teacher’s changed instructions to the lesson plan may contribute to better students’ learning performance These findings may be important for further researchers to consider.

Contributions of the study

The present study has helped me understand practical connection between research and teaching Furthermore, in doing pedagogical action research, it is especially emerged from this study that students’ perspectives are of central importance It is implied that when problems arise, teachers should not only rely on their observations and possible comments from other fellows to blame students Teachers need to include their own students’ ideas to find out pedagogical solutions for the class

It is also indicated from the research that triangulation of multiple sources of data is essential In the research, students’ writing papers are not sufficient to conclude the effectiveness of group brainstorming on the quantity and quality of ideas The students’ journals are valuable sources to investigate student’s perceptions on the group brainstorming activities; and the post-intervention interviews with the students help to check the consistency and reliability of students’ views Especially, the involvement of a critical colleague is necessary in action research In my study, the critical colleague helped me to take note the lessons and then give feedback on the lessons More importantly, she pointed out some changes to the original lesson plan that contributed to the effectiveness of group brainstorming From that, group idea selection for writing was raised for further studies

The study explores the effectiveness of collaborative brainstorming procedures as pre-writing activities in application into my specific teaching context, teaching writing to an intermediate English class It contributes a model of idea generation for writing which could be implemented in similar situations Thus, it helps foster collaborative brainstorming in the field of English language teaching

The research brings a training module of group brainstorming, an activity at pre- writing stage and indicates some pedagogical lessons for teachers Although it is for my practice in my class, it is believed to be a useful reference material for my colleagues in particular, and for EFL intermediate teachers in general As the training procedures are built carefully with explanation and details to carry out, teachers in similar situations will be able to treat it as a way of boosting their practice Also, through this research, it is implied that teachers should be more aware of their role in class to take students’ perspectives and responses into classroom actions

Despite the researcher’s effort, the study still has some short-comings because of time limitation and other unexpected factors

First, the number of participants is quite small in comparison with the whole number of intermediate students at the university In fact, since action research is carried out in a class, the number of student participants is limited Maybe because of this reason, the rates or percentages of students counted in the feedback on the effectiveness of group brainstorming need to be interpreted as statistics in a class with twenty students In other words, the results should be understood with caution to avoid overgeneralization

Second, because of time limitation, group brainstorming procedures were implemented in two writing genres at this level (paragraph writing and letter writing) Thus, the results should not represent all writing task types at intermediate level If other writing types of the course like story writing, film review were involved in the research, the effectiveness of collaborative brainstorming would be more comprehensive with all specific types

Third, some limitations are seen in data collection process The investigation was conducted with interviews with nine students Although the nine students interviewed in the investigation were chosen as typical for the class, the results should be treated as of a representative sample for the class as a whole because perceptions vary on individuals In addition, audio recording but not video recording was used to capture the data Audios could record voices of group members through which students’ actions were interpreted However, it might be difficult to recognize specific individuals through the voices of students If cameras could be used, students’ performance, manner and behaviors would be recorded, enriching the data sources

Since the present study involves two writing types at intermediate level, it lays the foundation for similar studies on application of collaborative brainstorming for other writing genres at this level and even other levels to engage influences of group brainstorming on more different writing types

Additionally, as being raised from the process of conducting the research and with the feedback of the critical colleague, studies on group idea selection after group brainstorming are recommended Students’ expectation of collaborative writing should be also taken into consideration As students’ responses should be important in action research, they may lay avenue for research on collaborative brainstorming followed by collaborative writing

Last, as the present study focuses on collaborative brainstorming but not individual brainstorming, further research on comparing two types of brainstorming in language skill practice may be encouraged The research can be conducted with different writing task types to investigate the effective one for each task type and suitable learner characteristics for each task type

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APPENDIXES APPENDIX 1 Stage 1: Pre-intervention interviews with students The Vietnamese version

Cô dự định thực hiện một đề tài nghiên cứu về việc chuẩn bị ý tưởng trước khi viết bài cho đối tượng sinh viên trình độ trung cấp như lớp mình

Cô có một vài câu hỏi về việc chuẩn bị ý tưởng, mong em có thể hợp tác trả lời để giúp cô hoàn thành nghiên cứu này

1 Quan điểm của em về việc chuẩn bị ý tưởng để viết bài là như thế nào?

2 Em thường làm thế nào để có ý tưởng cho bài viết?

3 Em có gặp khó khăn gì khi chuẩn bị ý tưởng để viết bài không?

4 Các hoạt động khơi gợi ý tưởng trên lớp có hiệu quả như thế nào với em?

Những hoạt động đó giúp em chuẩn bị ý tưởng để viết bài như thế nào?

5 Giáo viên có thể làm gì để giúp em chuẩn bị ý tưởng cho bài viết tốt hơn?

Xin chân thành cảm ơn sự hợp tác của em!

The English version Good morning,

I am conducting a research on idea preparation before writing in intermediate English class like our class

I would like to ask you some questions like the following:

1 How do you perceive idea preparation for writing?

2 How do you generate ideas for your writing?

3 Do you encounter any difficulties in idea preparation?

4 How effective are idea-generating activities in class to you?

How do they help you prepare ideas to write?

5 What can teachers do to help you improve your idea preparation for writing?

Thank you very much for your cooperation!

3 Brainstorming for the test Comments

APPENDIX 2B GROUP BRAINSTORMING TRAINING PROCEDURE 1 Training schedule – Paragraph writing lessons

Group brainstorming practice 1 Step 1: Solitary brainstorming Step 2: Group brainstorming

Step 1: Solitary brainstorming Step 2: Group brainstorming

Actual brainstorming for the test 15

Total: 70 minutes Students’ reflection 10 minutes (extra time)

1 Group setting Students work in groups of four: two students sit at one desk facing other two students A group is mixed with strong students, average students and even weak students

Session 1: Group brainstorming practice 1 The sequence is solitary brainstorming to group brainstorming

The students will be told that both individual and group performance will be assessed

The topic is “What can you use a red hard A4 piece of paper for?” Teacher raises the piece of paper up so that all students can see it

Students are asked to brainstorm all uses of the red paper Each student is provided an A4 piece of paper to write the ideas on

The following rules are instructed to the students:

- work individually, no discussing with other people

- use simple words or phrases, not necessarily complete sentences

- not to worry about grammar or spelling

- should write in English, but could use Vietnamese if necessary

- write as many ideas as possible Step 2: Group brainstorming

After 5-8 minutes, students are asked to exchange and discuss ideas with members in their group Each group will be provided A4 pieces of paper to write ideas of the whole group

Students are instructed the following rules in the brainstorming process:

- feel free to offer any ideas

- generate as many ideas as possible

- do not criticize any ideas of others

- can combine and improve previous ideas

- stay focused on the task: do not tell stories

- keep the brainstorming going: when no one is talking, a group member says

“Let’s see what other ideas we can come up with (using the red paper)”

- return to previous categories: when the group has some ideas but no one is talking, one group member says “ Does anyone have more ideas related to (restate an idea already suggested)?”

- give chances for every group member to express their ideas

- with ideas you find strange (or unique), you may ask others to clarify

- use simple words or phrases, not necessarily complete sentences

- not to worry about grammar or spelling

- use English, but could use Vietnamese if necessary

The rules could be explained in Vietnamese to be well-understood by the students

Following the rules, the students discuss and write ideas in 5-8 minutes Teacher could be the facilitator to enforce the rules

The topic for practice brainstorming this time will be “What are factors to consider when you choose a university to attend?”

The sequence in session 2 will be repeated

Teacher enforces the rules and provides vocabulary support for the students