Luận văn thạc sĩ a study on brainstorming and its effects on freshmen at tay ha polytechnic college to improve their performance in practicing english skills

Output file VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES    NGUYỄN THỊ LỢI A STUDY ON BRAINSTORMING AND ITS EFFECTS ON FRESH[.]

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES    NGUYỄN THỊ LỢI A STUDY ON BRAINSTORMING AND ITS EFFECTS ON FRESHMEN AT TAY HA POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE TO IMPROVE THEIR PERFORMANCE IN PRACTICING ENGLISH SKILLS (Nghiên cứu hoạt động động não hiệu sinh viên năm thứ trường CĐ Bách Nghệ Tây Hà việc nâng cao hiệu thực hành kỹ tiếng Anh.) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 Hanoi – 2010 z VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULITY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES    NGUYỄN THỊ LỢI A STUDY ON BRAINSTORMING AND ITS EFFECTS ON FRESHMEN AT TAY HA POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE TO IMPROVE THEIR PERFORMANCE IN PRACTICING ENGLISH SKILLS (Nghiên cứu hoạt động động não hiệu sinh viên năm thứ trường CĐ Bách Nghệ Tây Hà việc nâng cao hiệu thực hành kỹ tiếng Anh.) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: ĐINH HẢI YẾN, M.Ed Hanoi – 2010 z iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES viii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Method of the study Design of the study Summary PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW Generating ideas in writing Some typical ways of generating ideas in writing 2.1 Using questions 2.2 Making notes 2.3 Using visuals 2.4 Using role play/ simulation z v 2.5 Brainstorming 2.5.1 Definition 2.5.2 Rules of brainstorming 2.5.3 Popular variations of brainstorming 2.5.3.1 Individual brainstorming 2.5.3.2 Nominal group technique 2.5.3.3 Roundrobin Brainstorming 10 2.5.3.4 Brainwriting 10 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 12 The context of the study 12 Participants 13 The experimental program 13 3.1 Syllabus of writing lessons 13 3.2 Activities 14 3.3 Role of the teacher and the students 15 Data collection instruments 15 4.1 Pre- test and post- test 15 4.2 Pre and post questionnaires 16 4.3 Observation 16 Data collection procedures 16 Methods of data analysis 18 6.1 Data Analysis of Pre- test and Post- test 18 6.2 Analysis of questionnaires 18 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 20 The findings of the study 20 1.1.2 The results of post-tests scores of the two groups 21 z vi 1.1.3 The results of the experimental group‘s writing performance after the experiment 23 1.2 The results of Questionnaires 25 1.2.1 Comparison of students‘ attitudes towards writing before and after the experiment 25 1.2.2 1.3 Comparison of students‘ participation before and after the program 28 Result of Observation Analysis 31 Discussions on the study results 32 2.1 Effects of brainstorming on the students‘ writing proficiency 32 2.2 Effects of brainstorming on students‘ attitude towards writing and their participation in the writing lessons 33 2.3 Students‘ opinions about brainstorming 33 Summary 34 PART C: CONCLUSION 35 Summary of the main findings and conclusion 35 Pedagogical implications 35 2.1 Preparation and experience in brainstorming are essential 35 2.2 Using brainstorming in cooperation with other idea-generating tools 36 2.3 Reinforce both individual and group brainstorming 36 2.4 Process for an effective brainstorming session 36 Limitations and suggestions for further research 39 REFERENCES 40 APPENDIXES I APPENDIX I: PRE-QUESTIONNAIRE I APPENDIX 2: POST-QUESTIONNAIRE III APPENDIX 3: CRITERIA FOR STUDENTS‘ WRITING ASSESSMENT V z vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Df: Degree of freedom T: Obtained value Tcrit: Critical value P value: Probability value P: Alpha level (probability level) z viii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Page Figure 1: Pre-test results of both groups 20 Table 1: Pre-test descriptive statistics 21 Figure 2: Post-test results of both groups 22 Table 2: Post-test descriptive statistics 22 Figure 3: Pre-test and Post-test results of the experimental group 24 Table 3: Pre-test and post-test descriptive statistics of the experimental group 24 Table 4: Students‘ interest in writing skill 26 Table 5: Students‘ opinions of writing in English 27 Table 6: Students‘ preferences for form of activities 28 Table 7: Students‘ participation in writing lessons 29 Table 8: Students‘ opinions about brainstorming 30 z PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale The world is developing rapidly and becomes smaller and smaller thanks to the exchange of culture and economy with English being an important international communicative tool Therefore, in Vietnam, English has become a compulsory subject at schools and colleges At Tay Ha Polytechnic College, a non- English major institution, the Managing Board and English teachers are aware of English‘s importance and try their best to help the students get a good achievement in English skills As a teacher in Tay Ha Polytechnic College, I often receive the complaints from the students, especially the first year students that English is too difficult for them to learn and although they tried their best, their English performance was still poor The reasons lie in students‘ limited background knowledge, poor pronunciation, poor vocabulary and poor use of grammatical structures Most typical of all is students‘ lack of ideas in both oral and written presentation This fact inspired me to investigate the way to help my students whose English efficiency is low overcome difficulties in generating ideas when practicing English skills In this regard, brainstorming is possibly an effective activity which might be used to generate ideas in small groups within a specified period of time That is the reason why I wish to conduct the research on brainstorming and its effects on freshmen at Tay Ha Polytechnic College with a hope to help them improve their performance in practicing English skills Aims of the study This study is primarily targeted at examining the effects of brainstorming on improving the students‘ performance in English skills, especially writing skill, so as to change their attitude to writing as well as to enhance the students‘ participation in English writing classes at Tay Ha Polytechnic College Furthermore, it is expected to give some implications for improvement of the teaching and learning of English skills, particularly writing skill for teachers and students at Tay Ha Polytechnic College z Research questions To achieve the aims which are mentioned above, this study was designed to test the following hypothesis: - H1: Students who take part in the experimental brainstorming activities will make more improvement in writing performance than those who not - H0: There is no difference in writing performance between students who take part in the experimental brainstorming activities and those who not In order to draw the conclusion on which hypothesis would be accepted, the following research questions are raised: 1) How does brainstorming affect the first-year students’ writing skill at Tay Ha Polytechnic College? 2) What are the effects of brainstorming on the students’ attitude towards writing and the participation in in-class writing lessons? 3) What are the students’ opinions about brainstorming? Scope of the study Writing is one of the popular ways for people to communicate with each other Moreover, writing can help our students to learn the language better as it gives them the chances to make use of grammatical structures and vocabulary they have learned Although writing plays such an important role, I realized that my students did not actively take part in the writing lessons and their writing skill is much far from satisfaction Thus, writing seems to be the most challenging skill for most students Due to the constraint of time and the page limit of a minor thesis, in this study I just focus on studying the effects of brainstorming on writing skill of the first year students of Tay Ha Polytechnic College in the second term The syllabus was based on the writing task in course book material ―New Cutting Edge- Elementary‖ by Sarah Cunningham and Peter Moor (2005) Method of the study z The main research method employed in this study to find out the answers to the proposed research questions within the scope of the study is a quasi- experimental design which involves the three basic components of experiments according to Seliger and Shohamy (1989:136): the population (the first year students at Ta Ha Polytechnic College), the treatment (brainstorming) and the measurement of the treatment (t-test) Besides, the pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire were also delivered to the students taking part in the experiment as a complementary tool to obtain their opinion about changes in their attitude towards writing In addition, observation was employed during the teaching time to recognize the difference in participation between the control group and experimental group Design of the study The study is composed of three main parts: Introduction, Development with three chapters, and Conclusion The introduction presents an overview of the study with the rationale for the research, the aims and the research questions of the study It also narrows the scope, presents the research method and outlines the content of the study The development includes three chapters: Chapter presents the literature review that is relevant to the study Chapter describes the research methods used in the study with the necessary components before supplying the information about the procedures of collecting the data in details Chapter displays the findings and discussions from the collected data analysis The Conclusion presents a summary of major findings from which some pedagogical implications were derived It also provides some limitations and suggestions for further study z ... stated that explicit instruction of brainstorming strategy had a measurable influence on writing performance and the students felt positive about the brainstorming strategy Brainstorming was also... simulations have the advantage of stimulating behavior, language and ideas in a context rather than that of the classroom For writing, students have a rich z source of ideas to draw up, and since... College? 2) What are the effects of brainstorming on the students’ attitude towards writing and the participation in in-class writing lessons? 3) What are the students’ opinions about brainstorming?