A study on brainstorming and its effects on freshmen at Tay Ha Polytechnic College to improve their performance in practicing English skills

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 PRACTIC

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 về hoạt động động não và hiệu quả của nó đối với sinh viên năm thứ nhất trường CĐ Bách Nghệ Tây Hà trong việc nâng cao hiệu quả thực hành các kỹ năng

tiếng Anh.)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Methodology

Code: 601410

Hanoi – 2010

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 về hoạt động động não và hiệu quả của nó đối với sinh viên năm thứ nhất trường CĐ Bách Nghệ Tây Hà trong việc nâng cao hiệu quả thực hành các kỹ năng

tiếng Anh.)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Methodology

Code: 601410 Supervisor: ĐINH HẢI YẾN, M.Ed

Hanoi – 2010

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

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Method of the study 2

6 Design of the study 3

7 Summary 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1 Generating ideas in writing 5

2 Some typical ways of generating ideas in writing 5

2.1 Using questions 5

2.2 Making notes 6

2.3 Using visuals 6

2.4 Using role play/ simulation 6

2.5 Brainstorming 7

2.5.1 Definition 7

2.5.2 Rules of brainstorming 8

2.5.3 Popular variations of brainstorming 9

2.5.3.1 Individual brainstorming 9

2.5.3.2 Nominal group technique 9

2.5.3.3 Roundrobin Brainstorming 10

2.5.3.4 Brainwriting 10

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 12

1 The context of the study 12

2 Participants 13

3 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

4 Data collection instruments 15

4.1 Pre- test and post- test 15

4.2 Pre and post questionnaires 16

4.3 Observation 16

5 Data collection procedures 16

6 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

1 The findings of the study 20

1.1.2 The results of post-tests scores of the two groups 21

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 Comparison of students‘ participation before and after the program 28

1.3 Result of Observation Analysis 31

2 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

3 Summary 34

PART C: CONCLUSION 35

1 Summary of the main findings and conclusion 35

2 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

3 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

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Df: Degree of freedom

T: Obtained value

Tcrit: Critical value

P value: Probability value

P: Alpha level (probability level)

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

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 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

2 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

3) What are the students’ opinions about brainstorming?

4 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)

5 Method of the study

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

6 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 1 presents the literature review that is relevant to the study

Chapter 2 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 3 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

7 Summary

The first part has given an overview of study including the rationale, the aims as well

as the research hypothesis and questions of the study Besides, the research method employed and the design of the study have been presented In chapter 1 of the next part, a theoretical framework for the study will be discussed

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Generating ideas in writing

Since writing is primarily about organizing information and communicating meaning, generating ideas is clearly a crucial part of the writing process Because actually getting started is one of the most difficult steps in writing, idea- generating is particularly important as an initiating process (White & Arndt, 1991)

To assist in generating ideas, at this initial stage, there are two main kinds of discovery techniques: ‗guided‘ and ‗unguided‘ Guided techniques are those in which a range of prompts - usually questions - is provided to enable writers to discover ideas The answers which the writer produces are determined by the prompts Unguided techniques are those in which writers do not rely on external prompts, but generate ideas themselves

2 Some typical ways of generating ideas in writing

A part from brainstorming, White & Arndt (1991) suggested some ways of generating ideas as follows:

2.1 Using questions

Questions are an important prompt for writers This technique stimulates creativity and promotes everyone's participation because no one has to come up with answers The answers to the questions form the framework for constructing future action plans Once the list of questions is set, it may be necessary to prioritize them to reach to the best solution in an orderly way Indeed, one of the skills of a good writer is to think of interesting questions to ask because these yield interesting answers This technique is probably used in pair work or group work

As with brainstorming, a topic can be given to writers who then use a series of questions to stimulate thinking, to draw on their experience and to develop and shape their ideas It is important to realize that the aim is not to stifle creativity and individualism but

to promote both

2.2 Making notes

Making notes is rather like brainstorming on paper with headings which are designated (either by the students or the teacher) to provide a basis for organizing ideas when drafting Note making may be structured or unstructured In structured note-making, the teacher or the students themselves nominate headings or categories, and then supply information under each heading Unstructured note making is more open-ended approach

in which students are called on to write down any ideas that come to mind on the topic concerned, without attempting at this stage to organize them Some familiar note making schemes are spider-gram, mind-mapping or network

2.3 Using visuals

Using visuals is an enormously ―fruitful‖ way for idea and vocabulary generation and a wide range of visually-based material can be used in the teaching of writing Visual material can be classified into such types as representational material (photographs, pictures), realia (physical objects) and symbolic material (charts, diagram, and maps) Each type of visual has its own particular characteristics appropriate to different kinds of use In general, the more detailed and explicit the material, the less room for the writers to use their imagination Material which is vague, ambiguous and open to numerous interpretations provides writers to exercise their creativity, and is specially useful for stimulating divergent and original writing within a group

2.4 Using role play/ simulation

Role play and simulations are widely used techniques in which students assume roles within a context In role play, students use their own experience and creativity to imitate a real life situation Students act out what they would say or do in a given situation The acting can last from 5 to 10 minutes Other students watch and listen carefully After the role play, they discuss the performance When done well, role play increases students‘ confidence, gives them the opportunity to understand or feel empathy for other people‘s view points or roles, and usually encourages them to come up with practical answers, solutions or guidelines on various issues

Role play and 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

source of ideas to draw up, and since more than one person is involved, there are different viewpoints which can be exploited in a subsequent writing task Also, role play and simulations can be used as stimuli for many different types of writing (White & Arndt 1991: 42-43)

2.5 Brainstorming

2.5.1 Definition

In the book Total Quality Management (2003:119), Poornima M Charantimath quoted

the Alex Osborn‘s definition of brainstorming that it is "a conference technique by which a group attempts to find a solution for a specific problem by amassing all the ideas spontaneously by its members" In 1953, brainstorming was popularized by Osborn in a

book called Applied Imagination It is probably one of the most well-known tools of

creative problem solving and has a wide range of applications (Fernald & Nickolenko, 1993; Lecelef, 1994; Stein, 1975, cited in Isaksen, S.G (1998)) Since 1930, it has been used successfully in business for invention and innovation (VanGundy, 1981) In the language classroom, brainstorming is often used in teaching writing Activities such as free-association and word-mapping are often included as part of the pre-writing or warm-

up phase (Richards, 1990:112, cited in Brian Cullen (1998)) Rodriques and Raymond in

―Tools for Developing Prewriting Skills,‖ The English Journal 72, No 2 (February 1983: 58-60) asserts that prewriting activities, including group brainstorming, are the most important part of the writing process

White & Arndt (1991: 18) also assert that brainstorming is a widely used and effective way of getting ideas flowing These ideas may be ideas for actual content, or ideas for organizing the content Carried out individually, or better still, among a group of people, brainstorming involves thinking quickly and without inhibition so as to produce as many ideas as possible in a given area or on a given topic or problem It is an especially fertile means of generating ideas, including unique or unorthodox ones, which can ultimately lead to an interesting piece of writing Brainstorming can be used to choose a topic, identify a reason or purpose of writing, find an appropriate form in which to write, develop

a topic, work out a plot, or develop the organization of ideas

Some studies were supportive of brainstorming Meadow and Parnes (1959) compared trained subjects working in real groups using brainstorming to an alternative group approach calling for critical evaluation Significantly more high-quality solutions were produced in the brainstorming condition A number of other scholars have confirmed these results (Gerlach, Schutz, Baker, & Mazer, 1964; Parloff & Handlon, 1964; Price, 1985; Weisskopf-Joelson & Eliseo, 1961) Recently, Zhenhui Rao (2007) in the study of

―Training in brainstorming and developing writing skills‖ 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 proved by Brian Cullen (1998) to be a very useful activity that can be easily introduced into language classes where it helps our students to become better learners

2.5.2 Rules of brainstorming

According to Osborn (1957), brainstorming is an intervention in which individuals, groups, and organizations adhere to a set of four rules while working in sessions designated to generate ideas The rules are:

a) Banish criticism Negative comments can have an inhibiting effect on an otherwise fruitful brainstorming session Criticism can be offered at the end of a brainstorming session if necessary

b) Quantity is wanted Participants in a brainstorming session should aim to produce

as many ideas as possible The more ideas participants have, the better the chances they will have good ideas

c) Freewheeling is welcomed— because it is easier to tame down ideas, participants are encouraged to share their wild ideas

d) Combination and improvement are sought Participants in the brainstorming session can borrow and expand on others‘ ideas This is known as piggybacking or hitchhiking It suggests that may good ideas can be found by building on or combining previous ideas

Osborn (1957) believed that working in groups is more effective than working individually when using these rules The participants given brainstorming rules generate

more ideas than participants not given the rules (Parnes & Meadow, 1959) Theoretically, group brainstorming should be advantageous because it allows members to share ideas (Paulus, 2000) The larger the group, the more domains related to the problem should be accessed Furthermore, each member will have a unique cognitive architecture and will synthesize ideas differently (Stasson & Bradshaw, 1995)

2.5.3 Popular variations of brainstorming

There are numerous variations of brainstorming that can be effective under varied circumstances However, in this study I would like to mention four variations of brainstorming which are highly popular and suitable for language learning

2.5.3.1 Individual brainstorming

Individual brainstorming is the use of brainstorming on a solitary basis It typically includes such techniques as free writing, free speaking, word association, and drawing a mind map, which is a visual note taking technique in which people diagram their thoughts (Ravindar Tomar, 2009:85-86) Individual brainstorming is a useful method in creative writing and has been shown to be superior to traditional group brainstorming (Furnham,

In addition to providing personal freedom, individual brainstorming also forces the brainstormers to dig into the brainstorming process When an individual brainstorms with

a group of people, he or she may be inclined to allow others to lead the process When individual brainstorming is being conducted, there is no one else to rely on, which motivates the brainstormers to generate ideas and concepts on their own

2.5.3.2 Nominal group technique

The nominal group technique is a structured method for group brainstorming that encourages contributions from everyone (Nancy R Tague, 2004:364) It is also used to generate a lot of ideas to assure that all members participate freely without influence from other participants, identify priorities or select a few alternatives for further examination Participants are asked to write their ideas anonymously Then the moderator collects the ideas and each is voted on by the group This process is called distillation After distillation, the top ranked ideas may be sent back to the group or to subgroups for further

brainstorming According to Ravindar Tomar in the book Commercial Operations Management: Process and Technology to Support Commercial Activities (2009:85), it is

important that the facilitator be trained in this process before attempting to facilitate this technique The group should be primed and encouraged to embrace the process Like all team efforts, it may take a few practice sessions to train the team in the method before tackling the important ideas

2.5.3.3 Roundrobin Brainstorming

Roundrobin brainstorming is a structured form of brainstorming According to Bruce

Barkley in his book Integrated Project Management (2006:155), during the roundrobin

brainstorming, each participant in turn launches one idea as it relates to the purpose of the discussion Every idea is recorded on flip chart or board When a group participant has nothing to contribute, he or she can says ―pass‖ The next time around, this person may offer an idea if he or she wishes or passes again Ideas are solicited until no one has anything to add or a fixed period of time has clasped This is an ideal technique in providing every participant, including those less expressive, with an equal chance to contribute It greatly slows down the more dominant individuals

2.5.3.4 Brainwriting

Brainwriting is a nonverbal form of brainstorming and is used when ideas are needed

on controversial or emotionally charged topics (L David Weller, 2004: 435-436) Also known as the ―group passing technique‖, brainwriting is an approach that stimulates a group of reticent individuals to contribute to the brainstorming process (Donald E Lighter,

2009:54) According to Ravindar Tomar in the book Commercial Operations Management

(2009:85-86), in the ―group passing technique‖ (brainwriting), each person in a circular group writes down one idea, and then passes the piece of paper to the next person in a clockwise direction, who adds some thoughts This continues until everybody gets his or her original piece of paper back or the distribution list is exhausted Advantage of this method is that generation of ideas is not disturbed by group process The paper is anonymous so no one is hindered; ideas can be sketched, and become more detailed and qualified than in brainstorming (Gijsbert Korevaar, 2004: 137)

In summary, this chapter has presented the literature review relevant to the study including theoretical background of generating ideas and brainstorming In the next chapter, the research methods will be described in detail

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

1 The context of the study

The study was conducted at Tay Ha Polytechnic College, a newly founded college which is located at Tan Lap, Dan Phuong, Ha Noi The college trains students of such majors as Accounting, Business Management, Hotel Management and Hospitability, Finance and Banking, Electronics and Telecommunication, and Information Technology Each class has around 50 students

The students of the college come from many different provinces They were accepted to the college through consideration of their national university entrance exam scores However, the entrance quality in general is not very high, especially in English proficiency

In terms of English learning experiences, the students are classified into two categories: The first are those that had never learned English at schools; the second are those that had opportunity to learn English at schools, but just took half-way learning The second category makes up a great proportion, about 90 percent Those belonging to the first category are not many, basically they are pupils in far-flung and remote areas or where there is lack of English teachers or due to policy changes According to the result of English entry test at the beginning of the first term, the level of most students is just beginner Most students show their fear of learning English It means that most of them have very little knowledge of English and restart learning English as beginners of English

Being aware of the importance of English and the need from students, the college arranged a syllabus of English including 300 periods divided into 5 terms In the first three terms, students are taught general English based on the material ―New Cutting Edge‖ by Sarah Cunningham, Peter Moor (2005), Elementary and Pre-intermediate level This is a popular course book that focuses on 4 skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing Grammar is also presented clearly in ―Language Focus‖ of each module The aim of the first three terms is to provide students with a basic knowledge of English that enables them

to continue with English for Special Purposes in the last two terms Besides, the college

also provides adequate teaching tools such as laboratory, cassettes, projector to support teaching and learning

2 Participants

The students taking part in this study were 95 first year students in two accounting- major classes, KTB and KTC whose age range from 18 to 22 The female students outnumber the male students in both classes KTB has 47 students including 8 boys and 39 girls KTC consists of 11 boys and 37 girls I decided to choose these two groups for my study because they had a lot of common features in terms of size, gender, age, English level as well as motivation to learn The students in KTB belonged to the control group and KTC in experimental one

The study was conducted in their second term, school year 2009-2010, after they finished the first term with 7 first modules of the textbook ―New Cutting Edge- Elementary‖ by Sarah Cunningham, Peter Moor At that time, the students in both groups had some first basic knowledge of English and partly familiar to the new learning environment However, their proficiency of English in general is still low Most students still lacked self-confidence in practicing English in class and were inactive in learning English By judging their English result of the first term, the overall English proficiency for four skills of the students was roughly at the beginning of elementary

3 The experimental program

The experimental program was aimed at helping the students generate ideas that contributed to the improvement in their performance in English writing In addition, it was also supposed to motivate the students to learn and stimulate their participation in in-class activities Following is a detailed description of syllabus of writing lessons, activities and roles of teacher and students in the experimental program

3.1 Syllabus of writing lessons

According to the college‘s scheme for English, in the second term, the students learn 8 modules from module 8 to module 15 of ―New Cutting Edge- Elementary‖ by Sarah Cunningham, Peter Moor (2005) in 10 weeks, the first and the last of which are spent on

general revision Each module is planned for 6 teaching periods a week, divided into 2 class meetings Every writing lesson lasts 45 minutes Based on this scheme, the college‘s English Group discuss and agree on the following syllabus for writing lessons:

Week Module Content of writing lesson

2 Module 8: Fact or Fiction? A Dairy

3 Module 9: Buying and selling Describing a place

4 Module 10: Street life Describing people

5 Module 11:The world around you Improve your writing: Punctuation

6 Module 12: A weekend away Writing about a holiday place

7 Module 13: Learning for the future Writing about your future plan

8 Module 14: Keeping in touch Writing a note

9 Module 15: Going places Test

pre-3.3 Role of the teacher and the students

In the experimental program, the researcher, also working as teacher, acted as an instructor who introduced the topics, organized groups, stated the rules and guaranteed that all students understand their tasks Then, she played the role of a facilitator to praise and encourage the students so that they could extend their participation in activities Besides, she also worked as an observer to take notes about the participation and motivation to learn of the students

The students, on the other hand, were much more active in learning both individually and in groups When the students worked in group, group roles may be assigned, rotated,

or shared so they might be in the role of team leader (organize and present), secretary (note down the group members‘ ideas) and supporter (support all members), etc

4 Data collection instruments

4.1 Pre- test and post- test

The pre-test was designed to access the writing abilities of the students in both groups The students in two groups were asked to write a paragraph of 100 - 120 words on the same topic of ―Your reasons to learn English‖ in 30 minutes The pre-test was carried out

in the first week of the second term after students were guided to review the knowledge of the first term No guidance or help was given during the test

The Post-test was conducted after the program to find out how the students in two groups had made improvements in writing The same topic of ―Your reasons to learn English‖ was given to the students to write a paragraph of 100-120 words in 30 minutes The topic and the requirement of the task were the same as the pre-test so that the improvement in students‘ writing could be measured and judged exactly

The scoring criteria (see appendix 3: Criteria for students‘ writing assessment) was designed to evaluate the results of two tests The students‘ performance in content, organization and language was examined Especially in the focus of this program, the students‘ performance in content was paid attention most

4.2 Pre and post questionnaires

Pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire were delivered to 47 students of the experimental group only to find out their changes in the attitude towards writing

The pre-questionnaire was given to the students in the first week of the second term Beside the students‘ general information, the pre-questionnaire contained 10 items related

to their opinions towards writing in English and 5 items concerning their participation in writing lessons The students were instructed and asked to complete the questionnaire in

20 minutes

In the ninth week of the program, the students were delivered the post-questionnaire and were required to complete it in 20 minutes The post- questionnaire was designed in 3 parts, two of which were the same as the pre-questionnaire They were about the students‘ opinions towards writing and their participation in writing lessons Another part added to the questionnaire was to ask the students‘ opinions about brainstorming The post-questionnaire was administered in the same way as the pre- questionnaire

4.3 Observation

Observation was implemented throughout the teaching time because the researcher was also the teacher of the two groups This helped the researcher have more evidence about the motivation and participation of these two groups‘ students in in-class activities Besides, the researcher also observed the students‘ pre-test and post-test performance to access their writing speed

5 Data collection procedures

The data collection was carried out in the second term of the school year 2008-2009 at the two classes, KTB and KTC, of Tay Ha Polytechnic College The procedures are follows:

 Before the experimental treatment

The students in both groups had just finished the first term with 60 periods of English They had gained some basic knowledge of English and partly been familiar to learning and practicing four skills of English In the first week of the second term, the teacher helped students revise generally what they had learned in the first term In the writing lesson, the students of both groups were asked to write a paragraph on the topic of ―your reasons to learn English‖ in their class These writings were served as documents for pre-test because after this test each group would be taught with different methods The pre-test were scored by the teacher- researcher based on the scoring criteria shown in appendix 3 Besides, a pre- questionnaire was administered in the experimental group and collected after 20 minutes

 During the experimental treatment

The teacher – researcher applied different teaching methods in writing lesson for the two groups In the control group, the teacher applied the product-oriented approach with some techniques including expanding an outline or summary provided, supplying models which the learner imitated, made minor changes or substitutions, and constructing paragraphs from given words or by answering a set of question In addition, I applied the process–based approach in which a two-month program using brainstorming in the pre-writing stage was designed and implemented for the students in the experimental group During the teaching time, I always paid attention to the students‘ participation and their interest in in-class activities in both groups I not only observed but also took notes of the participation and interaction taking place between and among the members in both classes

 After the experimental treatment

On week 9, one week before the term ended, all the students in both classes took a test called post- test with the same topic as the pre-test After 30 minutes, the teacher collected the writings The results from the teacher‘s judgments for these writings were compared with the results of the pre- test to investigate the improvement the students made in their writing in general and in terms of content in particular In addition, the post-questionnaire was delivered to the experimental group The teacher then collected the information from

this questionnaire and compared with the result of the pre-questionnaire to find out the change in the students‘ attitude to writing as well as their opinions about brainstorming

6 Methods of data analysis

6.1 Data Analysis of Pre- test and Post- test

The test scores were analyzed and interpreted using the independent t-test and the dependent t-test The independent t-test was employed to make a comparison of writing performance between the two independent samples (the control group and the experimental group) before and after the experiment, meanwhile, the dependent t-test was used for pre-test and post-test comparisons when these tests were taken on the same group

of subjects (experimental group) The descriptive statistics were calculated thanks to the online statistics calculation programs on 3 websites: http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/ttest2.cfm,

http://www.psychstat.missouristate.edu/introbook/sbk00.htm and http://easycalculation.com/statistics/standard-deviation.php An alpha level of 0.05 (p= 0.05) and a critical value of 1.988 (tcrit = 1.989) were used for the two tests

6.2 Analysis of questionnaires

The questionnaire results were collected and analyzed part by part to investigate the effects of brainstorming on the students‘ attitude towards writing, on students‘ participation in writing lessons and to find out the students‘ opinions on brainstorming after the experiment All questionnaire items were calculated in percentage Especially, for the 5- scale items, data were reduced to three categories for clearer presentation: i.e., strongly agree/ agree and strongly disagree/ disagree were combined The results of the pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire filled out by students in the experimental group were compared to find out the increase (+) or decrease (-) in the percentage of students who strongly agreed or agreed to the statements in the post-questionnaire in comparison with those in the pre-questionnaire

7 Summary

This chapter has presented in detail the study‘s methodology including the context, participants and the experimental program Then the methods and procedures of collecting data were also described in detailed The next chapter will present the findings and discussions based on the analysis of data from the tests and questionnaires