BRAINSTORMING ACTIVITIES IN WRITING LESSONS

Through the process of teaching, exploring learning, refering to many types of books, apply many different teaching techniques, I bravely choose and write up the experience initiative "

THANH HOA TRAINING AND EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

THIEU HOA UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

I

INTRODUCTION Page

1.1 The reason for choosing the theme 2

1.2 The purpose of study 2

1.3 The object of study 3

1.4 The methodology of research 3

II CONTENT

2.1 Theoretical basis 3

2.2 Real basis before applying this innovation 4

2.3 Problem solving 5 - 16 2.4 Result Analysis 16 - 17 III CONCLUSION AND PETITION

3.1 Conclusion 17

3.2 Petition 17 - 18

Appendix : Model teaching plan (power point).

I INTRODUCTION.

1.1.

The reason for choosing the theme:

We are living in the 21st century – the century of modern civilization andinformation technology Our nation is currently in a development period whosefoundation is knowledge economy and a policy with the focus on education,particularly on innocation of teaching and learning qualities, as a top priority, forthe purpose of training the human resources for the industrialization andmodernization of Vietnam In order to survive and develop to keep up with otherdeveloped countries, we must master the latest achievements

Thus, the curricula in schools today should aim at such practical issues.English as a subject in school curricula was popularized later than othersubjects, but it is the key to the human beings’ treasure of knowledge It can lead

us to the world, cooperate with other nations and help us acquire the bestknowledge available

Currently at high level, English program has been renewed in terms ofcontent, form and methods of teaching The purpose of foreign languageteaching in general and English in particular is not aimed at students in the study

of the language system, but to help them use the system language as acommunication tool, meant to train students communicative competence Thiscommunication capability is represented by two production skills: speaking andwriting skills In the two mentioned skills, the writing skill is considereddifficult for students It requires learners not only to have extensive knowledgeabout the topic you want to write, but also to have vocabularies, master the rules

of grammar and sentence structures to be able to express their ideas

One difficulty students encounter when writing is that they often lack thenecessary ideas to write So we need to help students apply their knowledgeavailable, exchange each other to share the good ideas or knowledge to thearticle which contains full, rich content

To meet actual demand, every teacher needs to find an optimal teachingmethods, matching each real object of each student to achieve good results that

is the problem, the purpose for which each teacher has to concern, to think Through the process of teaching, exploring learning, refering to many types

of books, apply many different teaching techniques, I bravely choose and write

up the experience initiative " Brainstorming activities in writing lessons."

1 2 The purpose of study:

With researching this experience initiative successfully, it will help teachersget the following experiences:

1 Using appropriately and exploiting effectively the teaching writing

techniques

2 Finding out the way to boost the students so that they have motivation to learnwriting skills

3 Accumulating the methods when conducting an effective writing lesson.

1 3 The object of study :

The research topic focuses on designing writing skill lectures for somewriting sections in 10, 11, 12 grades of high school program, mobilizingstudents’ background, developing dynamics for student in writing skills,designing lessons at each stage to be able to apply the appropriate teachingtechniques to the circumstances of each classroom, each object type so that theycan write effectively

The objects of the study are students in10, 11, 12 grades

When researching this topic, I had to perform the following tasks:

- Look at the documentation of teaching and learning English, the teachingtechniques in writing skills

- Remove the faculty, teaching experiment

- Exchange professional knowledge with colleagues, learn from experience

- Inspect and assess the the results of all students in holding knowledge, so thatthere is a reasonably additional adjustment

in real life

In teaching foreign language in general and English in particular, teachingmethod innovation is a matter of great importance Besides mastering thelanguage knowledge, practising listening, speaking, reading well; writing skillplays an important part as well Teaching writing skill is one of the basiccontents and it is really a subtle combination in teaching other language skills

From the above theoretical point, how to apply teaching writing methods tohelp students practise a good English writing (making sure that it is accurate inwriting request, grammar and creation) is very important.

2.2 Real basis before applying this innovation:

High schools have been using new textbooks, students are expected todevelop four skills equally in a textbook and writing skill is the one that learnersneed spend much time practising in order to get a coherent and clear article

To make sure the right and sufficient teaching and learning according to thecurriculumn, and widening to practise the four basic skills, especially writingskill for students, teachers need study, collect and use a variety of practicalforms in accordance with each school’s material facility condition so that it canimprove students’ English standard

English is a quite interesting subject but learnrers are required to be highlylabourious or the knowledge is easily interupted and forgettable On the way tolook for the experience, collecting materials and studying colleagues’experiences, taking part in Thanh Hoa training and education department’sprofessional training courses, I have integrated modern learning methods intothe periods, especially in arid writing lessons During empirical progress, mystudents have gained some relatively encouraging results; the writing classes areless boring; students are more active and better at writing; many students’compositions are highly creative

Advantages and disadvantages at Thieu Hoa high school when thisinnovation is applied:

* Advantages:

- The school managing board always care about and create favourableconditions in terms of material facilities and professional documents forteaching: CD players, overhead projectors

- The local government and other associations inside and outside schools alwayssupport teachers in the their job

- The teachers of English always receive support in the same professional groupand colleagues

- Most pupils in class like learning English and properly prepare books,notebooks and other learning tools

- Almost all pupils’ parents always provide necessary care and good conditionsfor their children’s learning

* Disavdantages:

- The majority of pupils do not know effective writing learning methods Theirparents find it difficult to check or instruct them in their self-study at home,because not all parents know English

- They are not fully aware of the significance of English, and it is a difficultsubject, so some become fed up with it

- They rarely have chances to write in English, and they tend to be afraid when itcomes to writing in English

- Most of them are in difficult situations, so they do not have many referencebooks to improve their vocabularies, structures or phrases, apart from thatprovided in their course books

* Specific investigation:

In the process of teaching, with the sense of both researching students’learning situation features and carrying out to learn from experience, from thebeginning of the school year, I've driven myself specific plans and methods inorder to actively investigate the students’ learning situation in the classes Idirectly teach The specific survey results are:

Table 1: General information about students participating in the survey:

Class The number

of students

Good Rather

good

Medium

+ While - writing: Teachers have to guide students clearly, briefly specificallyand easily understandable so that students can write the right form of acomposition Students use the prepared information to rewrite by their ownvocabularies They can work individually, in pairs or in groups

+ Post - writing: This is the stage that students complete their compositions.Teachers hve students correct the mistakes themselves before teachers givefeedback

* The implementation solutions :

-

Mind - map method:

In order to help students find out the ideas, I have applied the mind – mapmethod (spider’s web or branch forms):

Spider’s web mind – map

Branch form

Depending on the theme and content of the article, teachers can choosesuitable diagrams For the topic with less main themes and the short auxiliaryparts, the spider’s web mind – map should be used

And for those with more main ideas, auxiliary parts in phrase forms, weshould use the branch forms

Topic

Idea 3 Idea 4

The topic of the mind – map diagram is the composition’s theme From themain theme, teachers will guide students to discuss, exchange to figure out themain ideas by drawing more branches revolving around themes From thosebranches, students continue drawing the small branches indicating thesupportive idea for the main theme.

Example 1: Unit 13 ( English 11 ) – Writing about a collection

Teachers can use the following diagram for students to brainstorm

Example 2: Unit 1 (English 12) – Writing about family rules

During the students’ discussion to find the main idea for the theme, thestudents’ difficulties is that they will find insufficient ideas or excess necessarygist for the article So to avoid this situation, teachers should give the guiding

Family rules

Your collection

questions and suggest the main ideas before asking students to brainstorm to fillthe mind – map For the auxiliary ideas, teachers should let students exchangethemselves, discuss and encourage students to find out as many additive ideasfor each main theme as possible.

Example 1 : - When teaching Unit 13 (English 11) – Writing about a collection.

After giving the mind – map, teachers should bring about a suggested question:

- What should you tell when you describe a collection ?

Students can answer:

- (We should tell about ) the name / how to collect, keep and classify / when and why to collect and the plan for the future.

For the lower level students, teachers can give more specific questions such as:

- What is the name of your collection ?

- How do you collect them ?

- When did you start your collection ?

- How do you classify them ?

- Why do you collect them?

- What is your plan for the future ?

Example 2 : Unit 1 ( English 12 ) – Writing about family rules.

Teacher’s questions:

- What rules do you have in your family ?

or : - What are ( aren’t ) you allowed to do in your family ?

Students’ answers:

- I have ( don’t have ) to …

or : - I am (not ) allowed to ……

For the lower level students, teachers can give more specific questions such as:

- Do you have to do housework ( get up early ….) ?

or : - Are you allowed to use a mobile phone ?

go out late at night ?

smoke / drink wine ? play sports after school ?

……… ?

After this part, students have basically found out the main ideas and drawnthe following diagram:

Name Classify

How to collect

How to collect

Go out with friends

Drink wine / smoke Play sports after school Use the family motorbike

Wash clothes

Go to bed on time

Thus, after brainstorming activities to complete the mind – map, studentshave relatively necessary ideas for the composition Teachers only guidestudents some structures, how to verbalize students’ ideas and disposition, fromthat students can perform their own articles The advantage of this method is that

it can bring into play students’ activeness and creation.Due to the brainstorming,discussion, exchanging the ideas, students will find out more ideas and theircompositions’ contents are not only more sufficient but also various

-

Using table method:

Aside from the mind – map, table method is also very effective to organisethe brainstorming activities in the writing skill period

With this method, teachers have to prepare the table (under the learning noteform) It is dependable on the contents for which teachers design the table suitably Normally, I use the following table:

Example 1: Unit 13 ( English 10 ) – Describing a film.

Describing a film

1 Name of the film

2 Kind of the film

3 What the film is about

4 Where the film is made

5 What it is based on

6 The main character (s)

7 What you know about the character (s)

8 Ending

Teachers fill the information in the MAIN IDEAS column (the gist of thearticle), the CONTENT column is the one that students have to fill theinformation by brainstorming

After delivering the table, teachers ask students to think about and fill themissing information in the table

During the process, students think and exchange the ideas and fill theinformation in the table, taechers should go round to help students because theymay have difficulties in vocabularies

After brainstorming, each group (or individual) will have a table withdifferent information on the same topic Students can write about films likeHarry Potter / Tom and Jerry / Romeo and Juliet Teachers can ask students toswap tables together to share information with each other

Example:

Describing a film

3 What the film is about Tragic love between Romeo and

Juliet

4 Where the film is made Italy

5 What it is based on A true story in Verona City in Italy

6 The main character (s) Romeo, a handsome and gentle boy/

Juliet, a nice girl.

7 What you know about the

character (s)

They fell in love at the first sight / They were not allowed to get married/ Their parents hated each other

8 Ending Unhappy (They killed themselves to

keep their love )

After finishing brainstorming activities, students completed information sheetabout the topic you want to write Next, the teacher guides students structures,how to verbalize and link that information together and then ask students towrite a paragraph or a complete article

The use of table method to organize activities aimed at exploiting knowledgeand understanding (knowledge base) of students on the topic posts Students arefree to write about what they know or they like

Example 2: Unit 4 (English 10) - Special education.

- Native teachers only

- No more than 20 students per

class

- Free books and cassettes tapes

- All air-conditioned rooms

- 5.30 pm – 8.30 pm

- Only one native teachers / All Vietnamese teachers

- About 50 students in class

- Paid 100.000 VND for books and cassettes

- Only one ceiling fan in classroom

- Start late but finish early, teacher arrived late.

* The implementing measures :

- Organizing group activities (Work in groups)

In a class, students’ level of knowledge, thinking can not absolute uniformity.This requires teachers to organize appropriate activities and forms of learning tocreate an interaction between the students Operating group activities during thebrainstorming ones is a really effective measure

Group activity creates the environment for discussing and debating incommunity Each individual’s reviews are revealed, confirmed or rejected,thereby learners can improve to a new level Group activity increases learningefficiency, reduces dependent phenomenon The character and the capacity ofeach member are shown For the method of using diagrams to organize learningactivity, teachers should organize group activities The teacher divides the classinto small groups (4-5 students) and asks the groups to act to complete the mind– map according to the topic

Teachers can also split the theme of the article into subthemes, and divide theclass into groups with the corresponding numbers so that each group canpractise and complete a diagram about a topic of small threads

After brainstorming activity, teachers ask the groups to share the results witheach other and eventually to gather the results of the group for the synthesis ofknowledge about the topic of discussion