The effect of using the Prewriting Strategy -Brainstorming- on the students’ writing. Performance. A case study of second year students of English at the University of Sétif II

Amina Loucif
University of Mohamed Lamine Debaghine. Setif II

Abstract

The current study explores how the prewriting strategy brainstorming is actually used in writing classes of second year students enrolled at the University of Sétif II (Algeria) during the year 2014. It presents the case of eighty-seven (87) participants displaying an average English proficiency level and a limited knowledge about the prewriting strategies. Participants are randomly chosen to answer a questionnaire. The research starts with the premise that teaching writing with the appropriate implementation of the prewriting strategy brainstorming is crucial for developing the writing skills of second year student writers. Theoretical issues about the writing skill in general and the process approach to teaching writing in particular are discussed, in addition to an in-depth analysis of the brainstorming strategy. The researcher collects data using two tools of investigation, questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaires are handed to students; however, teachers answered interview questions. The results reveal that students have a general knowledge about the strategy being investigated, but they have no idea about the different techniques and ways of carrying out brainstorming. The teachers, on their part, gave positive feedback on the use of brainstorming and the positive effects it has on enhancing the students’ writing skill, but very few of them claim that they demonstrate brainstorming regarding all of its aspects. The study concludes by bringing together key findings and some implications, recommendations and suggestions for future research.

Introduction

Writing is one of the most important skills that second language (L2) students need to develop. Besides, the ability to teach writing is central to the expertise of a well-trained language teacher. But while interest in second language writing and approaches to teaching it have increased dramatically over the last decade, teachers are often left to their own resources in the classroom as much of the relevant theory and research fail to reach them. Thus, learning how to write in a second language is one of the most challenging aspects of second language teaching and learning.

The problem with most English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ poor writings is that whenever they are assigned a writing task, they directly rush towards composing without going through any of the writing process phases, i.e. the prewriting strategies.

There are times when students have too much chaos in their brain and need to bring in some conscious order. In this case, brainstorming can force the mental chaos and random thoughts to rain out onto the page, giving them some concrete words or schemas that they can then be arranged according to their logical relations. Brainstorming is part of the planning stage of the writing process and it is practical whether learners have few ideas, or many of them. It can help them whether they do not know how to organize their thoughts, or whether they do not even have any thoughts. The technique of brainstorming depends on the capability of human brain to make associations. For instance, when a learner sees or listens the term “city” the cognitive map of his/her mind associates it with buildings, roads, shopping centres, bridges, etc.

In recent years, researchers in the foreign language‐learning field have shown much interest in the area of learning strategies. However, very little research has looked at the effectiveness of learning strategies such as brainstorming in the teaching of productive skills such as writing. Therefore, Hyland (2003) argued that “all writers need to develop strategies and skills for writing fluently and independently, regardless of their proficiency in English, and these skill-using tasks are often seen as the core of writing instruction.”(p.130). Hence, we notice that Hyland is emphasizing the need to extend strategies and skills that might help students develop their writing abilities and skills through tasks he calls “skill-using”.

According to Harmer (2004), one way of making the task of writing easy is through making a plan. In his book “How to Teach Writing”, he stated “experienced writers plan what they are going to write. Before starting to write or type, they try and decide what it is they are going to say.” Certain writers plan by making detailed notes, some others jotting down ideas can be enough. He explained “still others may not actually write down any preliminary notes at all since they may do all their planning in their heads.” (p. 4).

Furthermore, Rao (2007: 104) found that students who had been trained in brainstorming techniques and used them regularly over a twelve‐month period produced measurably higher results in writing tasks. He also argued that “the brainstorming strategy makes students aware of their intellectual strengths and limitations.” He adds, “By involving everybody in the activity, brainstorming can keep students mentally alert and direct them to realize others’ strong points”. Thus, he claims that “this may push them to learn from each other, overcome their possible weaknesses, and think about how to improve their writing ability in future practice.” (p. 105). In other terms, it is the teacher’s role to drive his students’ attention towards thinking ahead and planning what he/she will include in his/her piece of writing. This can be done by introducing them to the different prewriting strategies such as brainstorming.

The proposed study tries to answer the following research questions:

1. How is brainstorming presented inside the second year writing classroom?

2. Do teachers carry out/ apply the brainstorming strategy the way it should be?

3. Do teachers vary the different types of brainstorming activities inside the writing classroom?

It is hypothesized that the brainstorming strategy is introduced to second year students, but it is not applied appropriately in writing classes. That is to say, the different aspects and variations of the brainstorming strategy are not well treated and second year students are not all well trained in performing the brainstorming strategy.

  1. Methodology

Writing is one of the four macro-skills which needs special attention, especially in foreign language classes because it is considered as the most difficult skill to be acquired or taught. The problem has been observed among second year students of English who are normally expected to master the basic English grammar rules as well as some writing techniques and strategies, which is not the case. The reasons for choosing this topic are based on the following arguments: Though, during the first year the program of writing focuses much more on grammatical issues and an initiation to paragraph writing by an introduction to the different sentence writing mechanics. Then, during the second year of study, students are introduced to the different techniques of paragraph and essay. Throughout the first semester, the writing process is introduced with some prewriting strategies such as brainstorming, freewriting, clustering, etc. but in spite of this fact, students’ writings are still very poor in terms of the quality as well as the quantity of ideas. Hence, second year has been chosen as our area of interest since during this year students come across brainstorming for the first time and are supposed to master all of its aspects.

In the Algerian context, writing in English unlike speaking, listening or even reading is not practiced outside the classroom. What is learned in class stays in class and does not go beyond that, which results in students’ poor writing productions. Students often claim that they lack ideas about the topics they are required to write about, and do not find best ways to generate content. They often forget about the specific steps and techniques which they have to go through before reaching their final product. Thus, investigating this issue stems from a personal interest in the field of teaching motivated by a personal experience in teaching second year writing for one year. It has been noticed that the majority of learners face problems in finding ways to carry out the brainstorming strategy in order to generate ideas and back up their writings. These observations were also made by other colleagues who teach in the same department that is, at the university of Sétif (Algeria). Accordingly, all what is mentioned above, raises our interest in investigating whether teachers do apply and teach the brainstorming strategy appropriately, i.e. respecting its rules and specific guidelines.

The purpose of the present study is: to investigate the role of providing students with prewriting strategies, especially brainstorming and whether the brainstorming rules and types are made known to the students. In other words, the aim of this research is to see whether teachers of writing do apply the brainstorming strategy appropriately.

The choice of the research method is dictated by the nature of the project of research itself. This research project aims at discovering how brainstorming, the prewriting strategy, is really carried out in the writing classroom. Hence, both a students’ questionnaire and an interview with teachers are carried out.

a. Students’ Questionnaire

A questionnaire was administered to second year EFL students, because it is believed that students are the most important element(s) in the Process Approach of writing. Students also provide the information relative to the writing skill and the process of writing. Moreover, they are another way to get to teachers’ practices, that is to say, throughout the student we can have access to the teacher’s actual performances in class.

b. Teachers’ Interview

An interview was made with teachers of second year written expression, in order to find out about how prewriting strategies and more specifically brainstorming is carried inside the writing classroom. Since they are the experts in the field, teachers of writing were of a great help for the guidance of this research as they provided the needed information and more.

c. Population and Sampling

data were collected from teachers of written expression and second year students at the department of English at the University of Sétif. A questionnaire was distributed to a sample of ninety-three (93) students randomly chosen and five (05) of their teachers of writing who attended and answered the interview’s questions.

Data should be collected from at least fifth of the population in study, which is in percentage terms twenty per cent (20%). At the department of English Language and Literature there are seventy five (75) boys and three hundred and ninety-four (394) girls, which is a totality of four hundred and sixty-nine (469) students enrolled during the year of two-thousand and fourteen (2014). The twenty percent (20%) of the total number of students represents ninety three (n= 93).

3. Discussion of Key Findings

3.1. Questionnaire’s Findings

The findings of the questionnaire have shed light on the use of the brainstorming strategy in the writing class of second year students at the department of English at the University of Sétif. The picture painted by the results was somehow predictable. The analysis of this questionnaire highlighted significant results indicating the following: that the writing skill was ranked in the second position after speaking in terms of its difficulty. Also, a big majority of students do have problems with the writing skill and they put the blame on themselves rather than on their teachers. In addition to that, the big majority of students make a plan before starting to write. They also said that they go through brainstorming as it helps them generate ideas and guides their writings, though the majority of them said that they do not have special techniques to carry out that brainstorming and they were not all introduced to the different types of the brainstorming strategy. Finally, a big majority of students think that brainstorming, the prewriting strategy, is a very helpful technique which has many effects on their writings as it qualifies them to collect a lot of ideas, makes the writing task an easy one and helps create a great final performance. Therefore, we may assume that students are conscious about the benefits and big advantages of the brainstorming strategy, but many of them do not know about ways of implementing it. This is why we are going to see their teachers’ responses regarding the same issue.

3.2. Interview Findings

Since the aim of the teachers’ interview was to know more about the actual practice of brainstorming in writing classes and the possible effects that it may have on students’ writing performance. The analysis of the interview highlighted significant results indicating the following: Prewriting strategies are actually used by writing teachers with their students, and the brainstorming technique is one of them. Moreover, teachers claim that the purpose behind using the prewriting strategies is to encourage students to write by removing the block, and giving them the chance to know more about the topic or to retrieve background knowledge about it. Hence, giving them the opportunity to generate as many ideas as possible and get motivated about writing. In addition to that, teachers asserted that they do not impose a given type of strategy on their students, they just help them in choosing one and they have their own ways of doing it. Then, we have found that most teachers of writing encourage their students to use the brainstorming strategy in preparing ideas for their writings. Moreover, the teachers we interviewed find the practice of the prewriting strategy brainstorming very important and a useful step that cannot be skipped, but one teacher thinks that students should be left free to choose the strategy which they feel more comfortable with. Concerning the impact that brainstorming has on students’ writing performance, the teachers we interviewed think that it has a more positive impact than a negative one. They think that there is a noticeable difference between a writing that has been preceded by brainstorming and the one that has not and that brainstorming gives students more confidence to write. By the end, teachers’ opinions and suggestions about brainstorming are very essential as they reveal their attitudes and beliefs about the strategy. Some teachers recommended the practice of brainstorming in writing classes in which students are given the chance to set goals and to think about their audience. Another teacher thinks that if prewriting is given too much time, this is going to be at the cost of other stages. So, she suggests that the best alternative is doing a classroom brainstorming from time to time just to emphasize the importance of this strategy. Hence, we realize that teachers do present the brainstorming strategy in the writing classroom, but sometimes they just do it superficially arguing that time is insufficient to introduce brainstorming taking into account all its aspects and details.

As hypothesized by the researcher, the present study is based on the assumption that the brainstorming strategy is not applied appropriately in writing classes. That is to say, the different aspects and variations of the brainstorming strategy are not well treated and second year students are not all well trained in performing the brainstorming strategy. The above analyses have shown that according to second year students at the department of English and their teachers of writing, brainstorming is given attention in writing classes but not the one it deserves. In other words, it is true that brainstorming is implemented in the writing course of second year level but due to some hampers it is not applied as it should be. Hence, the obtained results confirmed the hypothesis put forward in the general introduction.

Among the other significant objectives of this study is to be able to come up with future suggestions to provide teachers, instructors, and educators in general with some evidence about efficient ways that they can follow and use in teaching writing and make of it an enjoyable practice. Thus, bringing more conviviality to the EFL writing class and killing boredom inside it as well. Hence, through what we have obtained from students’ answers on the questionnaire and teachers’ responses in the interview, we are now more capable to suggest the following:

  1. ResearchConclusions

The conclusions drawn from this study can assist teachers in better understanding the use of brainstorming specifically in teaching second year university students of English. It also points out that while teachers can get the most out of their students during a brainstorming session, at the same time it creates an environment of harmony of thoughts and respect of the point of view of others present in the class. Hence, in the light of the major findings of this study, it is worth pointing out at a number of important recommendations at this stage which could be of a great help to both teachers and their students in future writing sessions.

1) Teachers of writing should be aware enough to introduce prewriting strategies that would help their students gain better results in the writing tasks.

2) Brainstorming is one of the most efficient strategies and it has special techniques to be carried out, these have to be made explicit for students as well.

3) In order to help university students in an EFL classroom create and organize ideas for a composition, the brainstorming strategy training should be implemented in a writing class.

4) Teachers of writing should provide their students with opportunities to interact with each other and exchange ideas that would certainly help them build content for their writings. This is particularly important when learners lack ideas and information for their writing task.

5) Since peer help and cooperation are of paramount importance in the use of brainstorming strategy, training in the brainstorming strategy should emphasize team work.

6) Both teachers and learners need to adjust their roles in a writing class. Rather than attempting to compel students that they produce correct writing products, a teacher

5.Suggestions for Future Research

Data of the present study points out that brainstorming is an effective strategy that helps in enhancing students’ writing performance if delivered to our students in an appropriate way. But in spite of this fact, the brainstorming strategy has not been widely investigated, the reason why we provide suggestions for future researchers to inspect brainstorming from different angles and new purposes, such as:

  • Conducting more studies about brainstorming on larger samples from different study and age levels and from different environments.

  • Conducting more studies discussing this strategy and its relation to other variables such as critical thinking.

  • Brainstorming could also be electronic, via the use of computers and internet. So, why not inspecting this very up-to-date technique.

  • Brainstorming is not only used for generating ideas for the writing task, it can be carried out within all language skills and even in other domains in the EFL classroom.

Throughout this study, an analysis of the actual use of brainstorming, the prewriting strategy, was carried out through questionnaires with second year students and interviews with their teachers of writing at the department of English at the University of Sétif. The results showed that brainstorming is known for its effectiveness in generating writing ideas, but due to some hampers, it is sometimes not used at all and when used, it is not given the chance it deserves. Thus, the hypothesis was confirmed and the research questions were answered.

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