The Effectiveness of Collaborative Brainstorming Training Procedures at Pre-Writing Stage in Intermediate English Classes

Abstract

This article reports a qualitative action study that emerged from the author's reflective teaching practice in an intermediate English class. The research investigated the effectiveness of collaborative brainstorming training procedures on students' ideas expressed in their written papers and on students' learning of writing skills through in-depth interviews, classroom observations, students' written papers and students' journals. The study indicates that collaborative brainstorming training with additional brainstorming rules can significantly improve quantity and quality of ideas in paragraph writing, but not remarkably in letter writing. Besides, training has had positive effects on students' learning of writing skills. The findings of the study, therefore, make important contributions to the implementation of collaborative brainstorming in the English language teaching practice.