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Enhancing English Learning through Brainstorming
Hall Houston
開南科技大學

Abstract

Creativity is a skill commonly associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and
Pablo Picasso, yet all of us possess the potential for being creative. We use our creative
abilities every day to make decisions and solve problems.

Recently, the topic of creativity has become a major buzzword in education circles. For
example, in 2002, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan began a series of projects aimed at
fostering creativity in education in addition to publishing a White Paper on Creative
Education. Taiwan has also held several conferences with creativity as the theme,
including the 2008 International Conference in Creativity Development, held at National
Taiwan Normal University. Educators in Taiwan complain that Taiwanese students lack
imagination and creative skills. Many teachers look for new ways to help their students
develop creativity.

This workshop attempts to address this problem by demonstrating how regular practice of
brainstorming can foster creativity, as it simultaneously helps students develop fluency in
English. Brainstorming is an activity where a group of 3 to 5 participants work
collaboratively to generate a wide number of solutions to a problem.

Although the development of creative skills may not be deemed as important as the basic
four skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing, this workshop will show how
brainstorming is a highly motivating way for students to improve their English. For
example, beginners can produce a list of vocabulary related to the topic of a class. This
can help them prepare for the rest of the lesson.

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Brainstorming activities can help more advanced students produce ideas for essays,
projects, and professional presentations. It can also be greatly helpful in developing
solutions for problems in professional settings. With ESP courses, students can use a
brainstorming framework to get practice thinking about real problems they will encounter
in their professional lives.

The initial stage of the workshop will provide some basic theories of creativity and the
creative process, as well as trace the origins of brainstorming, including Alex Osborne’s
initial model of brainstorming and the Osborne-Parnes creative problem solving process
that followed. This will be followed by some explanation of the importance of developing
creative skills in the language classroom, and several benefits of brainstorming for
English learners. The next section includes the basic guidelines for setting up a successful
brainstorming session and tips for motivating students to participate. This will include a
few solutions to difficulties that might come up in a brainstorming session, as well as
suggestions for maximizing opportunities for English fluency and accuracy. The
workshop will conclude with a few hands-on brainstorming activities for conference
participants, allowing them to see firsthand how these activities operate.

Biography
Hall Houston has many years of teaching experience at universities in Taiwan and
Hong Kong. His first book, The Creative Classroom, was published in 2007 by Lynx
Publishing. He is currently working on his second book, Thinking Skills in EFL,
which will be published later this year by Helbling Languages. He has written many
articles on ESL/EFL that have been published in such periodicals as English Teaching
Professional, ESL Magazine, and Modern English Teacher. His professional interests
include cross-cultural communication, discourse analysis, creativity and critical
thinking.
Full speech

Creativity has become a major topic with educators in Taiwan. In 2002, Taiwan’s
Ministry of Education initiated several projects concerning creativity in education, in
addition to publishing a White Paper on Creative Education. Moreover, there were two
conferences last year that had creativity as their theme, the 2008 International Conference

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in Creativity Development, held at National Taiwan Normal University and the 2008
International Conference on Creative Education at National Chengchi University. Yet,
many Taiwanese educators lament the lack of creativity in their classes, and seek new
ways to help students develop creatively.

In this paper, I will describe how two popular creative exercises, brainstorming and
creative problem solving can boost creativity and develop fluency in English. I will
explain these two types of activities in detail, including suggestions for maximizing their
effectiveness. Then I will briefly describe my attempts to use creative problem solving in
my freshman English courses.

Cave (1999) defines creativity as “the ability to generate novel and useful ideas and
solutions to everyday problems and challenges.” Using this definition, we can think of
creativity as a practical skill that can help us deal with the complex problems of a rapidly
changing world. While creativity is certainly not one of the major four skills (reading,
writing, speaking, listening) taught in language education, it can be integrated into
language classes, and used to motivate students to participate in class.

Brainstorming is a well-known activity for producing solutions. It was created in 1941 by

Alex Osborn, an advertising executive. He found it an ideal way to get people to come up
with new ideas in groups. He proposed four rules of brainstorming:

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1. 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.

2. The more ideas, the better. Participants in a brainstorming session should aim to
produce as many ideas as possible.

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3. Odd, bizarre ideas are welcome. Participants should be encouraged to produce the most
unique ideas they can. Sometimes the most ridiculous ideas can inspire extremely
practical solutions.

4. Participants can borrow and expand on others’ ideas. This is known as piggybacking or
hitchhiking. It can lead to some superb ideas.

There are also some other common features to brainstorming sessions. Participants can be
assigned roles. One participant should be the leader who manages the session. Another
participant should be a secretary who writes down all the ideas. Also, a brainstorming
session should begin with a clear problem statement, which is a sentence or a question
which succinctly articulates the challenge to be discussed.

There are three types of brainstorming which are highly suitable for language learning.

The first is a mini-brainstorm. Students create a short list in response to a prompt. This
can help student access previous knowledge and vocabulary at the beginning of a lesson.
For example, in a lesson about music, students can be asked to write down 5 musical
instruments or their 5 favorite singers. Then they can compare and discuss their lists in
groups. Cullen (1998) provides additional information about this type of brainstorming.

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The second is a problem solving brainstorm, following the rules mentioned earlier in
this article. This provides a framework for students to discuss personal, local, national,
or world issues, and use English to generate solutions. Students can expand on a topic
they covered in class, or make their own problem statements.

The third is a mini-project, where students work in groups to put together a tangible
product, such as a business plan or a website. This can raise the interest level, as students

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are driven to complete the project and see the result. As Dörnyei (2001) explains, “[t]asks
which require learners to create some kind of a finished product as the outcome (e.g.
student newsletter, a poster, a radio programme, an information brochure or a piece of
artwork) can engage students to an unprecedented extent” (p.77).

Mehlhorn (2006) introduces some other variations of brainstorming, such as didactic

brainstorming (the leader introduces the topic in general terms, and gradually reveals the
true problem statement as the session progresses), brainwriting (participants take notes on
different aspects of the problem statement, then exchange notes and expand on their
classmates’ ideas), and brainwalking (similar to brainwriting, but participants write on
large blank sheets of paper that cover the walls of the room).

I advocate the judicious use of brainstorming work in English learning for several reasons.
First of all, brainstorming is highly motivating. Students often enjoy discussing problems
and thinking of solutions. This can help them become more autonomous learners. Second,
it’s student-centered, so students will spend more time practicing and improving English
than listening to a lecture. Third, working in groups can give students valuable practice in
practical conversational skills such as taking turns, agreeing and disagreeing, and dealing
with interruptions. Fourth, brainstorming activities can help students develop ideas for an
assignment, such as an academic essay, a presentation, or a research project. Finally,
brainstorming allows students to reach a deeper understanding of an issue through
discussion. Students in ESP and academic English courses can use problem solving

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to deal with professional situations they will encounter in the future.

For students who find brainstorming too basic, there is another useful creative exercise
called creative problem solving, or CPS. It was initially created by Alex Osborn and
Steven Parnes, then was developed and researched for over five decades. It is now
accepted as a highly effective method of problem solving in groups that involves

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choosing a problem, creating solutions and establishing an action plan to realize the
solution.

Creative problem solving consists of six stages. In the first stage, Constructing
Opportunities, participants decide on a problem or challenge they would like to work on.
In the second stage, Exploring Data, participants collect information relevant to the
problem. In the third stage, Framing Problems, participants consider a variety of ways to
phrase their problem statement succinctly and clearly. In the fourth stage, Generating
Ideas, participants brainstorm solutions. In the fifth stage, Developing Solutions,
participants review their ideas and look for the best ones to develop. In the sixth stage,
Building Acceptance, participants put together an action plan for their proposed solution
and anticipate any problems they might encounter in the process.

Each stage guides them from conception of a problem to its solution. In addition, the
stages present numerous opportunities to pick up new skills. For example, in the second
stage, students can learn how to do web searches and find scholarly articles on the
Internet or at the library. In the third stage, students examine how word choice in a
problem statement can ultimately affect how the problem is approached.

I’ve recently assigned creative problem solving as a project in my freshman English

courses. Students have reacted positively to the assignment as it gave them an opportunity
to discuss matters related to their university lives. The groups chose topics such as “How
can Kainan University attract more international students?” or “How can we improve our
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English vocabulary?” Throughout, students showed high levels of interest and motivation.
After the assignment, I asked several students to describe their impressions of creative
problem solving.

One student, Anya, described the assignment’s influence on group cohesion:

“During the process of teaming up with Patrick, Joe, and Rebecca, I found that they are

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all willing to contribute their experiences and are easy to get along with, so I quite
enjoyed working with them. However, everyone has different points of view, so it takes
time to realize one’s thoughts and need give and take. One time, I almost had a fight with
Joe, ha...my bad. I should learn how to compromise and be more tolerant of other’s
opposite opinions.”

Another student, Patrick, mentioned the idea-finding stage:

“I like idea-finding the best. During the team works, all of my team members gave me a
lot of ideas that I have never came up with. There are more than one hundred ideas in my
group. We decided on the best three solutions, and our solutions are all easy and
acceptable. I like the CPS project, because it helps me solve problems step by step.”

Carol also enjoyed working on solutions:

“The most interesting part of CPS is when our group discussed solutions. It made our
group do brainstorming and we came up with crazy or funny ideas. So, my impression of
CPS was that it was just a little difficult at first, but I really enjoyed it in the end.”

In conclusion, I’d like to make a few suggestions for doing effective brainstorming:

- Insist that students brainstorm in English. You might assign a group leader to maintain
the use of English. Also, ask each group to do a brief oral report of their ideas at the end
of the session.

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- Find ways to encourage interaction between the groups. For example, you can assign
groups to produce problem statements for other groups to use in a brainstorming session.
Alternatively, you can ask students to switch groups or even work individually to
brainstorm.

- Include a final product to a brainstorming session, such as a poster or a webpage, to give

students a feeling of accomplishment.

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Overall, I recommend using regular brainstorming sessions as a way to increase
participation and promote the use of English for real communication. Follow the
suggestions in this article, or adapt the ideas here to suit your own classes.

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Reference List
Cave, C. (1999). Definitions of creativity. Retrieved April 2, 2009, from
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/Creative/Basics/definitions.htm

Cullen, B. (1998). “Brainstorming before speaking tasks.” The Internet TESL Journal.

Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge

University Press.

Mehlhorn, J. (2006, August/September). “Fostering group activity”. Scientific American

Mind.

Treffinger, D. J., Isaksen, S. G.., and Stead-Dorval, K.B. (2006). Creative problem solving:
an introduction (4th ed.). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

Recommended Sources of Information about Creativity

Books

Michalko, M. (2001). Cracking creativity. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.

Starko, A. J. (2009). Creativity in the classroom. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Websites

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Leslie Owen Wilson’s Creativity Index
http://www.uwsp.edu/education/lwilson/creativ/

Creativity Web
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/Creative/index2.html