HO CHI MINH CITY PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE

SAI GON UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

THE IMPACT OF BRAINSTORMING

ON READING COMPREHENSION

Researcher: Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh

Student ID: 3121380030

Supervisor: Trương Văn Ánh, M.A

Ho Chi Minh City

14th, May 2023
Examiner 1 Examiner 2

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 Table of Contents
ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................3
I. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................4
1. Background................................................................................................4
2. Literature Review......................................................................................4
3. Objectives..................................................................................................5
4. Scope.........................................................................................................5
5. Organization..............................................................................................5
II. LITERATURE REVIEW...............................................................................6
1. Reading comprehension............................................................................6
2. Brainstorming for reading.........................................................................6

III. METHOD......................................................................................................8
1. Approach...................................................................................................8
2. Subjects......................................................................................................8
3. Materials....................................................................................................8
4. Procedures.................................................................................................8
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION...................................................................9
1. Results and Discussion..............................................................................9
2. Conclusion...............................................................................................11
V. CONCLUSION.............................................................................................12
VI. REFERENCES............................................................................................13

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 The Impact Of Brainstorming On
Reading Comprehension
Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh

ABSTRACT
The study aims of investigating the impact of brainstorming on the
development of reading comprehension. In this experiment, there was a
participation of 20 students majoring in English Linguistics at Sai Gon
University. An online survey was used to collect data. After completing a
questionnaire, participant's answers were collected along with their completed
inquiry forms. After the survey, the finding of this study clearly show the
majority of students agree that brainstorming played a significant role in
improving students’ reading comprehension skill, as indicated by the choice of
75% of participants. The conclusions and implications of the research have
been further pointed out with reference to foreign language teaching context.

Key words: Brainstorming, significant effect, reading comprehension.

TÓM TẮT: Nghiên cứu nhằm mục đích điều tra tác động của “động não” đối
với sự phát triển của đọc hiểu. Trong thí nghiệm này có sự tham gia của 20 sinh
viên khoa Ngôn ngữ Anh trường Đại học Sài Gòn. Một cuộc khảo sát trực
tuyến đã được sử dụng để thu thập dữ liệu. Sau khi hoàn thành bảng câu hỏi,
câu trả lời của người tham gia được thu thập cùng với các mẫu câu hỏi đã hoàn
thành của họ. Sau cuộc khảo sát, phát hiện của nghiên cứu này cho thấy rõ ràng
phần lớn sinh viên đồng ý rằng “động não” đóng vai trò quan trọng trong việc
cải thiện kỹ năng đọc hiểu, thể hiện qua sự lựa chọn của 75% người tham gia.
Các kết luận và hàm ý của nghiên cứu đã được chỉ ra thêm có liên quan đến bối
cảnh giảng dạy ngoại ngữ.

Từ khóa: “Động não”, hiệu quả rõ rệt, đọc hiểu.

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I. INTRODUCTION

1. Background
In English, there are four basic skill such as listening, speaking, reading and
writing. In this study, the priority is given to reading to know how so far the
ability of students in reading. Reading is one learning ways for students to
enrich their ability and knowledge. In reading the students are expected to be
able comprehend what they have been read. Reading means to understand the
meaning of printed word. Patel (2014) said that It is an active process which
consists of recognition and comprehension skill. Reading is not only about how
to pronounce the idea of the writer in written form but also is to be separated
from comprehension.

Agustina (2012) mention that reading is the most important skill of four skills
for most students in mastering English. Therefore, it is important to improve
students; reading skill to access many information when we face written
English or when we want to learn about English literates in written form. We
have to master reading skill in order to understand what is said in the book so
that it will facilities students to comprehend the texts and then be able to
answer comprehension questions properly in many kinds of reading tests.

2. Literature review
The role of brainstorming in obtaining educational objectives in various fields
was extensively under research, recently. Many empirical studies have been
performed considering the effectiveness of this approach in group idea
generation. Brainstorming was the term proposed by Dr. Alex Osborn in 1953.
Osborn (1953) defined this new technique as: “An organized way to allow the
mind to produce ideas without getting bogged down in trying to judge the value
of those ideas at the same time” (Kirk & Spreckelmeyer, 1993, p. 85).

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Osborn (1953) mentioned the four following central guidelines for
brainstorming:
1. Criticism is ruled out. 2. Freewheeling is welcomed. 3. Quantity is wanted.
4. Combination and improvement are sought (pp. 300-30). Osborn's claims
have been investigated in great deal of research concerning the usefulness of
group brainstorming. It has been verified that generating ideas in group is
considerably more when Osborn's brainstorming guidelines are applied
compared with individual ideation (Johnson , Parrott , & Stratten, 1968;
Meadow, Parnes, & Reese, 1959; Parnes & Meadow, 1959).

3. Objective
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of brainstorming on
reading comprehension, to identify the definition of reading comprehension, to
identify brainstorming - an effectively technique that can be used to improve
reading skill in Sai Gon University, especially students majoring in English
Linguistics.

4. Scope
The concern is on how often students use brainstorming in reading
comprehension and how the effect is. The study will involve collecting and
analyzing data from a online survey of students majoring in English Linguistics
at Sai Gon University.

5. Organization
The study opens with an introduction about reading skill and the impact of
brainstorming on reading comprehension. The next part bestow on the research
literature review. And then, it present how the research was carried out. After
outlining the research findings and discussions, the proposal concludes with
many recommendations for learners to use in reading tasks.

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II. LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Reading comprehension
According to RAND Reading Study Group (2002), comprehension is the
process of eliciting and making meaning through interaction and involvement
with written language. McNamara and Magliano (2009) emphasized that this
process is a task of both reader and text factors that happen within a larger
social context. Duke (2003) stated that comprehension is a process in which
readers make meaning by interacting with text through the combination of prior
knowledge and previous experience, information in the text, and the views of
readers related to the text.

Kintsch (1998) and van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) defined reading
comprehension as the process of creating meaning from text. The purpose is to
get an understanding of the text rather than to acquire meaning from individual
words or sentences. The outcome of reading comprehension is the mental
representation of a text meaning that is combined with the readers’ previous
knowledge. This is called a mental model (Johnson-Laird, 1983) or a situation
model (Kintsch, 1998). This model defines what has been learned (RAND
Reading and Study Group, 2002). Keenan, Betjemann, and Olson (2008)
expressed that reading comprehension needs the successful expansion and
arrangement of a lot of lower-and higher-level processes and skills.
Accordingly, there are many sources for possible comprehension break and
these sources are different based on the skill levels and age of readers.

2. Brainstorming for reading

Reading instructors have used pre-reading activities as devices to support their
L1 readers’ interpretation of text and to prevent any possible failure in reading
process (Karakas, 2002; Ringler & Weber, 1984) as these activities can help

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building new schemata, activating existing schemata, and informing the teacher
what the students
know. Brainstorming is probably one very popular kind of pre-reading activity
(Wallace, 2001). This activity usually involves students’ calling out words and
concepts that they associate with a key word. Some teachers and instructors
have provided their students with a chart of three columns so that the students
can write down what they already know about a subject in the first column,
indicate what they want to know about the subject in the second column,
complete the third column after
reading about the subject by writing answers to the questions that they asked in
the second column (Ogle’s, 1986).
Brainstorming has been seen as a tool that helps L1 readers to activate his prior
knowledge and facilitates the reading process (Feather, 2004). This technique
enables readers to create and share their prior knowledge to solve problems to
reach the goal. While brainstorming, they have to think to generate the ideas
from their mind toward the topic that they are going to read, thus bring their
storm many different meanings that they have already known about the subject
matter of the text (Isaksen, 1998). In addition, brainstorming states a purpose
for reading. After recording the brainstormed ideas in a list, readers start
reading and verifying whether what was brainstormed is correct or wrong.
Thus, they will be reading with a purpose in mind (Feathers, 2004).
Brainstorming can also encourage creative thinking and create a working
atmosphere (Osborn, 1953).
Although there has been a consensus that brainstorming, as a pre-reading
activity, is an effective technique to activate L1 readers’ prior knowledge for
reading comprehension, little research has focused on the effect of this
technique on reading comprehension. Richards (1990) found that brainstorming
helps learners develop their cognitive skills that are necessary for generating
and organizing ideas. Along similar lines, Ghabanchi and Behrooznia (2014),
Navaee and Asadi (2015) reported that brainstorming has positive effect on
learners’ reading comprehension.

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This study sets out to see if brainstorming facilitates EFL learners’ reading
comprehension and examines the extent to which it helps them to comprehend
the text better.

III. METHOD

1. Approach
The research was carried out by a non experimental approach. In this approach,
the questionnaire was used, it included some questions about personal
information and about the research. Personal information included participants'
majors, ages, and gender; the research part consisted of questions, focus on
students' knowledge of brainstorming method's effect and the impediments that
students have when using it on reading comprehension.

2. Subjects/ participants
The participants of the present study were twenty SGU students, a half of them
were male and the rest were female, all of whom majored in English
Linguistics. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 22.

3. Materials/ documents
The study had done researched through an online survey. The data collected
were in the form of quantitative data. The survey consisted of 25 multiple
choices aimed at gathering information about participants' English language
learning experiences. The questions were created to elicit information about the
participants' knowledge towards learning English. The survey was conducted
using Google Forms and was distributed via email and social media platforms.

4. Procedures
The survey questionnaire was converted into a Google Form as the initial stage
to facilitate data collection. This questionnaire was written in English for

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students majoring in English Linguistics at SGU only. The questions were
designed to gauge student's familiarity with the brainstorming technique as well
as their comprehension of its definition and ability to apply it effectively. All
questions must be answered, and students must use the Google Form to offer
their feedback. In the next step, the researcher gathered all of the participant
replies and processed the data. Afterward, a discussion will begin in the next
section.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this part, the most important results from the survey questionnaire are
presented in those column charts. Then, discussed and analyzed those findings
so as to find out the answers to the research questions made formerly.

As can be seen from the column chart, which almost two-thirds of the
participants (60%) chose, the students sometimes use brainstorming to
complete the reading comprehension. Just 5% of those who responded to the
survey claimed to always use this technique. And about 23% of students said
they usually apply brainstorming for reading task. With the “never” column,
approximately 10% of those surveyed commented that they have never spent

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their time using brainstorming technique. To sum up, SGU students, especial
students majoring in English Linguistics, spend very little time using
brainstorming technique on reading comprehension like a support tools. The
most frequent time frame for using brainstorming is sometimes. Some of them
forgot or even did not know more about this method on reading. However, it is
clear that most of students realized this technique and use apply it on reading
comprehension.

In addition, when I asked students how the effect of brainstorming on reading

comprehension, most of them responded that it has positive effect on the
process of learning English. In contrast, they said that they had a bad
experience when using brainstorming due to their lack of knowledge about this
technique. So they chose the negative effect with 15% of students. As a result,
almost all students found that it could be difficult without using brainstorming
on reading comprehension.

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Based on the data of figure 3, everyone who participated in this study believed
that brainstorming has a vital impact on improving reading skill. They suppose
that using brainstorming will support them hardly in English, particularly on
reading comprehension. They also feel more confidence in doing reading task
in English, which is essential skill in assisting students in obtaining desirable
professions in English in the future.

In sum up, it is important for students at SGU to applying brainstorming

technique and they have to change their habits in using this technique along
with employing plenty of method as much as possible. This will improve their
performances in university and in many international English tests, opening
doors to international work and study.
The findings of this study showed that brainstorming have a great impact on
the students’ reading comprehension ability. Students are not just passive
receivers of information but they are active makers of meaning. Successful
readers try to apply numerous skills to grasp meaning from the texts. Readers
should be involved in the reading process by using different strategies to
monitor their meaning. This study emphasized the idea that comprehension
processes are influenced by brainstorming technique. Based on the findings of
this study, it is concluded that reading materials and activities should be very
attractive to students in order to understand a text easily and they should be

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related to the students’ proficiency levels. The use of this technique makes the
reading and learning activity more enjoyable and interesting.

V. CONCLUSION

The present study aimed to investigate the impact of applying brainstorming

strategies on the learners' reading comprehension ability. The findings revealed
that brainstorming had a significant role in improving the participants' reading
comprehension ability.
Brainstorming strategies are the ones which seek to involve all learners in
generating their own ideas through accessing the prior knowledge and
information, they foster active learning through mental activity and
spontaneous discussion in finding new opinions, ideas and views. Applying
brainstorming in class helps students reach synergy through peer learning,
access their current level of knowledge, its depth and extent, involve in class
discussion, organize their thoughts, and reach group consensus, be responsible
and reflective for their own learning and finally be creative and innovative in
the learning process which in turn facilitates critical thinking. Common ideas
form the basis of brainstorming and to many educational scholars they sound to
be more valid (see Brauer & Judd, 1996; Stasser & Birchmeier,2003; Witten
baum & Park, 2001) as they can lead to unique and innovative ideas when
well-supported.
Since it was shown in this study that learners' reading comprehension ability
can be improved through applying brainstorming technique, it is advisable that
teachers encourage learners to set the habit of bringing their spontaneous ideas
and views before reading texts which make them not only mentally and
psychologically prepared to approach the reading task, but also enthusiastic to
know the material content.

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Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that the role of brainstorming is
facilitating the activation of students' background knowledge or schema rather
than imposing the opinions mentioned in the text.
Moreover, the opinions posed by students shouldn't be judged or criticized at
all costs; that is, learners should freely and spontaneously express their views
and as they hear their opinions they can assess the rationality of their ideas
which is in line with (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005)'s claim who maintain
lear ners can understand which concepts are important and evaluate the
importance, correctness and relevance of what they had said through hearing
their own ideas for the first time. In so doing, they can develop reflective
thinking and higher order level thoughts.

VI. REFERENCES

1. Alyousef, H. S. (2005). TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION TO

ESL/EFL LEARNERS. The Reading Matrix, 5(2), 143-154. Retrieved from:
http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/alyousef/article.pdf

2. Ahmed M. M. (2014). The Importance of Brainstorming in Improving

ESP Reading Coprehension. International Journal of Arts and Commence Vol.
3 No.1 January

3. Elysa Rohayani and Mila, N. S. H. (2019). THE EFFECT OF

BRAINSTORMING METHOD ON THE STUDENTS’ READING SKILL IN
ELEVENTH GRADE. Retrieved from:
https://jurnal.ulb.ac.id/index.php/eduscience/article/view/1594

4. Feathers, K.M. (2004). Info Text: Reading and learning . Ontario: Pippin
Publishing Corporation.

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5. Nasution and Dewi Kesuma, Proceeding of The 1st ICoLLiT (2017).
Increasing The Students’ Reading Short Story Ability Through Brainstorm
Sheet Technique.

6. Nancy, G. T., Jhon, J. A. C. (Dec, 2019). Improving Reading

Comprehension Skills through Reading Strategies Used by a Group of Foreign
Language Learners, ISSN 0120-5927. Bogotá, Colombia, pages 55-70.

7. Narjes Banou Sabouri (2016). How Can Students Improve Their

Reading Comprehension Skill? ISSN 2162-6952 2016, Vol. 6, No. 2.

8. Qudah, M., Khattaybih, M.M, and Muhaidat, M. (2002). Reading

Comprehension: Influence of Brainstorming. Vol. 18 Issue 3B, p109-122.

9. Yen, T. T. N. (2017). The Effect of Brainstorming on EFL Reading

Comprehension. Available at: <https://js.vnu.edu.vn/FS/article/view/4214>

10. Zargham Ghabanchi and Saeedeh Behrooznia (2014). The Impact of

Brainstorming on Reading Comprehension and Critical Thinking Ability of
EFL Learners. Available at:
https://publikasiilmiah.ums.ac.id/xmlui/handle/11617/8897

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