Brainstorming Strategy in Developing Essay Writing Skills of Grade 9 English First Additional Language Learners

Abstract

Brainstorming is the automated act of making notes of ideas in preparation for the various stages of the writing process, and it poses a challenge to English First Additional language learners (Mohammed &Sadoon, 2020). This study aimed to investigate the use of brainstorming strategy to develop essay writing skills of Grade 9 English FAL learners. The qualitative study was guided by Vygotsky’s (1978) Social Constructivism Theory which emphasises collaborative learning. Thus, in this study, the teacher instructed learners to interact and share knowledge in their pre-writing to prepare them for other writing stages. Data were collected using three methods of data collection, namely, the semi-structured interview, document analysis, and observation. Permission was sought from parents of eight Grade 9 learners, where they wereand interviewed and written essays were analysed, Their EFAL teacher were also interviewed and theirlesson observed. The findings show that learners struggle to brainstorm ideas for their essays, thus writing essays that have ineffective introductions, weak idea support, and poor conclusions. It was evident from learners’ responses that they had difficulties with planning. Some of them did not plan before writing, while others did not follow ideas as outlined on the mind map. The implication is that learners’ essay writing challenges were caused by not effectively being taught essay writing. Learners were only prepared to write formal tasks. They were rarely engaged with interactive learning strategies and did not practice writing on their own.