The data obtained from the interview is presented in this section according to the research questions of this research. Also, an observation is needed to ensure if the brainstorming strategy is able to encourage students’ initiative which is helpful to promote students’ motivation to learn English as well. The researcher began the interviews by asking the interviewees to introduce themselves in general.
Initially, the researcher found that the interviewee 1 named NK is 25 years old and has been teaching English since 2017. NK is a full-time English teacher in YPUI Banda Aceh Islamic Junior High School and a part-time English teacher in Khalifah course.
Besides, the interviewee 2 named SR is 26 years old and has been teaching English for around 6 years. SR is a full-time English teacher in MTsS Darul Ulum Boarding School and a part-time English teacher in Aceh Learning Center. Both of the interviewees are bachelors of English education department at UIN Ar-raniry Banda Aceh.
Furthermore, the result of the data is presented according to the research questions mentioned in the Chapter I as follow:
1. To explore teachers’ strategies in using brainstorming to encourage students’
initiative.
As one of the objectives of this study, it is important to answer the first research question which is “How do EFL teachers encourage students’ initiative through brainstorming?”. According to the question, the researcher asked about the strategies used by the teacher 1 and 2 in implementing brainstorming to encourage students’
initiative. From the interviews, the researcher discovered the practically similar results between two teachers.
Teacher 1 has frequently used the brainstorming strategy as her favorite teaching instruments. The reason of applying the strategy is because this strategy helps her to encourage passive students in the classroom to participate in the learning activities.
Also, by implementing this strategy, the teacher believes that the students felt more confident to engage in the classroom and are valued as the teacher responded to their ideas. The translation of teacher’s 1 answer will be presented as follow:
“…. I think when we encourage students' initiative to participate in class can affect students' learning motivation. Why? because when they feel inputted or included in the teaching and learning process they feel they will be able to, or they are cared for by the teacher
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so they are more willing to participate in class so that this can increase their learning motivation.” – Teacher 1
Regarding the first research question, in can be concluded that she usually draws a sort of mind mapping related to the reading material then followed by asking her students to deliver their thoughts which described the learning topic or object. Teacher 1 illustrated her strategy in applying brainstorming as translated below:
“.…For example, for example, I want to discuss about narrative text, so from the narrative text I make a mind mapping first. So, from that dream, I asked the students for the willingness or initiative to give answers related, for example, about what narrative is or about, for example, what is used and what examples are there. Then later I write it in front of the class or on the board, like that.” – Teacher 1
Moreover, teacher 1 believed that her students were more active to participate in the teaching-learning activities when the teacher implemented brainstorming strategy.
The teacher’s 1 answer is translated as follow:
“….So, when I see that children are more active in class, and they have the initiative to participate more in class, I see that they are happy to use brainstorming strategies. Incidentally, several times I've asked about this brainstorming strategy and I asked their opinion. Whether they prefer brainstorming or prefer learning as usual but they answer, most of them answer that they prefer brainstorming strategies because they feel their opinions are heard, that way.” – Teacher 1
On the other hand, teacher 2 who has infrequently implemented a brainstorming strategy assumed that the students greatly understood the learning material when the teacher applied this strategy to teach a narrative text. The translation of teacher’s 2 respond is presented below:
“The reactions from students were good, because students could better understand the material by means of brainstorming. They know that, for example, for example, they know that in the narrative text material, we must emerge from its language features, generic structure, and type of narrative text.” – Teacher 2
Also, teacher 2 illustrated the steps she implemented brainstorming strategy which the translation of her respond is presented as follow:
“Initially, I start to draw the brainstorm on the board, and lay out the material I want to teach. For example, like I want to teach narrative text, I will describe the narrative text into several parts, such as: the type of narrative text, its language features, or its generic structure.”
– Teacher 2
Furthermore, teacher 2 also believed that this strategy is helpful for students to greatly understand their teacher’s explanation about the learning material. The respond is translated and presented as follow:
“….for example, like the narrative text before, the students will be less able to grasp the material. But, using this brainstorming they are easier to understand.” – Teacher 2
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It can be said that both of the participants have nearly managed the same method in implementing the brainstorming strategy, namely: by drawing the mind mapping on the whiteboard where the details of the subtopics were delivered by the students.
2. Brainstorming is beneficial to promote students’ learning motivation.
In order to answer the second question which is “How does the brainstorming technique promote students’ motivation in EFL classroom?”. The question emphasizes if the role of brainstorming is beneficial in promoting the students’ learning motivation. As the result, teacher 1 stated which is then translated as follow:
“In my opinion, there are many benefits of this brainstorming strategy. First, this brainstorming strategy can increase the intensity of student activity. Second, this strategy also increases students' initiative to participate more in class. Third, in my opinion, this brainstorming strategy can also increase students' motivation to participate in teaching and learning activities. In addition, this brainstorming strategy can also improve... can make students feel more valued because their opinions are heard by a teacher, like that”. - Teacher 1
Supporting teacher’s 1 idea, teacher 2 responded to the question as translated below:
“The benefits... one of them is that they understand faster, remember faster, and of course are more active in learning.” – Teacher 2
Furthermore, as both of teacher 1 and teacher 2 found passive students in their classroom, they illustrated different activities that might be helpful to promote the students’ motivation to learn English. The illustration of teacher 1 was translated and presented as follow:
“Usually, I use the calling method. Yes, I usually call students who are passive in bringing out their ideas. So, I do not ask all students to answer but I will appoint several people to answer or provide their ideas in brainstorming strategies. So that passive students also participate in expressing their ideas, like that.” – Teacher 1
Besides, teacher 2 illustrated the solution to overcome passive students issue as translated below:
“The trick is group work, because in group work students will be more active because they are dealing with friends. sometimes the passive student must be because he doesn't dare to face his teacher directly. But when he is together with his friends he will usually be active.
One way is in the group there will be a presentation. So like it or not, all students should have the opportunity to speak. So, passive students. we can push in this way.” - Teacher 2
However, both of the teachers encountered several obstacles in implementing the brainstorming strategy. These obstacles lead students to be demotivated in learning English. First, the less motivated student were frequently struggled to deliver their ideas due to lack of reviewing. The students were struggled as they did not understand the material which leads them not to enjoy learning English. This issue caused the teacher hard to recognize the students’ difficulties and the solution
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for their problem. In order to overcome the issue, teacher 1 illustrated the solution which was translated as follow:
“If I encounter this problem, then I will ask anyone or ask anyone in the class for their opinion about what they know about a material that I am teaching. In addition, I will also provide some keywords to the person I asked for the opinion. So, I don't necessarily direct the question to someone else, but I will also inject some keywords into him so that his mind is more open about what I teach.” - Teacher 1
These less motivated students frequently reacted passively in the classroom and disobeyed teacher’s instruction about the assignment which these attitudes impact students’ score. This issue might demotivate students to learn English as they assumed English is difficult.
Second, teacher 2 claimed that brainstorming strategy leads teachers to write limited words that describe the discussed object or topic. In other words, brainstorming contains the summary of the learning material. This issue was found as an obstacle for some students who are not interested in English since they needed further information towards new terms written in the brainstorming.
Teacher 2 delivered a solution to this issue which was translated as presented below:
“Now, because in this brainstorming there are limits, yes, when we write on the blackboard, I usually still ask students to write down the definition of each point in the brainstorming. So in their book there are still notes that are not in the form of brainstorming but on the other hand they also have to make brainstorms from the material, so there must be both.” - Teacher 2
DISCUSSION
The researcher managed to do observation before interviewing the two EFL teachers whom are participated in this research. From the observation, the students of both classes taught by teacher 1 and 2 showed practically similar result where the students are more interactive and excited to learn EFL with the brainstorming strategy.
Moreover, the students confirmed to their teachers that they could understand the material better by using brainstorming rather than the usual method applied by their teachers which is a lecture method.
Both teacher 1 and teacher 2 also believed that brainstorming is helpful to promote students’ learning motivation. Because, the students felt motivated as they understood and mastered the learning material. Also, both of teacher 1 and teacher 2 applied the same method in implementing the brainstorming strategy namely by drawing a sort of mind mapping on the whiteboard and completing the details of each subtopics or sub materials by asking to their students’ idea.
Even though, several obstacles such as less motivated students participated passively in the classroom activities and the limitation of space on the whiteboard to write the explanation of each subtopics. Both teacher 1 and teacher 2 found the appropriate solutions to overcome the issues. The solutions are, first, by giving
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keywords to the passive students so that they recognize the details that related to the learning material, or asking the passive students to work in group or work in pairs with the students who understand the material so that they could share their ideas confidently with their friends. Second, by asking the students who need definition or longer explanation about the details written in the brainstorm to write the definition or longer explanation they needed on their notebooks independently. This result support the previous study conducted by Tsai et al (2020) that assumed the rule and instruction of the brainstorming approach are simple, and students do not need much effort to learn the procedure of doing class activities; teachers only need to set up the topics and lead group discussions, and do not need to spend a lot of time developing various learning activities.