Creative technique for Learning English Using Visual Brainstroming

CREATIVE TECHNIQUE FOR LEARNING ENGLISH USING
VISUAL BRAINSTORMING

Have you ever bored when your teacher was teaching English in the classroom? Why did it happen? Some reasons can cause that. For example, the teacher always speech and you just listen your teacher without any activities or even the material of English is very hard. But, those problems can be solved by using creative technique: Visual Brainstorming.
Language learning is a hard task which can sometimes be frustrating. The teacher should think solutions to solve that problem. Visual Brainstorming is one of creative techniques which are used by some teachers. What is Visual Brainstorming? Before that we have to know what brainstorming is.
Brainstorming is a group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem. In 1953 the method was popularized by Alex Faickney Osborn in a book called Applied Imagination. Osborn proposed that groups could double their creative output with brainstorming.
And now, what is the visual brainstorming? Visual brainstorming is a useful alternative in teaching English that use sketches, picture, or graphic ideation to stimulate members of group’s ideas in learning process and combining with games. Students can make their own imagination from the sketches that is given, so that it can be an interesting activity to do. The teacher also can combine visual brainstorming with games, like snowball throwing, cranium, vocabulary map, and etc.
Visual brainstorming has two main parts; Idea Generation Phase and Evaluation Phase. Idea Generation Phase is a phase that members of group should make some sketches quickly on a specific problem. Evaluation Phase is the evaluation phase from the collection of sketched ideas.
Here are steps in visual brainstorming that is combining with snowball throwing.
1. The teacher writes a specific problem on white board then asks students to make some sketches around 5 – 10 quickly based on the topic.
2. The teacher observes students’ sketches.
3. The teacher presents his/her idea-sketches on the white board.
4. The teacher makes a snowball from a paper and asks students to imagine sketches on the board.
5. The teacher throws the ball to one student and asks the opinion of the sketch.
6. Next, the student throws the ball again to other students and asks same question.
7. To get another view of sketches the teacher can rotate or flip the sketch or changes the sketches.
8. The students’ idea can be a topic or material that can be discussed in class.
9. At the end of class, the teacher guides students to make a conclusion; more ideas could be generated at this stage.
Those are steps in visual brainstorming technique that is combined with snowball throwing game. This technique can combine with another game, depends on the teacher. This technique can be applied individually or in group discussion.
The benefits of this technique are students can be more creative, can increase self confidence, can develop their English skill better than before because they have to speak to share their idea, they have to listen to their friends, and they have to make good sentence with a best word choice.