Reading this article may not immediately transform you into an innovative thinker, but I believe it will help you prevent your mind from going blank, at least when you have to deal with the IELTS writing/speaking tests.
“I have no idea.” is the response from my students frequently. Maybe this is a universal problem for some students when they have to generate ideas for a “strange” writing or speaking assignment.
What I mean by the word “strange” is that, for some reason, the topic is a little bit alien to my students. I’ve been asked, “How to come up with some ideas for this topic?” by different students. As an ambitious teacher, I’ve long been finding a one-size-fits-all answer for all of them. And fortunately, I found it thanks to the lesson yesterday.
Below, you can find how it went in the lesson. The student got some difficulties thinking about the reasons why graduates find it hard to get a job and how this problem can be tackled. With a view to letting her get the hang of thinking independently, I just gave her some lead-in questions:
– What’s the gap between the graduates’ and employers’ expectations?
She answered, “Perhaps the bachelor’s degree holders lack hands-on experience, knowledge, skills, and so on.”
It’s ok, right?
– My next question was in the form of personal sharing. I thought it’d be easy for her to hit the nail on the head, but I was wrong. Anyway, I was amazed at how creative she was. Sometimes, when things don’t go the way we expected, we should find something interesting and worth noting. This is the story I told my student: “About 3 years ago when I was about to graduate, my parents asked whether they should give me flowers and take pictures and all kinds of stuff that ordinary people would do in their graduation ceremony. But I was against that idea. I refused because I thought that there was nothing special. From the naïve perspective of the new grad, this event is remarkable. However, it isn’t really a big deal when there are thousands of other graduates like me from my own faculty hihi :”> That’s why I told my family to stay home and like the photos I sent them on our group chat.”
So, what’s the point of this story?
And surprisingly, her reply was, “Oh, you mean… be energetic? Be outstanding?”
Even though she didn’t tell me what I had expected, to some extent, she got the point, but she was a little bit going further than my initial intention when telling this story. My answer would be astonishingly simple: “Competitive job market.”
“You see? There are thousands of other students from my faculty, let alone others from tons of institutions elsewhere. That’s why I highlighted the number of grads while the number of positions is limited. By the way, I like your creativity, but this point will be used in the next part.” I told my student.
– And here comes the third question for the third bullet point:
“Imagine, when I feel I’m way too good, but still try in vain to get a job. What’s wrong?”
The student was brainstorming while I thought she would consider me a freak. Afterward, I gave her some hints like: “Suppose I turn down all the job offers because I think the one like me deserves higher income. I have gained all the skills and experience needed for the job, so I outplay other candidates. That’s why I should be paid more, but the employers say no. As a result, I’m still jobless. Have you got the idea?”
“Too arrogant?”
“Yes, it is,” I replied. “Then the next point for this part should be ‘overconfidence’, ok?”
The student agreed.
Oh, the post has been a bit long, anyway; long story short: These are the keywords we should bear in mind when trying to come up with some new ideas for the so-called “unfamiliar topics”.
· External factors vs. Internal factors
Or:
· Objective vs. Subjective
In the illustrative example I’ve presented, “overconfidence” and “workplace incompetence” belong to the “internal factors” or “subjective” category, and “cut-throat competition” belongs to the “external factor” or “objective” category.
Once my student had been equipped with this stuff, I told her to come up with some ideas for the solutions to the increase in the unemployment rate among graduates. And this is her answer:
– Subjective: the students must improve themselves from internship, courses, blah blah…
– Objective:
o University: provide practical curriculum
o Company: job fair
Voilà!
Easy, right? I hope you can find it helpful too.
I almost forgot to tell you another crucial element in this thinking model. It’s the “anchor”. Yes, we need an anchor for our ideas to be anchored. In the aforementioned example, the anchor is the graduates themselves, so from their perspective, we can classify which is “objective” and which is “subjective”.
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Bonus: The lines below aren’t related to how to brainstorm effectively in the first place. However, this student also raised these questions in today’s lesson, and I think they’re interesting and worth sharing. Therefore, I still jot them down.
1. How to be less rambling/incoherent?
Okay, I always try to produce as straightforward answers as possible to guarantee coherence in all kinds of products (in both written and spoken forms). And my answer to this question is no exception.
“Ask yourself: ‘Is this sentence really necessary?’ or ‘What’s the point of this sentence?’ Remember, every sentence should serve a (or some) purpose(s). If not, delete it – when we write. When we’re speaking, it’s much more difficult. So be careful and practice as much as we can.”
2. How to sound more convincing?
Actually, another student asked this question once before, but maybe in the future, I will have a brand new post on this point as it’s quite thought-provoking due to my silly instant reply at that time. I was too straightforward, and even unintentionally hurt that student as he might be belittled by my reckless words.
Below is my answer in yesterday’s lesson:
“Ask yourself: ‘Is there any exception?’ When you write something down, the readers have some ideas to counter your argument; this means yours isn’t cogent enough.”
To clarify what I was trying to convey, I gave her an example by asking her to answer the question:
“To succeed in business, one needs to learn and know math. To what extent do you agree or disagree?”
She immediately said, “Yes, absolutely.” But I refuted by questioning, “What does it take to be an accomplished actor/singer?”
Then she got what I meant.
brillbro 