2009 August | ALLENGLISH Blog

The Perfect (Brain) Storm

This article, Brainstorming Reloaded, from PsyBlog tells why brainstorming isn’t as effective as it was once thought to be and gives tips on better lesson and training delivery.

The sky is red in the morning if you notice any of the following taking place during your group brainstorming sessions:

Social loafing: people slack off to a frightening degree in certain types of group situations like brainstorming.
Evaluation apprehension: although evaluation isn’t allowed in a traditional brainstorming session, everyone knows others are scrutinising their input.
Production blocking: while one person is talking the others have to wait. They then forget or dismiss their ideas, which consequently never see the light of day.

The sky is red at night under these circumstances:

People should be encouraged to list ideas before coming to brainstorming sessions.
The number of ideas produced by each person should be monitored.
Problems should be broken down and group members should brainstorm components.
Groups should take breaks from each other.
High standards should be set for the number of ideas.

Overall, it would be better for you not to drown out brainstorming from your lessons altogether since 1) according to the article, there are benefits to having students/trainees feel more involved by participating in some group activity, and 2) according to a teacher, you wouldn’t want to spend the time rewriting lessons that, under the right conditions, will sail you to the same objective.

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Tags: Critical Thinking, How To, Reflective Teaching, Teaching Tips by Debra
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Puzzling Plurals: A pair of…

Lesson:

The noun that appears after a pair of is not considered during subject/verb agreement. Here’s why: your verb agrees with the singular word pair. Even though pair actually means two, the word pair is singular (as signaled by the article a).

Examples:

A pair of glasses is on the counter.
A pair of jeans costs about $50 at the department store.

Notes:

If use the plural subject and not the expression a pair of, your verb generally agrees with a plural subject.

Examples:

Glasses are on the counter.
Jeans cost about $50 at the department store.

Reminders:

Plurals make a BIG difference in your speech and writing when it comes to four things:

adding, pronouncing, and spelling the –s ending with plurals,
determining the count or non-count status of your noun,
deciding which article to use (if any), and
subject/verb agreement. Do you know that –S you add to your verb when the subject is (or can be replaced with) he/she/it? That’s an example of subject/verb agreement.

Oh, yea, don’t forget! Just because you add an –s to verbs, it doesn’t mean they’re plural. Verbs can’t be plural—only nouns can be plural.

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