generating ideas. Brainstorming often serves as preparation for another
activity.
2 (in teaching writing) a form of prewriting (see composing processes)
in which a student or group of students write down as many thoughts as
possible on a topic without paying attention to organization, sentence
structure or spelling. Brainstorming serves to gather ideas, viewpoints, or
ideas related to a writing topic and is said to help the writer produce ideas.
Other writing activities sometimes included under brainstorming are:
clustering: the student writes a topic or concept in the middle of a page
and gathers ideas into clusters around the topic.
word bank: the student lists words that come to mind about a topic and
then arranges them into categories.
mapping: the student prepares a graphic representation of key words to
be used in a composition.branching n
(in computer assisted learning) moving from one place to another
within a lesson, usually on the basis of how well a student has performed on
a task. The process of deciding which of several alternative paths through
lesson material is best suited to the student using the programme, based on
previous performance, is known as selective branching.
branching directionn
the tendency for relative clauses to follow a particular order in relation to
the noun they modify. In some languages, such as English, relative clauses
usually precede the noun they modify. For example:
The cheese that the rat atewas rotten.
English is thus said to favour a right branching direction. Japanese, however,
primarily makes use of a left branching direction, because the modifying
clause typically appears to the left of the head noun. For example:
Nezumi ga tabeta chizu wa kusatte ita.
rat ate cheese rotten was
In second language learning the difficulty of learning relative clauses may be
influenced by whether the learner’s first language and the target language
have the same branching direction.
branching programmen
see programmed learning
breath groupn
a stretch of speech which is uttered during one period of breathing out.
see also speech rhythm
branching