Creativity in the
language classroom
and Features of
creativity
Sheryl D. Galecia, LPT
Are you
?
Do you think your colleagues would answer
this question the same way as you do?
In my experience, people hold very
different views of creativity.
Why is Creativity Important in
the Language Classroom?
Language use is a creative act: we transform thoughts into
language that can be heard or seen. We are capable of
producing sentences and even long texts that we have never
heard or seen before. By giving learners creative exercises, we
get them to practise an important sub-skill of using a language:
thinking creatively
Compensation strategies (methods used for making up for
lack of language in a communicative situation e.g. miming,
drawing, paraphrasing used for getting meaning across) use
creative and often imaginative ways of expression. Our learners
will need these until they master the language.
Why is Creativity Important in
the Language Classroom?
Some people cannot learn at all if they are not allowed to
be creative. They do not understand the point in doing a
language activity for its own sake, for only practising the
language without a real content, purpose, outcome or even a
product.
Most people become more motivated, inspired or
challenged if they can create something of value, if they feel
that in some ways what they do and how they do it reflect who
they are.
Why is Creativity Important in
the Language Classroom?
Creativity improves self-esteem as learners can look at their
own solutions to problems and their own products and see
what they are able to achieve.
Creative work in the language classroom can lead to
genuine communication and co-operation. Learners use the
language to do the creative task, so they use it as a tool, in its
original function. This prepares learners for using the language
instrumentally outside the classroom.
Why is Creativity Important in
the Language Classroom?
Creative tasks enrich classroom work, and they make it more
varied and more enjoyable by tapping into individual talents,
ideas and thoughts - both the learners’ and the teacher’s.
Creative thinking is an important skill in real life. It is part of
our survival strategies and it is a force behind personal growth
and the development of culture and society.
Am I ever creative?
Have you ever found that you wanted to do
something but you did not have the right tool /
material to do it, and then you found some way
of using another object / material and managed
somehow?
Am I ever creative?
Have you every changed an activity in your
course book or a resource book to match the
needs of a particular group you teach? YES?
There you go, you are creative!
Are my students creative
in my lessons?
Do you ever get your students to speak about, write about,
draw about or mime what they think? Do your students say
things in the foreign language they never heard or read? Do
you ever get them to think about rules, problems and how
things and language work instead of just telling them? Do you
sometimes give them tasks where there is no one possible
answer and the answers will vary from one learner to
another?
YES? There you go, your students have opportunities to
think creatively in your classes already!
Features of creativity
The four features of creativity
Imaginative
Purposeful
Original
Of value
Imaginative
Creative thinking is imaginative as it brings
about something that did not exist or was not
known before, so it had to be imagined first.
We can easily see this in art, but science and
technology are also full of imagination.
Imaginative
It could only be through imagination that Johann
Gutenberg was able to combine the wine press and
the coin punch to create his printing press.
When Galileo was in prison, he wrote about
imaginary experiments he made in his head.
Another example is Einstein, who – just to give one
of the many possible examples – described the
random movements of atoms before they could be
seen in laboratories. He must have imagined them!
Purposeful
The examples of scientific imagination above have already
indicated that creative imagination is not daydreaming. It has a
purpose, an objective, which can be a variety of things from
surviving after your boat has sunk, through opening a bottle of
wine without a corkscrew, to saving the life of cancer patients
by finding a new treatment, or creating the complex emotional
impact of catharsis.
Original
The third feature, originality, highlights that creativity has
individuality built in it. It grows out of the individual as a plant
grows out from a seed, and it is characteristic of the individual,
too. The Nobel Prize winning physician, Albert Szent-Györgyi,
who discovered vitamin-C, emphasises this feature of creativity
in his definition:
“Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone
else and thinking something different.”
Value
The last feature, which says that the product or result has to be of
value, adds the element of evaluation into creative thinking. When
evaluating our creation, we need to see how it serves the purpose.
Also, we may need to judge the purpose, the goal itself.
There are highly imaginative and original solutions that serve the
purpose all right, but the purpose itself may be totally destructive,
harmful or immoral. Although the feature of value is a very
important one, it is not a clear-cut category as different people are
bound to find different things valuable to different degrees.
Value
What is of value for me may not be of value for you. Just think of the
many different views people hold about graffiti. So it is worth asking
the question:
"Whose values and what sort of values are we using to judge
and act?"
Making activities creative
Give the activity a purpose that is something outside
practicing a certain language point. This purpose can
usually be defined as some kind of outcome or product,
which can be very simple like writing a shopping list for
a new dessert learners would like to make for a friend’s
birthday. Or it can be something really spectacular like
putting a scene students write on stage. In this kind of
activity, language is used as a tool, as a means to an end
like in real life.
Making activities creative
We need to organise the learning process in a way that gives
time, space and freedom to learners so that they can use their
imagination and originality. This often means suspending
judgement for the time of the activity and being open to many
possible answers, solutions and products. Learners need to
understand that there is no one right answer, that there are
many valuable solutions possible. This calls for tolerance for
ambiguity in the classroom. Managing a creative classroom
activity also makes it necessary for the teacher to act more like a
facilitator or helper. All this of course does not mean losing sight
of the objective or lacking realistic timing.
Making activities creative
We need to make evaluation an integral part of the creative
process. For evaluating a creative activity, it is very important not
to restrict the evaluation to language use, as this would give
learners the message that the outcome of the activity is not
really important.
Conclusion
In conclusion we can say that if we want to run a creative activity in
the classroom, we need to check for the presence of these four
features: imagination, purpose, originality and value, and organise
the process in a way that all these can be incorporated.
References
References1. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume One, 15th
edition, p.4922. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary
(1994) Oxford, Oxford University Press p. 373. National Curriculum
in Action; http://www.ncaction.org.uk/creativity/4. Bronowski, Jacob:
The Reach of the Imagination in: Shrodes, C – Finestone, H. –
Shugrue, M. (Ed.): The Conscious Reader. (1988) New York:
Macmillan Publishing Company5. von Oech, Roger; A Whack on the
Side of the Head, How You Can Be More Creative. Creative Think,
California, 1992, p.7