Creativity can be learnt |2
Article Summary of How Creativity can be learnt In Foreign
Language Education Classes
Payoute
Foreign Language Education
Professor Swanson
Creativity can be learnt |2
The scholar Graszyna Kilianska-Prysbylo, in an article named, “Are Creative EFL
Teachers Born or Can they Be Grown? Some Reflections and Implications for Teacher
Training,” has jeopardized the classical and déjà vu stereotype of how an EFL teacher is born as
an inmate genius of creativity in term of learning activities made during his class. KilianskaPysbylo has conducted her research in Poland during December 2009 to May 2010. Her
primarily goals were to awake students’ creativity, to place these same students in a classroom
with a creative teacher, to record students cognition, and to familiarize them with new
technologies. The numbers of participant who were majoring in English and education was 40.
They were in their mid 20’s, and there were only two men in the group. Because most of them
did not have any teaching experience, she trained them to become more creative within the field
of teaching ESL classes, in B2 level. Then, she scheduled “five sessions,” which includes some
activities to assess their perception of what would a creative teacher at the beginning of her
study, and at the end of this one. Before she started to work with them, she survey the students in
education of what would be a creative teacher: most of them were agree that a creative teacher
had to have this quality as a characteristic of her personality.
The first session, is divided in three tests. The first test is called the “Squares test” based
from a previous research made during the fifties from another scholar, Guilford. Actually it
supposed to be done with four blank squares, and a noun is chosen and the subject has to
brainstorm about a theme related to the noun. (It is not really clear because she assumes that the
reader knows about Guilford’s work.) For the second test, she chooses a noun and the student has
to find as many uses possible for that noun. Of course, higher the number is, higher the student’s
creativity is ranked. The third test was to ask them to use their imagination within an ambiguous
context in order to improve their verbal fluency.
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The second session was to train within a lexical theme and they had to find words which
start with the letter R, and related to teaching. This session was practiced over and over again
until the students became acquainted with this type of exercise. At the end of the second session
the students had finished to comprehend what path that any student of a foreign language has to
go; “relaxing, re-examining, rejoicing, rethinking, reinforcement, reaction.”
The third and fourth sessions was made to reinforce the “teacher creative behavior.” They
were asked to watch a video of a creative teacher. Later they were asked how they like it or not,
or if he had inspired them. Most of the students were inspired by his teaching technique, but they
were afraid to reproduce them during their class.
In the fifth and sixth sessions, students were required to have a meeting, and to discuss
together the characteristics of what would be a good teacher. Then they were asked if creativity
has to do with being a good teacher, and what kind of things might block creativity. They said
“self-confidence.” In addition, for the last session, the students were required to evaluate their
trainee, and how they feel about their creativity level compared to the beginning of the study.
Kilianska-Prybylo at the end of her study surveyed the students, and asks them again to
define what would be a creative teacher, and all of them were agree about one fact: no one was
born gifted in creation; instead, this task is learnt, and it can be taught in Education courses.
Everything can be taught; it can be creativity, Spanish, chess…. whatever the discipline is. After
all, at the end of her study; it appears that she mixed the terms “creativity” with “selfconfidence.” Probably self-confidence is the key of success of a lot of things that a person wants
to do. Her research is interesting, but too superficial with data. In addition, she uses too much
Creativity can be learnt |2
Guilford’s research during her sessions as a template, but the reader is not informed about
Guilford’s work, and Guilford’s research was conduct during 1959, it sounds updated.
References
Kilianska-Przybylo, G. (2012). Are Creative EFL Teachers Born or Can They Be Grown? Some
Reflections and Implications for Teacher Training. International Online Journal of Educational
Sciences, 4(1), 71-80.