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tivity-language-classroom
Retrieved March 15, 2009
Creativity in the language classroom
Submitted by admin on 26 September, 2007 - 12:00.
Before we set out and look at some theories and practice for introducing creativity into the language
classroom, lets see why it is worth making all this effort.

What is creativity?

Why is creativity important?

Am I ever creative?

Are my students creative in my lessons?

Conclusion

What is creativity?
Do you think you are creative? Do you think your students are creative? All of them? Some of them?
Alas, only very few of them? Do you think you can call yourself lucky if you have one or two creative
students in a life time? Do you think the younger the students are the more creative they are? Or do
you think the opposite is true and that you learn to be creative over the years? How do you know
that someone is creative? What do you actually do when you are thinking creatively?
Do you think your colleagues would answer these questions the same way as you do? In my
experience, people hold very different views of creativity. Some think they arent creative at all and
it is only the privileged and artistically talented, who can be considered creative. Others think that
to cook a good dinner is already a clear sign of creativity.
In the coming articles, I do not aim to answer the questions above. What I aim to do is to look at
three different theoretical descriptions of creative thinking and explore what language teachers may
learn from them. I hope that after reading the articles, you will be able to ask many more and much
more challenging questions about creativity and its use in the classroom than I did in the first
paragraph.

Why is creativity important?

Before we set out and look at some theories and practice for introducing creativity into the language
classroom, lets see why it is worth making all this effort. Why is creativity important in
language classrooms?

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.

In my experience, 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.

My experience also taught me that 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.

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.

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
teachers.

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
teachers.

Having read this list of why creativity is important in the classroom, you may have been wondering
about either or both of these two questions:

Am I ever creative?

Do I ever get my students to do anything creative in my lessons?

Im almost a hundred per cent sure that the answer is yes to both of these questions. Let me show
you why.

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?
E.g. You opened a bottle or a tin without a bottle or tin opener or substituted an ingredient in a
recipe with another ingredient. 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!

Conclusion
If you wish to be more aware of how creativity works in general and in your classroom so that you

can make more informed decisions about using it and how to use it in your classes, join me for the
upcoming three articles.

I will use a definition of creativity that lists the four main features of it and I will look into
the question of how we can bring these four features to the language classroom.

I will boil the four features down to a shorter definition that I believe - can grasp the
essence of creativity and then I will show through some examples how this essential element of
creativity can be added to language learning activities.

I will use a theory of creative thinking roles and describe the classroom environment that
can foster this kind of thinking.

Further reading
National Curriculum in Action: Why is creativity so important?
http://www.ncaction.org.uk/creativity/whyis.htm
Written by Judit Fehr, Pilgrims, UK
The BBC and the British Council are not responsible for the contents of external sites.

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