Creativity In The English Language Classroom

Current, comprehensive, and authoritative, this text gives language teachers and researchers, both a set of conceptual tools with which to think and talk about creativity in language teaching and a wealth of practical advice about principles and practices that can be applied to making their lessons more creative. Providing an overview of the nature of creativity and its role in second language education, it brings together twenty prominent language teachers and researchers with expertise in different aspects of creativity and teaching contexts to present a range of theories on both creative processes and how these processes lead to creative practices in language teaching. Unique in the field, the book takes a broader and more critical look at the notion of creativity in language learning, exploring its linguistic, cognitive, sociocultural and pedagogic dimensions. Structured in four sections— theoretical perspectives, creativity in the classroom, creativity in the curriculum, and creativity in teacher development—each chapter is supplemented by Questions for Discussion and Suggestions for Further Research. Its accessible style makes the book relevant as both a course text and a resource for practicing teachers.

This book offers a unique perspective on creativity in an educational environment where there is a relative dearth of literature on this subject. The authors link practice and principle to provide a practical and valuable guide for more creative language learning and teaching, using not only theoretical ideas but useful practical advice and recommendations on how better to introduce creativity into teaching and daily life. This innovative volume is sure to become a crucial reference point for teachers and practitioners of language teaching, and anyone interested in the ways in which creativity can be channelled into the teaching and learning process.

The book titled "International Perspectives on Creativity in the Foreign Language Classrooms" aspires to provide a reflective and descriptive account of creative practices as well as research related to creativity from an international perspective. In particular, through a collection of 12 studies conducted in various countries and continents, an attempt is made to provide readers with creative examples of teaching practice and research incentives, as proposed and presented by the authors of this collected edition. The contributors of this book report and reflect on classroom practices that increase motivation, promote creative learning, heighten learners' creativity, enhance their learning potential and their multicultural sensitivity. They discuss challenges of applications in diverse contexts based on playful activities and stories that develop a creative learning environment in a foreign language classroom. Some other studies focus on multiple intelligences theory approach making students 'know' and 'apply' the appropriate behaviour and they present creative ways and multisensory approaches of approaching dyslexic students in a language classroom. The authors provide perspectives from different angles on the above mentioned issues demonstrating that multiliteracies practices, games, different art forms, popular-culture texts, digital storytelling and interactive activities could be effective tools in foreign language learning.

This book borrows from a range of theories about creativity and about learning, while remaining largely practical in focus. It contains numerous examples for teachers of how to apply ideas about creativity in the classroom. In doing so, it attempts to maintain the subject's core identity while also keeping abreast of contemporary social, pedagogical and technological developments. The result is a refreshing challenge to some of the more mundane approaches to English teaching on offer in an age focussed excessively on standardisation and teaching to tests.

Current, comprehensive, and authoritative, this text gives language teachers and researchers, both a set of conceptual tools with which to think and talk about creativity in language teaching and a wealth of practical advice about principles and practices that can be applied to making their lessons more creative. Providing an overview of the nature of creativity and its role in second language education, it brings together twenty prominent language teachers and researchers with expertise in different aspects of creativity and teaching contexts to present a range of theories on both creative processes and how these processes lead to creative practices in language teaching. Unique in the field, the book takes a broader and more critical look at the notion of creativity in language learning, exploring its linguistic, cognitive, sociocultural and pedagogic dimensions. Structured in four sections— theoretical perspectives, creativity in the classroom, creativity in the curriculum, and creativity in teacher development—each chapter is supplemented by Questions for Discussion and Suggestions for Further Research. Its accessible style makes the book relevant as both a course text and a resource for practicing teachers.

"What do English teachers understand by the word 'creativity'? How does their understanding of creativity differ from the meanings that others ascribe to this word? What forms does creativity take in their classrooms? Prompted by Raymond Williams's statement that creativity involves stepping from the 'known into the 'unknown', the contributors to this volume inquire into how their students explore the 'unknown' in a policy environment where everything is mapped out in advance by predetermined learning 'outcomes'. They see their classrooms as spaces for students to engage in imagination, play and learning that exceed the conventional expectations of standardised learning continua. However, rather than supposing that it is possible to transcend those settings, as in old-fashioned notions of creativity or giftedness, the authors carefully trace the ways in which moments of creativity still occur within the heavily regulated environments imposed on them by governments. Creativity, they argue, should be understood as a product of the institutional setting of the school, as something that is facilitated by the social relationships of the classroom, rather than falling back on to assumed binaries of school as a place of regulation and control and creativity as something that can only happen outside the school gates. History has a privileged place in these essays, which draw on work from a number of key theorists in the history of English curriculum and related areas of the social science, including the work of Raymond Williams." --backcover.