Developing creative thinking skills in english language teaching

By Marisa Constantinides

It has been suggested that creativity (or, as it is also termed, divergent production) is not a single unifying ability but is viewed as a composite of intellectual abilities. The four main facets I will be looking at are:

FLUENCY Ability to produce large numbers of ideas

FLEXIBILITY Ability to produce diverse ideas (not the same kind)

ELABORATION Ability to add on to and embellish an already existing idea

ORIGINALITY Ability to produce uncommon, ‘clever’ ideas

Creative thinking, or divergent production, facilitates problem solving, and in a problem solving approach oriented classroom, enhancing creative thinking potential can facilitate discovery learning as well as enhance language production.

This talk will outline the thinking and relationship of divergent versus convergent production relating them to specific language activities encouraging one or the other kind.

I will be suggesting a range of activities which can develop aspects of creative thinking singly or in combination.

The four facets listed do not refer specifically to language learning but to any kind of intellectual challenge, language learning being one of them.

Depending on the type of audience, some references may also be made as to how the concept can be used in the TEFL training classroom.

Developing creative thinking skills in english language teaching

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Comment

I would like to add a significant, for me, point, which does not emerge from my slides and handout, but which was made during my talk:

The activities mentioned and listed are intended to be integrated into a regular syllabus, for instance, the ‘unusual uses’ activity could be used when you introduce and practise the infinitive of purpose, or later, when you want to cover time clauses, or the language of re suggestions. The ‘predicaments’ activity can be used as is (..you were seen dancing on the rooftop of your friend’s car in a car park) or with other structures which you might introduce earlier or later, e.g. “Why did you hang your shoes outside your window last night?”

All these activities, however, need to be seen in the context of language practise and learner training.

The synthesis of these individual facets, their combinations and integrations need to be taken to a higher level of application through activities in the higher order level of Bloom’s taxonomy, whether digitally or non-digitally, in holistic activities, collaborative  projects, large scale simulations, web quests, authoring of wikis or blogs, creating collaborative stories or similar tasks.