This is the text of a chapter which appeared in the following book:

Richards, J. & Cotterall, S. (2016). Exploring creativity in language teaching. In R. H. Jones & J.C.
Richards (Eds.) Creativity in language teaching: Perspectives from research and practice
(pp. 114-129). New York: Routledge

EXPLORING CREATIVITY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Jack C Richards and Sara Cotterall

Introduction

There are many different ways of defining creativity, depending on whether it is

viewed “as a property of people (who we are), processes (what we do) or products
(what we make)” (Fisher, 2004, p. 8). Creativity is usually described as being able to
solve problems in original and valuable ways that are relevant to goals, seeing new
meanings and relationships in things and making connections, having original and im-
aginative thoughts and ideas about something, and using the imagination and past ex-
perience to create new learning possibilities. In teaching, when creativity is viewed as
a product, the focus might be on a particular class, a task or activity in a book, or a
piece of student writing and the features that give it a creative dimension. When
viewed as a process, the focus is on the thinking processes and decisions that a person
makes use of in producing something that we would describe as creative (Jones,
2012).

All teaching involves acts of creativity and teachers are often required to think crea-
tively or “out of the box”. Both while planning their teaching and during the teaching
process itself, teachers draw on specialized kinds of thinking of which creativity is a
core dimension. They draw on cognitive skills that enable them to choose relevant
goals and teaching resources, to analyze materials in order to identify their teaching
potential and to make decisions related to timing, grouping, sequencing and assess-
ment. During the teaching process itself they may adapt their plans in response to
feedback from learners. In making decisions of this kind, teachers draw on their sub-
ject-matter knowledge, their personal theories and principles as well as the practical
knowledge developed from their teaching experience in making decisions of this kind.
Shulman (1987) described the cognitive skills that teachers make use of as a process
of transformation in which the teacher turns the subject matter of instruction into
forms that are pedagogically powerful and that are appropriate to the level and ability
of the students. The ability to think creatively is an important component of this activ-
ity of transformation.

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A representative example of a teacher’s creative thinking is described by Stock (2014,
p. 190), in which a teacher demonstrates how reading, writing, discussion and
roleplaying can be used to prepare students to read Silverstein’s The Giving Tree – a
classic piece of children’s literature. First the students write briefly about an incident
where they were disappointed by a friendship, which they then share and discuss in
groups. Through discussion they explore the notion of strong friendships. After listen-
ing to the text of the story and following on from the ideas they had developed about
the nature of friendship the students then go on to imagine roles they might play in a
mock trial that charged the boy in the story with being or not being a good friend.
They read the text to identify sets of questions they might ask to prove the boy had or
had not been a good friend. They write their individual opinions on the boy and fi-
nally, become a jury and vote on whether the boy in the story was a good friend.

In teaching, creativity of this kind is valued because it can improve academic attain-
ment. It can lead to higher and deeper levels of learner engagement. It can help de-
velop learners who can think deeply and critically and who are able to think inde-
pendently and creatively. It can also help develop learners who are willing to engage
with, and share ideas, as well as help them develop a better mastery and control of
language (Taylor, 2014). Fisher (2004, p. 11) reports:

Research …. shows that … creative activity can rekindle the interest of

students who have been turned off by school, and teachers who may be
turned off by teaching in a culture of control and compliance.

Creativity has also been linked to levels of attainment in second language learning
(Dornyei 2005:205-207). Maley emphasized a focus on creativity through the use of
texts drawn from a variety of different literary and non-literary sources that can be
used to elicit creative thinking and foster the ability to make creative connections
(Maley, 1997). Many of the language tasks favored by contemporary language teach-
ing methods are believed to release creativity in learners – particularly those involv-
ing student-centered, interaction-based, and open-ended elements. Such activities are
therefore, in principle, ideally suited to fostering creative thinking and behavior on the
part of learners (Burton, 2010). Creative intelligence seems to be a factor that can fa-
cilitate language learning because it helps learners cope with novel and unpredictable
experiences. Communicative teaching methods have a role to play here since they
emphasize functional and situational language use and employ activities such as role-
play and simulations that require students to use their imaginations and think crea-
tively.

In characterizing the nature of creative teaching in language teaching it is useful to

describe both the practices of creative teachers as well as the underlying attributes,
dispositions and beliefs that provide the basis for creative practice (Cremin, Barnes &

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Scoffham, 2009). If creativity is valued as an aspect of good teaching, it is also im-
portant to consider how it can be supported in a school or institution. This is the focus
of this chapter, in which we first describe examples of how a creative disposition
shapes the design and delivery of a teacher (Sara *) teaching academic writing to uni-
versity students in the United Arab Emirates. We do this through the examples we
provide taken from Sara’s teaching journal. We then consider how creativity can be
supported and encouraged in the institution.
SOURCES AND PRACTICES OF CREATIVE TEACHING
1.1 The teacher is not committed to a single approach or method
Typically rather than being bound to a particular method, creative teachers often
adopt an approach that might be called ‘principled eclecticism’. In other words, they
do not choose methods and procedures at random but according to the needs of their
class. They use a wide variety of teaching approaches and a wide range of resources
and activities. Sara gives this example:

In my writing classes if I were only going to use one approach, my students would
have given up on me a long time ago! I try and use lots of different approaches,
partly because I know that different approaches will suit different learners and also
because I think different approaches have different strengths. With more advanced
learners, I use modelling a lot, where I encourage learners to help me collabora-
tively construct a piece of text in the classroom. This is because much composition
is essentially private and I believe that learners need to see how it’s done and par-
ticularly to observe the trial and error process that occurs when different word
choices and sentence structures are experimented with.

But it is also important to vary activities so that at other times I focus on the micro-
level of text and ask learners to look at individual sentences and word choices and
comment on the impact of presenting a sentence in one way rather than another.
Many of my learners seem to do better work at this detailed level of analysis when
they have another learner to bounce off, so pair work is useful here.

To offset these product focused activities, I regularly include periods of continuous

writing where learners are encouraged to focus on getting ideas down on paper
and not worrying about accuracy. One thing that has worked very well with this is
to ask learners to produce a graph on which they record the topic they are writing
about and the date and the number of words they produce each time. If I allocate
approximately the same amount of time to each continuous writing session, learn-
ers begin to notice that over time they are producing more words in the time availa-
ble and this is very motivating. They also notice that certain topics (which one
member of the class chooses each time) are more successful for them than others,
and this provides an interesting point of conversation about the relationship be-
tween familiarity and fluency.

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1. 2. The teacher makes use of a wide range of teaching strategies and techniques
Creativity in teaching means having a wide repertoire of routines and strategies which
teachers can call upon, as well as being ready to depart from established procedures
and to use one’s own solutions. In general, novice teachers are much less likely to be
creative than experienced teachers simply because they are familiar with fewer strate-
gies and techniques. The danger is that once a teacher becomes comfortable in using a
core set of techniques and strategies these become fixed. Sara is continually adding to
her repertoire of teaching techniques;

I have a repertoire of at least 20 different ways of dealing with a writing task de-
pending on which stage of the process we are working on. Sometimes we work with
brainstorming techniques like listing, cubing or mind mapping, either orally or in
writing. This is almost always more productive when learners work in pairs.

Sometimes we do continuous writing on topics the learners suggest, just to focus on

fluency. Other times we analyse the organization of model texts, identifying the
best sequence for the learners to follow in drafting their own texts.

I also use reformulation in class a lot – this involves presenting two versions of a
completed text: the learner’s original text and then a version of it that I have re-
worked to make it communicate more effectively. The positive thing about reformu-
lation is that it involves no ‘correction’ of the learner’s text but invites students to
identify the changes that have been made and to discuss why they have been made.
In this way it develops their critical skills and helps them find ways of evaluating
and improving their own texts.

The key is to keep the activities fresh and to encourage learners to contribute by de-
ciding on activity topic, sequencing, learner configuration (pairs, individuals,
groups etc) and activity duration. This keeps them engaged and motivated.

1. 3. The teacher draws on academic and pedagogical knowledge to support creative

practice.

It is important to distinguish between purposeful and purposeless creativity. While the

latter may be seen in acts of creativity that are designed to entertain, to fill-in gaps in
the lesson or to substitute for a well-planned lesson, purposeful creativity is linked to
the teachers’ knowledge base - to his or her academic and pedagogical knowledge –
and to the learners’ goals. The teacher draws on this as a reference in developing cre-
ative lessons. As we see in this example;

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 The other day we were talking about the Introduction to their research papers and
discussing what needed to be included. Since each student had at least one journal
article with them in class, I suddenly hit on the idea of asking them to read and
‘characterise’ the elements included in the Introduction of the article they had with
them. This had the positive effect of the students developing their own terminology
for each of the ‘moves’ (Swales, 1990) the writers of their journal articles adopted.
When different students wrote the names for these ‘moves’ on the whiteboard, it
quickly became obvious that there were some broad similarities that they could use
to guide the drafting of their own introductions.

Having a solid knowledge base means that the teacher has a rationale and purpose for
the creative activities he or she uses. They have not been chosen merely for their nov-
elty value but because they reflect the teachers’ knowledge and understanding of
teaching and learning.

1.4. The teachers uses activities which have creative dimensions

Teaching creatively means assessing activities and materials for their potential to sup-
port creative teaching. Researchers have identified a number of dimensions of crea-
tive tasks: they are said to involve open-ended problem solving, to be adapted to the
abilities of the participants, and to be carried out under constraints (Burton, 2010;
Lubart, 1994). Some of the features that Dörnyei (2001) identifies as productive lan-
guage learning tasks can also be seen to promote creative responses:

 Challenge: tasks in which learners solve problems, discover something, overcome

obstacles, or find information;
 Interesting content: topics that students already find interesting and that they
would want to read about outside of class, such as stories we find about sports and
entertainment personalities we find on YouTube and the internet;
 The personal element: activities that make connections to the learners’ lives and
concerns;
 The novelty element: aspects of an activity that are new or different or totally un-
expected;
 The intriguing element: tasks that concern ambiguous, problematic, paradoxical,
controversial, contradictory or incongruous material stimulate curiosity;
 Individual choice: they look for tasks that give students a personal choice. For
example students can choose their own topics to write about in an essay or choose
their own topics and group members in a discussion activity;
 Tasks that encourage risk taking: teachers do not want their students to be so
worried about making mistakes that they feel reluctant to take part in activities.
Reward them for effort and not only for success;

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 Tasks that encourage original thought: activities that require an original re-
sponse. So instead of comprehension questions after a reading passage that test re-
call, they seek to use tasks that encourage a personal and individual response to
what the student has read;
 The fantasy element: activities that engage the learners’ fantasy and that invite
the learners to use their imagination for creating make-believe stories, identifying
with fictional characters or acting out imaginary situations.

In the example below, Sara talks about how incorporating originality and novelty and
introducing a strong personal element, allowed her student to express his creativity in
a way that motivated him to produce a much more effective research paper.

Samir, one of my learners, popped into my office the other day and asked me if I
had a minute to read something written on his telephone. I was intrigued. When I
read it, I saw that it was the opening lines of a thriller, rich with description of
place and person. Samir is in my Research Writing course, but I had no idea he had
the ability to write in such a lively way. I guess he wanted me to know what he was
capable of in terms of writing, because he was finding some of the research writing
activities rather dull.

That started me thinking about how Samir could tap into that creativity in his re-
search writing. He had chosen to investigate the increasing death toll on the roads
in the UAE. Next time I saw Samir, I asked him to remind me why he had chosen
that topic. Shockingly, he told me that it was because one of his friends from pri-
mary school had died in a car accident shortly after getting his driver’s licence. A
few days later I suggested to Samir that he tell that story as the opening to his re-
search paper, trying to make the reader feel the pathos of the situation. And it
worked! What he came up with was both dramatic and moving – an excellent intro-
duction to his very serious research topic.

1.5 The teacher seeks to achieve an individual teaching style.

Bruner (1962) defined creativity as ‘an act that produces effective surprise’. Fisher
(2004, p. 9) comments:

It is originality that provides effective surprise. To do the same things in the

same way is not to be creative, to do things differently adds variation to mere
habit, but when we do or think things we have not done before, and they are
effective, we are being original and fully creative.

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The creative teacher looks for original ways of using the textbook and teaching mate-
rials and seeks to create lessons that reflect his or her individual teaching style. For
this reason, creative teachers might be very different from each other.

I view every class I teach as unique. Whatever my plan is when I walk into the
classroom, achieving my goals is affected by the energy levels in class, learners’
willingness to cooperate and my own mood and energy. One day, after telling the
students that I had been to an Anzac Day lunch the previous day, and finding that
they were curious about this holiday, I explained briefly about the Battle of Gallip-
oli in Turkey and showed them a slide of the very moving words Ataturk had in-
scribed on a monument to all the Allied soldiers who died in the battle. This led to
an analysis of the words Ataturk chose which invoked such sympathy.

1.6. The teacher is willing to take risks.

The creative teacher is willing to experiment, to innovate, and to take risks. Risk-tak-
ing reflects the flexible mindset of creative teachers as well as their self-confidence.
They are willing to try things out, even if at times they may not work quite the way
they are intended as Sara illustrates in the next example;

Last semester I decided to try a new approach in my writing classes to encourage

the students to spend more time actually writing in class time when I could be
available to comment on their writing and workshop it. So I decided that the sec-
ond of the three weekly classes each week would be a time only for writing with no
input from me, and no talking. At first I had to remind students to bring their lap-
tops or the drafts they were working on. But gradually they subverted the idea by
using the time to show their writing to each other, ask questions, discuss the con-
tent and generally do anything BUT write! I still think my goal is worthwhile but I
will have to find a better way to set it up.

1.7. The teacher is confident and willing to make his or her own decisions about
how to manage classes.
Confidence can give the teacher a sense that she or he is in control of their classroom
and that it is the teacher - not the book or the curriculum – working with the learners’
needs and goals that can make a difference. The teacher sees his or her input to the
lesson as being decisive and so has a sense of personal responsibility for how well
learners learn.

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 The more experienced I become as a teacher, the more comfortable I am with find-
ing a way of working with the specified curriculum. I think a course outline can be
a highly creative document. Once I feel confident that I understand what the re-
quired course outcomes are, I love the freedom of finding my own way of achieving
them. Of course there are always recommended practices, activities, texts and
books to use on any course. But there is also always room to try new things which
have served you well in the past or which the students demonstrate an interest in. It
all depends on how confident you feel that you know what you are aiming at.

1.8. The teacher adjusts and modifies her teaching during lessons
Flexibility is another feature we often observe in the lessons of creative teachers.
Flexibility in teaching means being able to switch between different styles and modes
of teaching during the lesson, for example, if necessary changing the pace of the les-
son and giving more space and time to learners. The teacher may not need to refer to a
lesson plan because he or she is able to create effective lessons through monitoring
the learners’ response to teaching activities and creating learning opportunities around
important teaching moments. This kind of teaching can be viewed as a kind of skilled
improvisation. Here Sara describes teaching as finding what she calls “teachable mo-
ments”.

The longer I teach the more often “teachable moments” emerge in my teaching. It
might be a topic, a particular text, a situation - many prompts can invite me to
share a story or an experience with my learners which relates to the lesson goals.
Usually I find these diversions are helpful; sometimes they relieve tension when we
have been working hard on something.

For instance, one day I was working through some examples with my EAP class of
how to integrate another writer’s ideas into my own text. In the example I was us-
ing, one of the learners suddenly stopped me to ask about the name of one of the
authors in the in-text citation. Since I had noticed that my learners frequently con-
fused Western authors’ first and family names, this gave me a perfect opportunity
to draw attention to the names of the authors in the text and to ask them to suggest
what the citation would be if each of them had written the original text. Personaliz-
ing the example in this way, and being willing to be diverted from the focus of the
activity at hand is sometimes necessary. I usually tell myself if one learner has
thought it important enough to ask the question, others are likely to be wondering
about the same thing. It’s important to be ready to let the learners’ agenda take
over at times.

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Creative teachers often improvise around their teaching materials, moving back and
forth between book-based input and teacher-initiated input. Hence, even though a
teacher may teach the same content many times, each time he or she teaches, it be-
comes different due to the way she or he improvises in working with the material.

1. 9. The teacher looks for new ways of doing things

Over time, teachers develop routines and procedures that enable different dimensions
of their classes to be carried out efficiently and effortlessly. But there is a tendency
for teaching to become increasingly standardized - the ‘one size fits all’ approach -
particularly when teachers are working within a prescribed curriculum and teaching
towards tests. This often results in a teacher working from pre-packed materials such
as a textbook and “transmitting” it efficiently. This is perhaps appropriate at the be-
ginning stages of a teacher’s career but should not characterize the lessons of experi-
enced teachers. Here Sara describes how she seeks to introduce variety into familiar
activities.

I find that the easiest way to do something new in the lesson is to invite the learners
to make the decisions about different aspects of the activities. There is no reason
why the teacher has to decide which activities to focus on or in which order to com-
plete them.

There are also many possibilities for arranging the grouping of learners as they
work on tasks, from individual to pairs to small groups. I try and work through dif-
ferent aspects of lesson organization and systematically vary the following: text
type, audience, purpose, skill focus, learning configuration (individuals, pairs,
groups, whole class). I also routinely ask the learners to tell me how long they be-
lieve they will need in order to complete a particular activity. They have a much
better idea than me and I always make sure I write some kind of “extension task”
on the board while they are working, so that anyone who finishes early has some-
thing else to do.

1. 10. The teacher customizes her teaching

Creative teachers develop custom-made lessons that match their students’ needs and
interests or adapt and customize the book to match their students’ interests. While in
many cases, a book or course outline may work perfectly well without the need for
much adaptation, in some cases different levels of adaptation may be needed.
Through the process of adaptation, the creative teacher personalizes the text or course,
making it a better teaching resource, and individualizes it for a particular group of
learners.

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In order to customize the course objectives for my academic writing course I set my
students the task below:
a) The course objectives described in the catalog:
Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

 Demonstrate the skills of summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting, using APA

documentation style in all written work.
 Critically analyze and evaluate academic texts to demonstrate logical develop-
ment of arguments, counterarguments, and refutation.
 Design a research proposal with a specific research question and a working bib-
liography.
 Distinguish between personal opinion and referenced material derived from aca-
demic sources when writing a research paper
 Identify and evaluate library database, and internet sources relevant to their re-
search topics.
 Synthesize material from academic texts to write a literature review for the re-
search paper.
 Write a multiple draft, successively improved, 10-page argumentative research
paper based on primary and/or secondary sources, organized chronologically, cli-
mactically, or logically.
 Defend the research paper’s stance in an in-class presentation.

My task:
1. I started by asking the students to form groups and paraphrase each of the
course goals to make sure that everyone understood them all.
2. Next I asked students to individually rank the course goals according to
their personal language needs.
3. Third, I asked students to sit with other students who identified the same
course goal as of most importance to them. I then asked them to explain to
each other why they gave that objective the highest priority and to follow up
by brainstorming different situations at university where they might use
those particular skills.
4. Fourth, I used the 4-3-2 technique to have each student give first a 3 minute
talk to a partner on why their objective was the most important, then a 2 mi-
nute talk to a new partner on the same topic and finally a 1 minute talk to a
new partner.
5. If there is time, I ask the students to nominate someone who gave a very
good talk and ask them to give their 3 minute talk in front of the whole
class.

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1.11. The teacher makes use of technology
Creative use of technology in the classroom can support the development of imagina-
tion, problem-solving, risk-taking, and divergent thinking on the part of teachers and
students. How do teachers use technology in this way? Sara gives this example;

A productive way of engaging my students and helping them to improve their writ-
ing skills is through Creative nonfiction (CNF- an idea that was suggested to me by
Dino Mahoney.) CNF involves using creative literary techniques and devices (such
as diaries, autobiographies, essays, obituaries, journalism and travel writing) when
writing about non-fiction events. I have incorporated a CNF strand into my aca-
demic writing course by having the students write blogs.

I begin by showcasing blogs to the class as a whole using the classroom computer
and screen. For instance, a leading UK newspaper, The Guardian, recently ran a
blogging competition. I start by showing a few of the winning sites such as
‘Scaryduck. Not scary. Not a duck.’ This blog is full of short, often witty pieces,
about whatever interests the blogger. The blogs express a particular point of view,
are funny and are aimed at a younger adult audience, which reflects the age range
and interests of my students. The blog is reader-friendly consisting of short, lively
texts with lots of photographs. My students tend to engage very quickly. First, I
choose one of the blogs and ask them to look at it in more detail and identify ways
that the writing is creative (e.g., through the writer’s use of adjectives, irony, regis-
ter, metaphor etc). My students bring their tablets, laptops or smartphones to class
and after showcasing the first blog, I give them the web address for three other
suitable blogs and ask them to browse them and be prepared to comment.

I then set up their blogging task. Each student has to set up an online blog and then
blog on five separate topics from a choice of eight: food, music, transport, sport,
media, politics, religion, fashion. I also encourage the student to read and interact
with each other’s blogs. After each set of blogs, we discuss the most effective ones
highlighting areas of successful creative writing. I also give personal, online feed-
back to my students about their blogs through one to one emails. The intrinsic in-
terest of their chosen material and the freedom to express their own point of view
has a highly motivating effect on my students and there is a crossover into their ac-
ademic writing, which I foster in class and through individual feedback on their ac-
ademic writing tasks.

2 SUPPORTING CREATIVE TEACHING IN THE INSTITUTION

One way of considering creativity is to take a laissez faire approach and assume that it
is over to the individual teacher. Universities and schools have other concerns and are

11
judged by how well their students perform on national exams, on how well they use
technology, or on the quality of the students they are able to attract. But a commit-
ment to creative teaching requires a change in mind set. As Fisher comments (2004, p.
17):

Success in any grand project needs help from others, which means making
alliances, means benefiting from the distributed intelligence of others –
developing the ‘info-structure’ – interconnectivity through learning con-
versations with others.

There are a number of ways in which educational institutions can discourage creative
teaching, such as when the curriculum, tests, and constant monitoring drives teaching
and teachers cannot depart from established or approved practices because there is too
much of an emphasis on book learning, rote learning and test scores; where teachers
are not given time to be creative.; when teachers are not encouraged to be creative and
innovate or to develop an individual and personal teaching style.; when teachers are
stuck with fixed routines and procedures. An institution that believes in the value of
creative teaching expresses confidence in its teachers, encourages adaptation and in-
novation, is open to new ideas and supports, encourages and rewards creative teach-
ing. Fisher (2004, p. 17) characterizes a creative school as a place where individuals,
pupils and teachers are:

Motivated
- purpose, ultimate goals and shared destiny;
- openness to new ideas, innovation and enquiry;
- passion to succeed, willing to take risks, accepting difference and diversity;

Given time and responsibility for creative activity, involving:

- all in the search for creative solutions;
- being tolerant of mistakes in the search for better solutions;
- avoiding impulsivity, allowing time for practice and for ideas to come;

Able to collaborate with partners to share creativity and ideas including:

- learning partners to generate, extend and provide feedback on ideas;
- collaborating as part of a team on creative projects and productions;
- developing creative connections and links beyond the organization.

Here are some ways in which institutions can encourage rather than discourage crea-
tive teaching.

2.1. The institutions helps teachers recognize and share what is creative in their
own practice.
There are usually creative and innovative teachers in every school, but often their
teaching skills are not necessarily recognized by or familiar to others in the school.

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Here are some of Sara’s examples of how institutions can provide opportunities for
teachers to share creative approaches to teaching:

Where I have taught in the past, some of the ways that creativity in teaching has
been encouraged include:

 Allocating 5 minutes at the start of regular course meetings for someone to

showcase a new idea they have come up with
 Using part of Blackboard as an Instructors’ site where innovative ideas can be
posted and discussed
 Encouraging teachers to see the lunch room as an appropriate place to talk
about what they are trying out in class
 Telling stories about things that didn’t work so that an atmosphere of openness
and experimentation is created
 Searching for ways to share resources and NOT “reinvent the wheel” so that
teachers can spend time developing creative responses to the curriculum, rather
than doing ‘busy work’

2.2. The institution encourages creative partnership.

Teachers are often most creative when they get the support and encouragement of oth-
ers. There are several ways in which this can be achieved.
• Through team teaching
• Through peer observation
• Through shared lesson planning

Some years ago in a programme I was teaching on, we instituted the idea of regu-
lar peer observations in order to increase a sense of ownership of the course and
enhance teachers’ confidence in their ability to teach at any level. One unexpected
outcome was that teachers began sharing their teaching materials more widely and
came up with a system of depositing a copy of any new material they developed in a
central file so that others could use it if they chose to. This had the spin-off effect of
releasing some preparation time for more creative activities.

2.3. The institution provides resources to support creative teaching

If teachers want to develop creative teaching resources to support their teaching, they
need access to a good resource center with up-to-date books, journals, magazines,
computers, technology, whiteboards, etc. they can use. An environment and culture
that encourages creativity and provides the resources teachers need in order to realize

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their creative potential is a key component of the creative capital needed to support
creative teaching.

Having access to a well-resourced library is critical for creative teachers. When I

first arrived at AUS I set up Journal Alerts which send me an email message each
time an issue of one of my favorite journals is published. Years ago, when I started
teaching, I had to make a special trip to the library to read the latest journals on
the shelf. Now I can do so from my office or even from home, simply by clicking on
the library catalogue. That is a huge help and a great timesaver when you are look-
ing for new ideas for the classroom.

My university is also very generous in allowing us to recommend new books that

we hear about from the publishers who visit us at the start of each semester. Some-
times I read about a new way of presenting material in a journal like Language
Teaching Research or ELT Journal which I am reading with my MA TESOL stu-
dents. Then I get the chance to try out the approach with the learners in my aca-
demic writing class. In this way the library is a huge source of inspiration and in-
novation.

2.4. The school rewards creative teachers

A school can acknowledge the value of creative teachers by recognizing their contri-
butions in different ways. For example,
• by acknowledging their achievements in in-house newsletters or annual re-
ports when appropriate
• by giving them opportunities to mentor novice teachers
• by encouraging them to share their ideas with others by speaking at brown-bag
lunch sessions, giving seminars or workshops or leading a discussion in staff
meetings

One of the best ways that our university rewards creative teachers is by encourag-
ing them to submit an abstract for the annual TESOL conference and offering to
pay their registration if their paper is accepted. This introduces novice teachers to
the professional world of pedagogy-based research and encourages them to make
connections with teachers in other places who are engaged in similar kinds of
teaching. Making the time to analyze and discuss the teaching and learning ap-
proaches you are adopting in class and consider why some are more effective than
others can also be very motivating. Sometimes it even leads to teachers engaging in
small-scale action research projects.

CONCLUSIONS

14
We have focused here on just one aspect of teaching. There are many other important
dimensions to effective teaching. But adding the concept of creative teaching to our
understanding of what it means to be an effective (language) teacher has benefits for
teachers, for learners, and for institutions. Creative teaching helps learners develop
their capacities for original ideas and for creative thinking. It also improves the qual-
ity of their learning experiences and can help them develop increased levels of moti-
vation and even self-esteem. For the teacher, it provides a source of ongoing profes-
sional renewal and satisfaction – since when learners are engaged, motivated, and
successful, teaching is motivating for all concerned. For the institution, it can lead to
increased levels of satisfaction for both teachers and students as well as contribute to
the quality, effectiveness, and reputation of the school. Creative learners need creative
teachers, and teachers need to work in institutions where creativity is valued and
shared.

15
Questions for discussion

1. Do you see yourself as a particularly creative teacher? If so, do you draw on

some of the same principles that Sara describes?

2. Can you give examples of language learning activities that have some of the
characteristics of creative tasks mentioned on page X?

3. Do you think experienced teachers are more likely to be creative than novice
teachers. Why or why not?

4. Can you think of a task that could be used to assess levels of creativity in a
group of novice teachers?

5. Is a teacher who is more creative than another teacher necessarily a better

teacher?

6. Examine the exercises and activities in one or more units from an ESL text-
book. To what extent do you judge them a) to involve creativity on the part of
the writer b) to allow for creative responses from learners?

7. Do you think activities that involve controlled practice of language items can
also require creative responses on the part of the learner? Give examples.

8. An activity that may have been creative when it was first used, becomes less
so when it is used repeatedly over a period of time. Does this mean teachers
should constantly be looking for new and creative ways of doing things?

9. What are some ways in which novice teachers can learn to think and teach
more creatively?

10. How can experienced teachers keep their creative spark alive, particularly
when they have taught a given course many times?

11. How can a teacher find out how the learners perceive an activity that is being
introduced for the first time?

12. Ask students to bring to class a text which they would like to spend time on in
class. Encourage them to be as creative as possible in the type of text they
bring (advertisement, email message, photograph of a poster or graffiti etc).
Allow several days between their bringing the material to class and your using
it, to allow you to think of creative ways of using it.

16
Suggestions for further research

1. Design a way of measuring the effect of creative classroom tasks on the nature
of learner participation in a class of L2 learners.

2. Develop a questionnaire that could be used to assess the extent to which teach-
ers engage in creative practices in their teaching. Then pilot the questionnaire.

3. Invite a colleague to come to one of your regular classes to observe. Think

about something you would like to find out about your teaching, such as how
much you talk in class, compared to the students, and ask your colleague to
keep a simple tally of "turns" (T v St) or an approximate time tally. Use this
information to prepare a survey for the students about how comfortable they
feel asking questions, initiating activities or sharing information with class-
mates in your class. You may be surprised what you find out, especially if
you ask them to submit their surveys anonymously.

17
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