Unpacking Creativity for Language Teaching

Tan Bee Tin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000594959
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

Before unlocking creativity, we must first unpack what it means. In this book, creativity is unravelled from various perspectives and the relevance for language teaching and learning is explored.

Tin offers a coherent discussion of creativity, adopting an inclusive and integrated but, at the same time, focused approach to creativity. Divided into 12 chapters, the book covers:

• A critical review of the way the term 'creativity' is used, defined and written about in various disciplines
• Various models and theories of creativity, the product- and process-oriented views of creativity and their relevance for language teaching
• Three pillars on which creative language pedagogy should be based
• Over 60 practical tasks, applying theoretical arguments and principles of creativity to language teaching and learning

Based on the author's own practice and research on creativity over the last two decades, the book provides exciting new ideas for scholars and practitioners interested in creativity and creative language pedagogy. The book serves as an important contribution for students, teachers and scholars in the field of applied linguistics, language teaching and education.

1IntroductionUnpacking creativity and aims of the book

DOI: 10.4324/9781003225393-1

Introduction

‘Creativity’ has received increased attention in recent years in various disciplines. With reference to the discipline of language teaching and learning, this increased attention is reflected in the appearance of several recently published books, mainly edited books, in which language teachers, practitioners and language teacher educators come together and reflect on their various pedagogic practices and disciplinary expertise through the creativity lens (e.g. see Bao (ed), 2018; Jones (ed), 2015; Jones and Richards (eds), 2016; Maley and Peachey (eds), 2015). This chapter discusses the increased popularity of this secondary use of the term creativity in recent years, both in the academic and non-academic domain, and how this leads to the fragmentation of the field, diluting the meaning of creativity. It describes the aims of the book and the need to revitalise the creativity terminological landscape and unpack creativity before it is applied to language teaching.

Turning back to the word ‘creativity’

The uses of the term creativity in academia can be divided into two types: primary vs secondary uses. On the one hand, there are academics who have spent a large amount of their research and pedagogic life, primarily focusing on and researching creativity and its other associated terms. In the field of applied linguistics, an example of such primary use can be found in the work of scholars such as Carter (2004) and Cook (2000), who are well known for their focus on creativity or other associated terms such as language play. On the other hand, especially in recent years along with the popularity of creativity in the public and academic domain, secondary use of creativity has emerged among scholars through publications (especially edited books) where chapter authors are invited and encouraged to freely connect their various primary issues with an aspect of creativity. For example, in the opening chapter (Chapter 1) of their edited book titled ‘Creativity in Language Teaching: Perspectives from Research and Practice’, Jones and Richards (2016) wrote under a sub-heading titled ‘What is Creativity?’:

When we were inviting contributions for this book, most of them replied to the invitation with the same question: “Yes, but what do you mean by creativity? Is there some definition or theory of creativity that you want me to follow?” Our response was always to hand the question back to them, to ask, “What does creativity mean to you? How do you define it?” We did this not just because it seemed to be in keeping with the spirit of creativity that motivated this project in the first place but also because of our awareness that creativity is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, and constraining our discussion to just one aspect or theory of creativity seemed counterproductive. (Jones & Richards, 2016: 4–5).

The above quote reflects a popular assumption concerning creativity as having the freedom to choose. Such an assumption often results in a somewhat ill-understood secondary use of creativity. It contributes to a fragmentation of the field: researchers in one discipline are often unaware of advances in another discipline (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). ‘Each approach taken by a researcher concentrates on the issue of creativity differently; devising their own theories, methods, and investigative paradigms’ (Batey & Furnham, 2006 cited in Dorniak-Wall, 2016: p. 33).

The increased popularity of the secondary use of creativity in the field of applied linguistics and language teaching in recent years makes one wonder: why have practitioners and applied linguists primarily renowned for other issues (e.g. second language acquisition, genre analysis, materials development, language teaching methodologies, curriculum development, English for academic and specific purposes) come together to celebrate creativity? One reason may be the increasing popularity and the ubiquitous presence of the word creativity not only in academic fields but also in public domains. Creativity has been used in various disciplines and domains ranging from business, technology, politics, economy, psychology, arts, science, education, linguistics, applied linguistics, language teaching and so on. Creativity has been written about not only in the form of academic genre (i.e. scholarly publications such as books, chapters, journal articles) but also in the form of popular social genres such as blogs, Facebook, YouTube, TED talk, promotional genres (e.g. creativity coaching workshops and ads for business and organisations) and popular non-fiction books usually published under the category of popular science, lifestyle, health and wellness. Accordingly, the current popularity of creativity in language teaching/learning and applied linguistics seems to be a natural consequence – an act born out of a natural human desire not to be left behind but to be in line with the current trend.

Another reason for such popular secondary use may be the increasing democratisation of the notion of creativity in academic, scholarly publications and popular non-fiction publications. Creativity is nowadays viewed as a property of all human beings, scholars and lay people, ordinary and extraordinary people. In this view, creativity is inherent in all our practices either explicitly or implicitly. When this egalitarian view is applied to the field of language teaching and applied linguistics, it seems as if what we have been practising as researchers, teachers, curriculum developers can all now be labelled as part of the creativity terminological landscape. One can go as far as claiming that ‘all teaching involves acts of creativity’ (Richards & Cotterall, 2016: 97), all language use is creative (e.g. Swann & Maybin, 2007), we can all ‘discover [our] ‘AHA’ moment right now!’ as claimed in a popular non-fiction book on creativity by Christensen (2015).

In books published under the title of creativity, our current and past practices and disciplinary focus have been renamed, re-packaged and retold under the creativity label. Although this is a viable view, the word creativity runs a risk of becoming irrelevant. After all, if everything can be described as creative, is there a need to denote it as creative? If creativity is the norm or a property of the majority as claimed by many researchers, then we should be studying what is abnormal minority – non-creativity. This is an approach some writers have taken, talking about ‘uncreativity’ as opposed to ‘creativity’ (see Bilton, 2015).

Numerous books have been written over the last few decades which have used ‘creativity’ or ‘creative’ in the book title. For example, the amazon book search returns over 30,000 results for books which contain the word ‘creativity’ and over 50,000 results for books which contain the word ‘creative’ in the title (search date, 11 September 2020). The concept of creativity is becoming increasingly popular in both the non-academic and academic domains, in both scholarly and public communities. Along with this fast-growing interest in creativity in various disciplines and among second language teacher educators and ELT (English Language Teaching) professionals, there is a danger of the term ‘creativity’ becoming another buzz word. Its use continues without proper discussion and conceptualisation. The word creativity may have become a victim of its own success and popularity (e.g. Cropley, 2016). Many (including myself in my earlier publications and presentations) may have jumped on the creativity terminological bandwagon, hastily defining creativity within a few sentences and re-packaging their current and past practices under the creativity label. Such secondary uses often result in the fragmentation of the term creativity and contribute to its elusiveness.

Aims of the book: Revitalising the creativity terminological landscape

Paradoxically, despite the copious literature on creativity, there is a scarcity. What is often missing among this prolific array of publications on creativity is a coherent monographic book-length discussion of creativity, adopting an inclusive and integrated but, at the same time, focused approach to creativity – an approach which takes into account how creativity has been conceptualised in various disciplines but which, at the same time, zooms into the usefulness of these various conceptualisations for a specific discipline (i.e. language teaching and learning).

This proposed book attempts to:

• do justice to the term creativity by turning back to the word creativity itself before applying it to language teaching and learning practices.
• take a critical look at the use of the term creativity and move from an elusive to a more inclusive and integrated use.
• revitalise the word creativity from its secondary use to a proper place where it deserves to be.

Before unlocking creativity, we must first unpack what it means. In this book, creativity is unravelled from various perspectives and the relevance for language teaching and learning is explored. Throughout this book, from time to time, I take a break and include tasks for the readers to give them a break too, to take them on a detour to discover and unlock their hidden creativity, helping them to transform creativity from potential to performance, from inherent ability to emergent reality.

The outline of the book

The book is divided into 12 chapters. Chapter 1 (the current chapter) introduces the aims of the book and the need to unpack creativity before it is applied to language teaching. It briefly discusses the increased popularity of the secondary use of the term creativity in recent years, both in the academic and non-academic domains, and how this leads to a fragmentation of the field, diluting the meaning of creativity. Chapters 2–6 examine the concept of creativity with reference to various disciplines. Chapter 2 proposes that instead of asking what creativity means, the question one should ask is: how has creativity been used? The chapter explores the creativity terminological landscape by examining various approaches, perspectives, models and frameworks which have been used to define and research creativity in the academic literature. Chapter 3 discusses the common core shared among various discussions of creativity and examines the semiotic makeup of the common definition of creativity. In doing so, it shows how the elusiveness of the word creativity and other words used to talk about creativity have a large semantic footprint, making the word elusive but paradoxically inclusive at the same time. It shows how relatively simple words can be expanded to accommodate various meanings and interpretations of creativity proposed in the literature. The next three chapters (Chapters 4, 5 and 6) discuss three associated terms widely used in the field of creativity literature: heuristics, constraints and algorithms. These terms highlight three cognitive thinking styles we can use to facilitate creativity. Implications for the domain of language teaching are also considered and illustrated throughout various chapters.

Chapters 7 and 8 take the reader to the field of applied linguistics and language teaching. It examines the creativity terminological landscape with reference to language and language teaching. Chapter 7 examines the discourse of creativity in language teaching publications in recent years (between 2012 and 2018). It looks at who has been writing about creativity in language teaching and what and how it has been written about in recent years.

Chapter 8 looks at creativity from the linguistic perspective and shifts the attention from the language of creativity to the creativity of language. It dissects linguistic creativity through question words, prepositions and lexical associations.

Chapters 9–11 make a proposal for creative language pedagogy and propose three main pillars on which creative language pedagogy should be based. The first pillar presented in Chapter 9 concerns the view of language as a tool for creativity. Based on the view of linguistic creativity discussed in Chapter 8 and the meaning of creativity proposed in Chapters 2–7, the chapter presents how to teach language for creativity. The goal of creative language pedagogy is to promote creativity (both domain-general and domain-specific) in our learners. The second pillar presented in Chapter 10 is concerned with the view of language learning. The goal of creative language pedagogy is not just to promote creativity but also to develop more advanced, complex language in our learners. The chapter examines how the view of language learning found in the usage-based model of language and language learning is vital for understanding the link between creativity and language learning. The third pillar presented in Chapter 11 deals with the view of language teaching as a creative act. Creative language pedagogy is not just about teaching language for creativity but also about teaching language creatively. While the former focuses on student creativity, the latter is concerned with teacher creativity through materials development, reflective teaching and teacher development.

Chapter 12 attempts to bring the various chapters together. It summarises various key issues and their implications for creative language teaching. Finally, Epilogue shares the creativity journey I embarked on over the last two decades (between 2000 and 2020) – a journey featured with both positive and negative emotions.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Endorsements Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Tasks
• 1 Introduction: Unpacking creativity and aims of the book
• 2 The language of creativity: Exploring the terminological landscape of creativity
• 3 Creativity as an inclusive term: Locating its common core
• 4 Heuristics and creativity
• 5 Constraints and creativity
• 6 Algorithms and creativity
• 7 The discourse of creativity in language teaching publications (2012–2018)
• 8 Segmentation of creativity from a linguistic perspective (from language of creativity to creativity of language)
• 9 View of language and creative language pedagogy
• 10 View of language learning and creative language pedagogy
• 11 View of language teaching and creative language pedagogy
• 12 Conclusion: Unpacking creativity for language teaching and learning
• Epilogue: My creativity journey: My journey to the West – to creativity
• References
• Appendices
• Index