Creativity In The English Classroom

Introduction

Integrating creative activities in English language teaching encourages learners to practice an important element in language learning which lies behind personal growth and the development of culture and society. Creativity is a process that promotes a more open, curious and questioning relationship to others and to the world. The first part of this research paper explains Visible Thinking and its link to creative thinking. Then a more practical part follows with suggestions on how the approach is useful in the English classroom.

Visible Thinking

Visible Thinking is a research based approach that looks into how we can encourage learners’ engagement and understanding. The idea is to nurture students’ thinking by ‘externalising’

How to make thinking visible

Visible thinking of students depends on three aspects: questioning, listening and documenting

Questioning

Thinking routines will be at the core of Visible Thinking which is short, flexible structures like a short sequence of steps or a set of questions – questions that enhance curiosity. Instruct students to observe, make interpretations, connections and build ideas. Students can work in pairs or groups, when these are used systematically – in this case in combination with visual learning stimuli – can be made relevant to specific content.

Listening

Listening is active sharing that involves the extent to which we sincerely listen to and value individual’s ideas. It involves a constant interplay between the group and the individual that allows for a better relationship between teachers and learners.

Documenting

Documenting includes:

• Using sticky notes where students’ responses are recorded

• Taking notes

• Keeping journals

• Papers of constructive ideas on the walls

• Writing learning

During this experimentation the researcher explored how visual stimuli and Visible Thinking approach can be included in the English classroom. It is clear that thinking cannot be nurtured without content and a wide variety of visual stimuli such as images, animation films and paintings where each session was of 40 – 50 minute teaching sessions. For every theme apart from the thinking routines, activities that focused on vocabulary and grammar were developed. Constant was done, not in the form of tests but through notes and projects prepared by students. The researcher worked with two groups that consist of 11 to 13 students of mixed ability whose age group is of 12 to 13 years. They are of 8th grade state school whose English language is from pre-intermediate to upper-intermediate. Here are the descriptions of the thinking patterns used in the classroom atmosphere.

Perceive-believe-care about

This activity makes the students to step inside a character and deepen their understanding of other’s perspective.

Aim

It helps to stimulate empathy.

Materials

A photograph, a story the class has read, or a video.

Note: events related to social justice (racism, a historical event or slavery) can evoke an emotional response and lead to more creative understanding.

Procedure

Introduce the material and ask the students to step inside and place themselves in the situation. From this perspective