张卉芹 四川省成都市武侯区成都蒙彼利埃小学 610041
中图分类号：G652.2 文献标识码：A 文章编号：ISSN1001-2982 （2021）9-100-02
1. Introduction
Education has always been related to and even has an important effect on the growth of the economy of a country (Dutta et al, 1999). To keep pace with the fast development of society, governments of different countries should pay attention to education. Creative and innovative capacity is a critical factor of success for people hunting for a job and for countries becoming more powerful (MacDonald, 2005), especially in today’s knowledge-based society. Therefore, creativity is important for both individuals and countries, which encourages countries to integrate creativity into the curriculum framework (Le Metais, 2003).
2.1 Creativity in education
Vygotsky (2004) concluded that the creative development of a person is based on a combination of creative thinking and real world experience. Despite the lack of research, copious attention and discussion surrounds creativity in the educational field. According to Piaget, the essence goal of education is to help people become more creative and innovative (Fisher, 1995). Therefore, education at all levels plays a significant role in engaging, stimulating and developing learners’ creativity to meet the demands of workplaces, society and even life-long learning (Robinson,2011).
When it comes to creativity in classrooms, the priority is to make a distinction between ‘teaching creatively’ and ‘teaching for creativity’ (NACCCE, 1999:89). The former is regarded as making learning more interesting and highly efficient by using different imaginative teaching methods. The latter is defined as ways of fostering learners’ creative ability. Craft, Jeffrey and Leibling (2001:5) regarded these two as ‘effective pedagogy’ and ‘creativity for empowerment’ respectively, it is wise for teachers to focus on both rather than be polarized to one of them. Meanwhile, Craft and Jeffrey (2004) concluded that the relationship between these two is supportive to each other and they also suggested that ‘creative learning’ is more general and proper than ‘teaching for creativity’ because the former provides the opportunity to learn in a creative way.
2.2 Creativity in EFL classroom
People commonly think that creativity always exists in subjects like music and arts. However, as Woods and Jeffery (1996) concluded that education is creative, teaching with creativity should be seen in any subjects at school (NACCCE, 1999; Newton & Beverton, 2012). Robinson (cited in Newton & Newton, 2014) agreed with this point and stated creativity should be a function of everything teachers and learners do in class and creativity should be implemented into the whole curriculum instead of just several subjects. Creativity has many functions in different disciplines; therefore, it is inevitable that teachers should understand creativity not only on the whole curriculum scale but also on a subject-specific scale (Newton & Newton, 2014).
When it comes to English teaching and learning, learners learn mostly by repetition of the familiar discourse patterns (Carmeron, 2001). However, language learning usually happens efficiently by using L2 in real situations through conversational interaction (Robert, 1973 cited in Wang & Kokotsaki, 2018). Students should communicate and interact with others to make their language communication meaningful (Lightbown and Spada, 2013: 114). Therefore, collaboration and interaction between students can be done creatively in order to better retrieve learners’ language memories (Cremin, 2009; Schmitt, 2000). What’s more, creative thinking can help students boost their motivation (Beetlestone, 1998; Read, 2015; Hadfield and Hadfeild,2015), which is an important determinant of gaining L2 learning achievement (Dörnyei, 1994).
2.3 Requirements of teachers in EFL creative classroom
Different teachers’ views of creativity show strong similarities, even in different parts of the world, and most of them think creativity of both teachers and learners is dependent on originality and independence (Newton & Beverton, 2012). However, there are many other requirements for teachers to be creative in classroom.
Firstly, Vygotsky (2004: 84) suggested that in order to improve children’s creativity, it is meaningful and of priority to find the criterions of freedom both for teacher themselves and for providing freedom to learners. Woods and Jeffery (1997: 31) found that an ideal creative teacher in students’ eyes should: pay attention to students’ feelings; teach the curriculum with fun; maintain and respect students’ individual differences and encourage students to question teachers. Furthermore, Cremin, Burnard, and Craft (2006) argued that there are three core factors for teachers making classes creative: adopt a learner centered attitude, let learners make choices about activities, patience in give learners enough time to think and come up with new ideas.
2.4 Learners’ characteristics in primary school
According to Ellis (2014), learners in primary school belong to the group of young learners. Piaget (cited in Carmeron, 2001) stated that young learners are active and only learn new things through concrete concepts with short attention spans (Ratminigsih&Budasi, 2018). What’s more, they like being praised by teachers and parents and are good at imitating things they see or hear (Ratminigsih,2012, 2014 cited in Ratminigsih 2018). They are full of curiosity and like to imagine and play (Ratminigsih,2012, 2014 cited in Ratminigsih 2018). They are passionate to explore the world around them and are good at understanding things by trial and error (Holt,1991). However, learners in primary schools are different from leaners in preschools, who may not share the same attitude towards different things and feel embarrassed in front of others when they make mistakes (Ratminigsih&Budasi, 2018).
2.5 Creative ELT in China（studies/researches）
As we all know creativity was first prioritized and became famous from western countries in the context of education, therefore, many studies and a lot of research into creativity are in western contexts. However, it is worthwhile to find out how teachers and students view creativity in other part of the world too, such as Asia.
Niu and Kaufman analyse and compare Chinese and American cultures towards creativity (Niu& Kaufman, 2013). This analysis revealed features of creativity from a Chinese perspective. Firstly, creativity can be acquired by everyone through learning (Hu et al, 2013). Secondly, creativity can be developed along with people’s growth (Zhang&Niu,2013). Thirdly, creativity can be promoted by hardworking and practice. Fourthly, the more experienced the teacher is, the more freedom a teacher has to foster creativity for learners. These findings show that Chinese culture plays an important role in people’s understanding of creativity, in which learning and practicing are the vital factors for achieving creativity (Niu& Kaufman, 2013).
Besides curriculum objectives and teaching approaches, Craft (2000) mentioned the importance of classroom layout to creativity classroom. The layout of the classroom should be beneficial for not only individual tasks but also for pair or group works to foster children’s creativity. However, in the Chinese classroom, there are about 45 students sitting in rows with less fluid physical movement areas, with the exception of the platform. Pictures or posts in English on the wall of the classrooms are also very rarely seen in stark contrast to western classrooms. Blackboard and smartboard can be used in each classroom, which combines the traditional way of teaching with technology. Assessment is usually held twice a semester with listening, speaking, writing and reading parts, in which reading and writing stand a large proportion.
3. Conclusion
The essay has outlined the benefits of using creative teaching in EFL classroom in primary schools in China. The challenges of implementation are also listed. Meanwhile several practical recommendations are suggested which are underpinned by many theoretical and practical suggestions from educators and researchers in education and even the EFL field. Although the context of the essay is classrooms in primary schools in China, most recommendations in the literature review can be adopted in the wider educational environment. Such as using arts in the class, trying different games and activities at different stages of the lesson. What’s more, some suggestions cannot be used directly, instead they should be modified in order to be applicable in Chinese traditional culture and social context. Schools should try to scaffold teachers mentally and physically by rewarding creative teachers and providing up-to-date teaching resources for teachers. Teaching skills and methods should be enriched with a learner-ce ntered approach. This will improve teachers’ understanding of learners’ personalities and thinking processes allowing them to treat students equally. It also enables teachers to provide a safe environment for learners to speak freely with target language.
Having a better understanding of creative teaching in EFL classroom is beneficial for schools, teachers and learners. Schools can worry less about teaching quality and student enrollment if they have a good reputation for a creative teaching syllabus. Teachers can largely improve their teaching skills and feel a sense of achievement because they can see the progress of learners’. Learners can not only develop their linguistic intelligence, but also foster an intrinsic motivation of learning knowledge by trial and error in conjunction with the development of various abilities, such as divergent thinking (Read, 2015), interpersonal skills and so on.
Being creative is not only beneficial for language learning or teaching, it is a critical capacity in today’s fast-paced society. However, for Chinese people, being creative means changing social and cultural attitudes, an educational system, individual conceptions and personalities. This cannot be achieved in a short period (Cheng, 2010). Although this essay only provides a few recommendations to solve the challenges of being creative in an EFL classroom in China, it shows several areas that educators and researchers should address in the future: the social and culture influence, schools’ system and policy, teachers and learners themselves.
References
[1]Heathfield, D. (2015). Personal and creative storytelling: telling our stories. In A. Maley, &N.Peachey(Eds.). Creativity in the English language classroom(pp.29-36). London: British Council.
[2]Hadfield, J. and Hadfield, C. (2015). Teaching grammar creatively. In A. Maley, &N.Peachey(Eds.). Creativity in the English language classroom(pp.29-36). London: British Council.
[3]Hu, W., Wu, B., Jia, X., Meyer, W., & Kaufman, J. C. (2013). Increasing students’ scientific creativity: The “learn to think” intervention program. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 47(1).
[4]Ratminingsih,N. M. and Budasi, I. G. (2018). Local culture-based picture storybooks for teaching English for young learners. SHS Web of Conferences, Vol.42.
[5]Wang, L.J. and Kokotsaki, D. (2018). Primary school teachers’ conceptions of creativity in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in China. Thinking Skills and Creativity, Vol.29.