Combining Creativities: the Easiest Way In

Chaz Pugliese, France

Chaz Pugliese is a trainer, presenter and author working out of Paris. Previously Academic Director for Teacher Training at Pilgrims, he’s now self-employed while he continues to be associated with Pilgrims. He is a regular presenter at all major ELT events and has published several book chapters as well as numerous articles for several ELT journals. He has two books out, Being Creative (Delta, 2010) and Principled Communicative Approach (with Z.Dörnyei and Jane Arnold, Helbling, 2015). His interests are: creativity and motivation, group processes, and corpus linguistics. He’s a keen guitarist and likes any music that’s raw, honest and real. E-mail: chazpugliese@gmail.com

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Introduction
Combinational strategy
Conclusions

Introduction

For creativity to happen, a few elements are needed: firstly, one must have the resolve to engage and produce something creative, that is, in our field, an idea that is both original and valuable. Professor Robert Sternberg, arguably the world's leading researcher in creativity studies, has defined creativity as a 'decision you take'. Secondly, one must possess an open mindset, an 'ok, let's-see- -what-happens attitude, as opposed to 'Uhm... This will never work... The students won't like it..'. In other words, a willingness to leave the door wide open to possibilities and embrace the unknown, the uncertainties. Thirdly, one needs strategies. Since creativity doesn't materialize out of the blue, nor is it something that gets bestowed on a few lucky individuals, it follows one has to have a gameplan, so to speak, that works for them.

Combinational strategy

One of the first psychologists to show an interest in strategies was Dr Paul E. Torrance who famously drew up a list of a few dozens of them. Discussing these is obviously beyond the scope of this short article. Instead I'd like to focus on one strategy in particular which psychologists agree may constitute the easiest and fastest way into the creative process. I am talking about the Combinational Strategy, a.k.a. association, which consists of basically blending your own creativity with someone else's. This is how it works in practice: if I decide to use a poem for language learning purposes, I will design a classroom activity (or more, if I'm inspired) based on that poem. The interesting thing is it doesn't have to be my own poem, or anything I've written: I'm using the poet's creativity and my own to come up with a classroom exercise.

One of the best examples of Combinational Strategy at work in our field is a book called 'Dictation: New Methods, New Possibilities' written by Paul Davis and Mario Rinvolucri and published by Cambridge University Press. The whole book comprises a series of exercises around dictation, some of which, like The running Dictation, have now become classics and feature in many English Language teachers' toolbox.

This is Combinational Creativity at his best: who invented dictation? Who knows... and we don't really care, anyway... What Davis and Rinvolucri did was use the original technique (dictation) and come up with a series of variations on a theme. Here's an (edited) example from the book that neatly illustrates how the principle works in practice:

1. Post copies of a text on the front wall of the classroom or out in the corridor.
2. Pair the students off and designate one in each pair as the 'sribe' and the other as the 'messenger'.
3. The messenger goes and reads from the wall, brings back as much as she can remember, and dictates it to the scribe.

Variation.

Divide the lass into two groups. Each group should form a line with the text at one end and a student who has a pencil and paper at the other. The students relay the dictation along the line to their 'secretary' as in Chinese whispers.

Another great example of how the Combinational Creativity works in practice is Alan Maley's and Alan Duff's : 'The Inward Ear: Poetry in the Language Classroom' for Cambridge University Press.

And obviously, there are numerous examples of this type of strategy in the arts: take Bach's Goldberg variations, for instance, or just think of the sheer number of versions of Gershwin's famous 'Summertime' have been released since the song was first released.

Conclusions

So, if you believe that creativity can have a huge impact on our teaching, next time you come across a poem, or a text, a picture, or a piece of music, ask yourself how you could use it with your students. Experiment, trust the process and don't forget to have fun!

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.