Book Review: Creativity in English Language Teaching edited by Daniel Xerri and Odette Vassallo

reviewed by Zarina Markova, Bulgaria

Zarina Markova is a language teacher educator at the South West University, Blagoevgrad, where she teaches Language Acquisition and ELT Methodology, supervises teaching practice and conducts state teacher certification examinations. She also does teacher training for the British Council and co-edits BETA-IATEFL Publications. E-mail: zarinamarkova@abv.bg

Xerri, D. & Vassallo, O. (Eds), (2016,. Creativity in English Language Teaching,
Valletta: ELT Council, 195 pp.
free online: www.danielxerri.com
ISBN 978-99957-1-000-2

Creativity in English Language Teaching, edited by Daniel Xerri and Odette Vassallo, is one of the recent responses by the ELT community to the renewed interest in creativity and education. It comprises 19 chapters based on talks and workshops delivered at the 4th ELT Malta Conference. The authors, international and Maltese ELT experts, present a kaleidoscope of perspectives on creativity in foreign language teaching in a range of contexts: teaching, teacher education, materials selection and writing, language studies.

Most chapters in the book seek to provide answers to the following questions: What is creativity? Why is it important? How/where can it be spotted? How can it be promoted?

Defining creativity is considered a daunting task, not least because it may narrow the scope of its exploration. Yet, some of the authors find it vital to establish a definition of creativity that makes sense within the context of ELT (Xerri & Vassalo, p. 2), and thus explore explicit and implicit definitions of the construct to illustrate what can be regarded as creative (Formosa & Zammit, p.26; Clare, p.46). Others come up with a number of characteristics of the creative act (Maley, pp. 10-11; Pugliese, p. 20). These initial threads are woven together to produce a logical, convincing line that emphasizes the importance of creativity in foreign language teaching: it enhances self-regulation, reflection and growth on part of the teacher (Spiro, p.X), maximizes both outcomes (better learning) and process (e.g., better engagement, satisfaction) (Maley, p. 12). What is more, creative pedagogy broadens students’ horizons not only on content, themes and topics, but also on themselves (Formosa & Zammit, p. 26) – a view in tune with the current argument in creativity research against the art- and the productivity-bias, and for a stronger focus on creative potentials (Runco, M. 2008).

Following this train of thought, readers can easily see that creativity can be found in every domain of human activity, and the descriptions of practical examples and pedagogical techniques in nearly every chapter confirm that the English language classroom is no exception. However, in the pursuit of clarification as to where and how creativity can be spotted, some authors adopt a more theoretical, language-focused approach and remind us that language itself, though rule-governed, is dialogic and combinatorial, and thus inherently creative. This line of reasoning starts with Scott Thornbury’s preface to the book – an elegant conversation about language repetition, imitation and co-creation with writers, scholars, artistes as remote in time, space, and sometimes context, as Mikhail Bakhtin, Alistair Pennycook, Eva Hoffman and DJ Spooky. The thread of language as conversation and co-construction continues in Creativity and conversation: key concepts in spoken grammar, where McCarthy and McCarten consider research findings concerning the grammar of conversation, and argue that creative activities by themselves cannot bring about natural conversational language – it has to be overtly taught (McCarthy & McCarten, p. 134). This stance chimes with the theme of Colouring outside the lines, namely that creative ideas cannot just be thrown into a lesson for their own sake – they must have an aim, and to determine this aim, understanding of the language and language learning is needed (Formosa & Zammit, p.28). Still with language imitation and learning in mind, William B. Laidlaw and Justyna Rogers focus on a language aspect where defying conformity can cause miscomprehension and confusion. They question the classic bottom-up approach to teaching pronunciation and claim that a novel top-down approach can lead to acquiring pronunciation good enough for the expression of meaning. To make their argument more compelling, they bring forth tried-and-tested activities to solve pronunciation issues, and ways to measure students’ achievements within a top-down framework (Laidlaw & Rogers, pp. 152-153).

In answer to the last question, how creativity can be promoted, the book provides vivid descriptions of stimulating activities that result in something new and of value to the English language classroom. Within these descriptions, two strands can be distinguished. The first one explores opportunities allowing foreign language students to become consumers of creative content, which in turn stimulates them to notice, think, speak and write in an unusual or novel way. The content can include products of Creativity with a big C. Such is the case with Literature in the ELT classroom: “No way, José!” or “Oh yes, s’il vous plaît!”?, where Rebeka Mammo explores the potential of authentic literary texts for empowering students as active users of the language. Another example is English through art: an ELT enrichment, in which Jean Sciberras provides art-based activities that stimulate language learning. Creative content can also contain products of everyday creativity: graffiti, artistic names and riddles (JJ Wilson, pp. 36-37) or advertisements (Candy Fresacher, pp. 113-117) – they all have the power to catch students’ attention, entertain and delight, and thus aid memorization and inspire linguistic creation.

The second strand encompasses discussions of ways for providing affordances for creative language production: Antonia Clare demonstrates practical ideas for employing frameworks, emotions and the senses to create short texts and poems (Clare, pp. 50-54); Alan Marsh argues for using accessible poems to inspire learners to experiment with grammatical, lexical and phonological features of English, and to create their own ‘learner poetry’ (Marsh, pp. 88-96); Candy Fresacher describes guidelines that allow her students to create their own advertisements (Fresacher, pp. 113-117); Stephanie Xerri Agius emphasizes on the need for teachers to become writing role models, and provides examples of stimulus-material activities to inspire both students’ and teachers’ writing (Xerri Agius, pp. 69-73).

The book contains several chapters that do not seem to address creativity in English language teaching as directly as the rest, and therefore may be considered remote and disconnected. Yet, they provide accounts of various aspects of language teaching and learning, and could be regarded as a useful by-product of a teachers’ conference. Or, readers that subscribe to the view that creativity involves effective surprise (Bruner, 1962) could appreciate their inclusion as another manifestation of creativity. Regardless of the perspective taken, these chapters have the potential to fuel teachers’ imagination for modifying the way they teach.

In sum, Creativity in English Language Teaching is well-balanced, informative, and can be stimulating for different types of educators: language teachers interested in their own creativity as professionals or in their students’ creativity as language learners; teacher trainers exploring new paths to fostering professional development; materials writers looking for fresh ideas; and even scholars in search of inspiration.

References

Bruner, J. S. (1962) On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand. Cambridge. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press

Runco, M. (2008) Creativity and Education. New Horizons in Education. v56 n1 http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ832901.pdf Retrieved on 03.05.2017.

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