creativity-in-language-teaching-2015

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 80  Jane Spiro and Sue Dymoke language to the new, second language, describes how “eventually the voices enter me, by assuming them I gradually make them mine” (Hoffman, 1989, pp. 219–220). The new community’s language and conventions become not only internalized but a vehicle for self-expression.This chapter invites writers developing their practice to contrast the processes of writing for an academic setting and a creative writing audience, and in so doing, it asks how writers adapt to these two different audiences so that, like Hoffman, they make both voices their own. Methodology What? Questions and Themes In establishing congruence between our own roles as researchers and as partici- pants in the research process, we as co-researchers shared our own writing narra- tives by asking one another how we came to be the writers we are today. From our stories, we were able to deduce the following four themes around which our narratives cohered. Different Kinds of Writing/Writing Style/Writing Purpose/ Writing Audience • How would you describe yourself as a writer? What kind of writing do you engage in most comfortably/naturally? What other writing roles/identities/ styles have you developed and why? Writing Story/History • What key events have helped shape your choices and development as a writer? Writing—Self and Other • How far have others influenced you in your development as a writer? Writing and Identity • What do you consider to be your identity—or identities—as a writer? What does the term “writing identity” mean to you? Broadly, these themes seemed to offer opportunity both to describe and to evalu- ate writing experiences and also to explore the historical development of these over time.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Translating Writing Worlds  81 Who? The first challenge in the research design was establishing a transparent and work- able definition for “poet” and “academic writer.” The writers might be able to self-identify as meeting the following criteria: • actively engaged in the process of writing academically within the higher education research community; and • actively engaged in writing as a poet and in the process of publishing and/or performing their work. Writers might have had some form of visibility in these public domains through publication, performance, or external readership, including dissertations visible to external examiners and university libraries. Invitations were disseminated widely through teaching, writing, research, poetry, and professional networks. Between January and July 2014, 17 writers responded to this invitation and agreed to participate in our pilot project. The 17 writers, including ourselves as authors of this paper, represented nine subject disciplines and a wide range of writing experience in both poetry and academic domains.This is summarized in Table 6.1. The writers could elect to answer our questions either in a face-to-face inter- view or in writing by email. Coding and Analyzing the Data In order to arrive at coding categories sensitive to the richness of the data, both researchers interrogated the narratives for significant themes and patterns and TABLE 6.1  The Poet-Academic Writer Backgrounds and Experience Academic experience Doctoral work, research papers, conference presentations, book proposals, edited Academic disciplines books, grant bids, professional, pedagogic Poetry experience and academic publications, peer reviewing; teaching resources Education; learning development; social work; social sculpture; applied linguistics; literature; history; lexicography; botany Published poetry collections; pamphlets; readings; exhibitions; journal publications; editor of anthologies; poetry prize winners; poetry prize judges

82  Jane Spiro and Sue Dymoke TABLE 6.2  Coding Categories and Continua Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 The inner editor Identity with the writing process: The outer editor Pleasure Authentic or game playing? Pain Sense of audience: Writing for others or writing for self? The writing community: Support and encouragement or rejection? Crafting, honing, and writing discipline: Freedom or constraint? Challenge and pressure: Positive or negative? collated these to form a new set of categories.These categories loosely clustered along several continua, from freedom to constraint, pleasure to pain,“insider” edi- tor to “outsider” influence, and from writing as “authentic” to writing as “game playing.”Table 6.2 maps these continua as a coding tool for analyzing the data. In using the continua, it became apparent that the same situation was perceived by some of the writers as positive and inspiring and by others as deskilling and negative. For example, the intervention of external editors, the constraints of for- mal text types, and the culture of “publish or perish” in higher education settings were noted by some of the writers as a spur to writing, but by others as deskilling and negative. Similarly, processes seen by some as self-regulated and internal were seen by others as controlled and limited by external editors: for example, making linguistic choices, the shaping of discourse, the shaping of message for a specific audience. These categories were then used for coding the data, numbering each sentence/utterance thematically and identifying its position on the relevant con- tinua, from pleasure to pain, inner to outer editor. Findings Identity With the Writing Process1 The writers tended to polarize along two distinct divides: those for whom aca- demic writing was their first writing “place” and who moved later into poetry at a “second writing” stage and the reverse—those for whom poetry was the start- ing place and academic writing was (often painfully) later acquired. In describing the transition from one to the other, both groups comment on the conscious and

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Translating Writing Worlds  83 disciplined process of learning another discourse. Keris talks of “painstakingly” learning the forms and expectations of poetry from a poetry “mentor,” as she deliberately chose to adopt a poetic voice after many years as an academic social scientist. Patrick describes the unforgiving rigor of poetry peers and his own “inner editor” as he moved from academic history to poetry. The role of men- tors, peers, and role models, as well as the rigorous “inner editor,” seem to be key characteristics in making this transfer successfully. Several of the writers describe the sense of “authenticity” in their familiar writing domain and of artifice as they learned the rules of the new community. Daniel found the language of academics “pretentious and alienating” but felt he could learn it as well as his competitors and join the game. His “game playing” was fuelled by a competitive spirit to succeed in it as well as his mentors. Denise experienced poetry as her “go-to place” from childhood and academic writing as rules that needed to be internalized to gain membership in her new academic community. Involved in their transition is a strengthening of resolve, determina- tion, even competition to learn and succeed in the new discourse. In making this transition from safe to unsafe, familiar to new ground, some of the writers experienced a sense of multiple selves. Simon, a botanist, describes the poet self and the botanist self as “almost a split in personalities.” He describes a professional conference at which an audience member recognized him as an admired story writer. The experience was “as if I was meeting my other self.” Denise, a social sculptor, has developed names and personalities for the different selves she reveals and developed them into separate poems.“I am red” is the “feisty defiant self,” but the urban indigene is the self that integrates and adapts and the one who brings together poetry, activism, and doctorate-level writing. In contrast, however, several writers had no such sense of different selves. Martin writes,“I act differently in the home, in the pub, in a poetry workshop, on a mountain, in front of a lecture audience, but I don’t feel I have multiple or conflicting identities.” Ashley writes, “they’re written from different parts of my brain” but does not experience this as a conflict in any way. Whether or not these writing discourses are experienced as different “selves,” the writers acknowledge that they express different voices, different aspects of themselves, and sometimes different messages. Patrick describes how in his earlier academic history, he had referred to himself as “the author.” Changes in his posi- tioning both as a historian and as a poet had enabled him to confront the subjec- tivity of the writer and bring himself into both kinds of writing. Sense of Audience The testimonies broadly split between those who felt a strong connection with audience (and expressed a desire to communicate with them) and those who were more concerned with fulfilling their own writing drives than impact on a reader.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 84  Jane Spiro and Sue Dymoke In their poetic modes, several were inspired and encouraged by the presence of “real” audiences during performance. But the tangible sense of audience was not confined to those who met their audience in public performance. Both Ashley and Colin discuss the need for finding an appropriate and non-c­ondescending tone to address their audience. For example, Ashley writes of a specific “benev- olent mentor” stance he adopts in professional writing toward his reader. The writer–audience relationship makes constant demands on his decisions at a dis- course level:“This means I have constantly to beware of sounding too pompous, elevated and remote from the reality of my readers.” Many writers saw their own role shifting when they addressed the reader of poetry rather than the fellow professional or academic.They describe the expecta- tion of readers to be not only informed or educated but “helped or inspired by the issues.” For some, this seemed like an increased responsibility to and awareness of the audience. For others, the experimental nature of the work liberated them from the responsibility to be answerable to others. Engagement With Community We see from the testimonies in the previous section that a sense of the audi- ence and writer relationship remains significant throughout the writing process. It impacts language choice and on the freedom or otherwise to play, experiment, and write at the level of symbol. How far are these decisions influenced by encourage- ment or rejection by others? The writers testify to the fact that the response of the community provides a significant spur to action. Simon explains that he “began writing natural history because people (were) encouraging me and also feeling I was capable of doing it.” Colin describes the huge impact on his writing when he was commissioned to write a pedagogy of poetry for secondary schools. He explains the apprenticeship this entailed: “I learnt how to write it by writing it.” Others report on the encouragement of supervisors and teachers, the importance of good reviews, the inspiration of publication as a self-perpetuating success, and the response of fellow writers in poetry workshops and readings. All 17 writers were able to cite by name the first teachers, supervisors, publishers, reviewers, and peers who first encouraged them and inspired them to succeed. “It’s been enor- mously important to have the validation and respect, as well as the friendship of my publisher, because he’s one of the best readers of poetry that I’ve met,” writes one. “Publication is a wonderful thing,” writes another. All the writers report on the significance of reading others they admire: “coming across brilliant work by other writers—this last one is the most important thing by far—whatever I read goes into the writing.” However, persistence in the face of rejection also emerges as a significant fac- tor in these writing histories. Rejections proved to be as significant a spur to action as encouragement. Graham describes the importance of the first negative

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Translating Writing Worlds  85 reviews, which “helped me to think this through and articulate what I was doing, to foreground what I was doing that was different.” Some writers considered their reviewers to be unsympathetic and alien readers whose feedback was demoral- izing and inhibited creative development. These rejections are sometimes expe- rienced not simply as assaults on the writing itself but as confrontations with the writing self and sense of purpose. Jocelyn describes redundancy and rejection as catapulting her into academic writing and the desire to “write back” to her doubters, to prove to them her worth at a more visceral level. Daniel describes the competitive desire to model his writing on those who had failed him academi- cally and show them he could join and succeed in their “game.” In these testimonies, the notion of the poet honing his craft in solitude is pro- foundly challenged.The community comes to define and inspire, and it is within these communities that writing milestones are reached.The writers describe the process of consciously absorbing the vocabulary, conceptual frameworks, dis- course styles of the community in order to “write back” to it and within it. Their encounters with these communities have profound impact on their sense of worth, as they negotiate rejection and acceptance from these very communities in which they wish to be contributing participants. Crafting, Honing, and Editing The writers describe the crafting of both academic and poetic writing as equally conscious and painstaking. Some describe academic writing as “motivated by conscious decisions to communicate instructions, information or opinions” (Mar- tin).They see a clear connection in academic writing between their intention for the writing and structure that develops their intention:“I have a definite intention which gives rise to the structure etc.” (Martin). Ashley describes that the act of writing a book “gives the work a shape that wasn’t there.” In several respects, this finding of structure and giving shape to messages was perceived as a creative jour- ney into unchartered territory in the same way as writing a poem might be. For example, Simon writes,“Looking back at a book you’ve written gives you a new perspective on your work sometimes—you see things you haven’t seen before.” Daniel writes,“I still see it as creative insofar as I don’t know where it’s going until I get there.” Patrick, too, explains how, in writing academic history, he travelled further than he had anticipated,“giving voice to the people in history who hadn’t been there. I saw I could do it this way and it was really something new.” However, the join between message and academic “shape” was painful and alien for those who were “academic immigrants” acquiring this as a second writ- ing style. Denise describes this as the awkwardness of pebbles underfoot, Simon as an adoption of language that seemed to him pretentious and alien. Even Angela, who describes herself as first an academic writer and only later a poet, felt she was writing with more honesty and integrity as a poet than as a university academic.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 86  Jane Spiro and Sue Dymoke Patrick echoes this sense of academic language as distancing him from himself. He describes his transition from academic to poetic writing as a “confession that I am in the picture as the writer.” He states that “in my first books, I referred to myself as the author” but now, as a poet, he dares to place himself at the center and explore his own history as the starting point for other histories. In searching for the distinctiveness of poetic crafting, it is possible to note the centering of the poetic self as opposed to distancing of the academic self and the permission to write symbolically and metaphorically that is referred to in the previous section. For example, Graham describes poetic writing as “sharply dif- ferent” from academic writing with its “small-scale formal or semantic patterning, economy of expression, use of implication, images, narrative and different subject matter.” Several writers mention the importance of sound in poetry rather than in prose/academic writing: “I play with language, its appearance, as well as the sonics of language.” Academic and Poetic Messages and the Inner Editor Many of the writers felt what they said was very different in poetry and in aca- demic writing and that the contrasting nature of this was fundamental. Denise felt able to write in patois and be a patois speaker/writer in the poetic domain but was molded into being more conventional in the academic setting. Patrick felt he had made a conscious transition from academic history to poetry in order to have permission to tell universal and personal stories. Keris wrote that the issues she had dealt with academically needed to touch “hearts and minds” and reach out in a way that academic writing could not do. In making these choices, these writers consciously shift the center of their message as poets, giving themselves permis- sion to devise their own rules and make their own specific editorial demands. Patrick aims to place his personal story at the heart of poetry, Keris to touch and change her reader, Colin to be original to himself each time he writes: “When I write poems I write out of the unknown into the unknown. My aim as a poet is to write something that’s different from everything else I’ve written.” Each writer described the unremitting voice of the inner editor, but what it demands is differ- ent as they change role from academic writer to poet. Applying the Difference: Creative and Academic Writing Our own narrative of the “inner editing” serves to illustrate the challenges and dilemmas mirrored in the testimonies of the writers quoted. Here we both explore our writing processes in the production of two contrasting texts.The two texts that I ( Jane) present are both exploring aspects of the same question: How are we shaped by our reading, and how does our reading help define our values

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Translating Writing Worlds  87 and practice as teachers? The first extract is an academic response to this question, entailing a study of the testimonies of 50 English-as-a-second-language teachers describing their personal reading histories since childhood. The second extract is from a four-stanza poem, with each stanza describing one of the libraries that made a difference to my own reading life. In the academic article, I am at pains to show that my thinking about reading connects with second-language literature and research on reading. In so doing, I am establishing a clear connection with my professional community and earning credibility by doing so. My understanding is that these clues of community recog- nition are key incentives for my audience to engage. I am also sharing a language that I know to be acceptable within the specific discourse of the research journal, first by foregrounding the paper rather than myself as researcher and second by omitting reference to a specific teacher group in time and place, to suggest gener- ality (at least in the opening section); third by preparing the ground to introduce a new question, beginning with the sentence “However.” In addition, the language I have chosen aims to give precise messages and to limit the margin for misunder- standing or varied interpretation. In contrast, my poem does not aim to reference other writers, whether poetic or academic, although it does follow conventions that make it recognizable as poetry. Line breaks are a significant part of the message, unlike in the academic text. Not only do they participate in the rhythm, but they also flag to the reader the type of text they are reading. I as the author identify myself in the very first word: the descriptions are specific to my experience, and I do not claim otherwise. Having said this, unlike the academic writing example, I am aiming to open up metaphors that can become zones for readers to project their own interpretations: the links between books and trees, between learning and a journey through a TABLE 6.3  Personal Reading Histories This paper explores teacher experiences of reading in I am the sum of my libraries, and outside their lives in education, and asks how the ways they travel, this reading influenced their beliefs and practice the forests they plant. as teachers. Studies of readers reveal connections The whispering is still there, between reading speed, reading strategy and reading waiting to be found. enjoyment (Grabe & Stoller, 2002).We also have extract Spiro, J. (2014) Poetry some evidence that reading for pleasure and reading fluently are closely connected (Day & Bamford, 1998;Alderson, 2000). However, these studies do not tell us how these readings directly impacted on professional values and actions. extract Spiro, J. (2014)

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 88  Jane Spiro and Sue Dymoke forest, and between the written words of writers over centuries of the written word, and the whisper in the reader’s mind. However, what is interesting from the perspective of “inner editor,” are the “selves” I felt able to communicate through these different discourses. In the first, academic text, I am accessing what I perceive as an outward-looking self that interfaces as a professional with other teachers and language educators. My inter- est is in teacher reading histories, and the fact this is driven by my own is of only marginal interest.What is of greater interest is the way the study arrives at a degree of rigor and objectivity and how it arrives at insights that are about the commu- nity as a whole, its patterns, varieties, and characteristics. In contrast, the poem offers my own experience as a metaphor for the reader. It does not aim to per- suade that this experience is relatable to the reader by using argument or design. It rather aims to do this by leaving with the reader a choice of relationship or not. The two texts that I (Sue) present are both aspects of the poetry-writing pro- cess.The first is an extract from a paper which was published in a peer-reviewed academic journal.The paper focused on preservice English teachers and how the medium of a wiki could develop their professional learning in writing and read- ing poetry.The second text is a whole poem that was published in my second full collection of poetry. It has been performed at poetry readings, and I often use it with student teachers as a starting point for exploring drafting processes. In the extract from the journal article, my co-author and I aim to show that we are aware of what previous researchers “in the field” have written about the role of the teacher as a “model” writer and reader. (This topic has been of particular concern to UK researchers.) Our paper was published in a New Zealand–based international journal, English Teaching: Practice and Critique. My coauthor, Janette TABLE 6.4  Writing Poetry Many UK-based researchers and poets have The words lie low, unsifted commented specifically on the need for drifting down to an ocean floor until, teachers to model themselves as both stirred up by storm or chance encounter, writers and readers of poetry (Stibbs, a phrase rises 1981; Dunn, Styles & Warburton, 1987; a veiled image slowly reveals Nicholls, 1990;Yates, 1999). Nicholls lines edge towards discovery observes that “children need to know that toward a kind of draft. adults too, struggle with words” (1990, (“Inside Notebooks” from Dymoke p. 27). Stibbs sees teachers’ encouragement of writing by writing as a moral [2012], Moon at the Park and Ride) obligation and a vital element of a child’s classroom experience:“Unless teachers do that they are tailor’s dummies in a nudist colony—very bad manners” (1981, p. 49). (extract from Dymoke & Hughes, 2009: 92)

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Translating Writing Worlds  89 Hughes, is Canadian. As Jane writes earlier, in referring to other research we are establishing the credibility of our own research and showing how it has been informed by the work of others within a community to which we aspire to belong. Moreover, there is an intention to legitimize our choice of approach for an international audience, some of whom may not be familiar with the focus on teacher modeling that we have cited. The compressed nature of the references is a specific academic convention. The Harvard (name: date) referencing follows the bibliographic style explicitly required by the journal publisher. The names and dates are strung together in chronological order on the unspoken understanding that the journal’s readers will recognize they represent a body of research over time and that they will know how to interpret/access the texts that are being referred to and follow up on these if they wish.Two succinct quotations from the literature are cited.These further serve to reinforce the validity of the argument being presented regarding the need for teachers to show themselves as writers in front of their students. A date and page number are provided with each direct quotation.The page numbers would aid a reader who wished to follow up the references. In addition, they signal that the paper authors know the texts they have cited and can select from/refer spe- cifically to them. In contrast, my poem “Inside Notebooks” is a complete text. It contains no explicit references to other texts yet it does, through extensive use of imagery, allude to other events, sightings, and experiences that the reader is invited to imagine or recall for themselves. Unlike the academic paper, the reader’s experi- ence and response form an integral part of the creation of the poem (Rosenblatt, 1978). At no point is the word “writing” used. The reader is left to his or her own devices to piece together the references to notebooks, words, and drafts to make that association for themselves if they wish to. The poem is deliberately small in size, with words at the ends of lines that are connected with movement and discovery. The language is very compressed—just one sentence—because I wanted it to somehow reflect the scale of the brief notes that I make in my notebooks: the brief notes that I dredge up (often years later) and begin to shape into poems.This poem is very much an insider’s view on process. I am looking in on my writing act and trying to capture aspects of it in a way that might invite others in. In contrast, the academic paper looks out to what others have writ- ten and aims to establish our paper’s place as part of that community’s research dialogue. Implications and Conclusions The previous section positions us as insiders as well as researchers of the process of comparing academic and poetic selves.We have explained poet-academic divides both in terms of their meaning for 15 other writers and in terms of how this is

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 90  Jane Spiro and Sue Dymoke manifested in my own writing.The section below draws on these several threads of understanding in order to respond to the research questions that opened this paper. What Processes Do Experienced Writers Engage With When They Write for Different Audiences and Purposes? The writers reveal to us the importance of the writing community in honing and defining their practice.Whether they perceived writing as freedom and empow- erment or as a form of “game” with alien rules, both entailed validation by a community. While many were spurred by rejection and setbacks, none who still identified themselves as writers dwelled on this stage of their learning.They had moved beyond this and were writing back in some way to the community that had rejected them. Conversely, all were able to cite examples of inspiration and encouragement from those who read and wrote as peers, critics, and editors.Thus, in being a writer, achievement is not “easy”: the inner editor is alert at multiple points in the writing journey.Writers had high standards for themselves in both academic and poetic modes and rarely described completion that had not been tirelessly earned. In most cases, completion was measured by the inner editor as satisfactory to their personal aims; but this was only finally acceptable to most of the writers if it was validated too by the external world—through publication, audience, and positive review. What Aspects of Themselves Are Revealed or Concealed as They Move Between These Audiences? As poets, the writers felt able to write symbolically and generate meaning through metaphor. Creative writing texts gave the writer permission to generate ambigui- ties and allow for reader interpretation, characteristics that would be considered weaknesses in academic writing.The writers identified other features they would develop uniquely in the poem: sound, visual impact of words on the page, rhyme, experimentation with language, translanguaging between standard and patois/dia- lect, and drawing attention to form. In poetry, writers felt able to place themselves at the center; they did not need to argue for their generalizability to the reader. To convince the reader, what they aimed for was powerful language, surprise or originality, empathy, and appeal to feeling. In contrast, as academic writers, they felt they needed to be supported by evidence, referencing a scholarly community, with messages made convincing through logic, argument, and evidence. However, these surface features were not the most important ways in which “creativity” was explained. In both kinds of writing, shaping ideas through words, giving structure to thoughts, and allowing writing to lead in unpredicted direc- tions were felt to be “creative”—and these possibilities were true for both poetic

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Translating Writing Worlds  91 and academic writing. Thus, writers found the very features that might be the most constraining to be those that were also the most creative: structure, shape, and planning. What Parallels Are There Between These Writing Transitions and Those of Second-Language Writers? Joining and becoming accepted by a community, whether scholarly, creative, or professional, emerges as a hidden dimension of the writing process.This parallels the second-language learner’s process as they negotiate a second-language culture. Becoming an “ethnographer” of that culture by observing its social and linguistic conventions and mirroring those that are needed for acceptance are part of the language learners’ repertoire of strategies (see, for example, Corbett, 2003;Valdes, 2001).While this may take place in “real time” during social discourse, the writer has the relative leisure to make conscious choices and to edit and revisit these. As we ask writers how they make conscious choices from one audience to another, we see them also learning what is acceptable, observing and mirroring conven- tions, experimenting with the boundaries, and discovering where there is scope for experimentation and rule breaking. How Might These Findings Inform the Teaching and Learning of Second-Language Writing? The writer testimonies reveal the importance of learning with and from others in order to join a chosen community of readers: thus peer reviewing, reading appre- ciatively as a prelude to writing, and publication for others are all a part of writing development. It is thus important as learner writers to be readers and reviewers as well and develop the skills of constructive editing of one another. Making ground rules explicit for constructive peer support of writing is a significant part of the process.These might include peers reading for the author’s meaning and intention rather than imposing their own and peers aiming together for the best possible outcome that can also be owned fully by the writer. To balance these roles within a writing community, the learner writer also needs to develop the “inner editor,” setting personal criteria for success. Am I Visible or Invisible as the Author in the Writing? As academics, many of the writers felt it necessary to conceal their own agency as author but were able to place this at the center of their writing as poets. In order to bring themselves into scholarly writing, many described an actual paradigm shift, a new approach to knowledge as they insisted on occupying the stage as authors of their own research. Is my goal to be the same or to be different to other

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 92  Jane Spiro and Sue Dymoke writers? Many of the writers felt more freedom to break rules, experiment, and write to their own agendas as poets than as academics.While many described the scope for creativity within an academic writing context, most also emphasized the constraints and the penalties of transgressing these rules.As academic writers, they needed to mirror what others do, even to the extent of echoing the same phrases and vocabulary; as poets, they felt empowered to write “into the unknown.” Do I Want My Words to Have One Clear Meaning or Many Meanings? As poets, many described their enjoyment of metaphor, opening up zones of ambiguity. Many identified, in contrast, the importance of clarity and unambigu- ity, benevolent mentor and didactic roles in their writing academically. While these testimonies suggest a demarcation between invisible author/con- ventional language/literal meanings in academic writing versus visible author/ experimental language/symbolic meanings in poetry, this distinction is not always so clear-cut. Writers describe the possibilities of crossing boundaries between these two and challenging expectations. As with the language-learning process, negotiation is never complete, and resistance to setbacks and failure is as much part of development as success itself. Czeslaw Milosz talks of the disconnect with his mother tongue in his poem “My Faithful Mother Tongue” (2002, p. 336): without you, who am I? Only a scholar in a distant country. It is interesting to note that for Milosz, scholarship is a more distant country than poetry. Our writers have here questioned this division and invited us to make ourselves more open as researchers and as first- and second-language writers to learn from the processes of both.We can interpret these processes as a repertoire of competences that parallel the competence of travelers traversing cultures and communities, making them their own. Questions for Discussion 1. Can you track the changes you make in your own writing and explain why and how you made them? What does this reveal about the process of editing and refining written work? 2. Which kind of writing do you prefer to read, an academic essay or a poem? Can you explain your own preferences and responses as a reader? 3. How far do you agree that poetry tends to use symbolic language and aca- demic writing literal? What difference might this make to the way writers choose and use vocabulary?

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Translating Writing Worlds  93 4. This chapter suggests that writers are influenced by audience and do not work in isolation from others. How far do you agree with this? How can writers learn about the audiences for whom they are writing? 5. Think about a topic you feel passionately about. How would you write about this as a poem? How would you write about it in an academic essay? What would be the differences in your language, structure, and focus? Suggestions for Further Research 1. To what extent does “free writing” in the mother tongue improve writing fluency in a second language? How might you research this question? 2. How far does the practice of experimental/creative/personal writing help fluency in more formal writing contexts? How do learner writers transfer skills and strategies from one writing context to the other? 3. What processes do readers use to interpret academic texts versus creative texts such as poems or stories? How are these reading processes similar or different? How would you research this question? Note 1 Please note the names in this section have been fictionalized to maintain confidentiality. References Alderson, C. (2000). Assessing reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barton, D., Ivanic, R., & Hamilton, M. (1999). Situated literacies:Theorising reading and writing in context. London: Routledge. Becher, T., & Trowler, P. R. (2001). Academic tribes and territories. Buckingham: Open Uni- versity Press. Corbett, J. (2003). An intercultural approach to English language teaching. Clevedon: Multilin- gual Matters. Cox, M., & Thielgard, A. (1987). Mutative metaphors in psychotherapy:The aeolian mode. Lon- don:Tavistock. Day, R., & Bamford, J. (1998). Extensive reading in the second language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Donahave, J. (2011). Noisy like a frog in Turley. In R. Margraf (Ed.), The writer in the academcy: Creative intrafrictions (pp. 199–220). Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. Dunn, J., Styles, M., & Warburton, N. (1987). In tune with yourself. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dymoke, S. (2012). Moon at the park and ride. Nottingham: Shoestring Press. Dymoke, S., & Hughes, J. (2009). Using a poetry wiki: How can the medium support pre-service teachers of English in their professional learning about writing poetry and teaching poetry writing in a digital age? English Teaching Practice and Critique, 8(3), 91–106.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 94  Jane Spiro and Sue Dymoke Grabe,W., & Stoller, F. L. (2002). Teaching and researching reading. Harlow: Longman Pearson. Heaney, S. (1980). Preoccupations: Selected prose 1968–1978. London: Faber. Hoffman, E. (1989). Lost in translation. London:Verso. Hunt, C., & Sampson, F. (2000). Writing: Self and reflexivity. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Ivanic, R. (1994). I is for interpersonal: Discoursal construction of writer identities and the teaching of writing. Linguistics and Education, 6(1), 3–15. Ivanic, R. (1998). Writing and identity:The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Milosz, C. (2002). My faithful mother tongue. In N. Astley (Ed.), Staying alive (p. 336). Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books. Nicholls, J. (1990).Verse and verbiage. Times Educational Supplement, 11 May: B27. Pavlenko, A., & Lantolf, J. P. (2000). Second language learning as participation and the (re) construction of selves. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 162–173). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Richardson, L. (1997). Fields of play: Constructing an academic life. New Brunswick, NJ: Rut- gers University Press. Rosenblatt, L. (1978). The reader, the text, the poem. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Saunders, L. (2003). On flying, writing poetry and doing educational research. British Edu- cational Research Journal, 29(2), 175–187. Spiro, J. (2014). We are what we read: Personal reading histories and the shaping of the teacher. European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL, 3(2), 107–126. Stibbs,A. (1981).Teaching poetry. Children’s Literature in Education, 12(1), 39–50. Turley, R. M. (Ed.). (2011). The writer in the academy: Creative interfrictions. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. Valdes, J. (2001). Culture bound. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woolf,V. (1929). A writer’s diary. In R. Neale (Ed.), Writers on writing: An anthology (p. 91). Auckland, NZ: Oxford University Press. Yates, C. (1999). Jumpstart: Poetry in the secondary school. London: Poetry Society.

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Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 7 EXPLORING CREATIVITY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING Jack C. Richards and Sara Cotterall Introduction There are many different ways of defining creativity, depending on whether it is viewed “as a property of people (who we are), processes (what we do), or products (what we make)” (Fisher, 2004, p. 8). Creativity is usually described as being able to solve problems in original and valuable ways that are relevant to goals, seeing new meanings and relationships in things and making connections, having origi- nal and imaginative thoughts and ideas about something, and using the imagina- tion and past experience to create new learning possibilities (Sternberg, 1999). In teaching, when creativity is viewed as a product, the focus might be on a particular class, a task or activity in a book, or a piece of student writing and the features that give it a creative dimension.When viewed as a process, the focus is on the thinking processes and decisions that a person makes use of in producing something that we would describe as creative (Jones, 2012). All teaching involves acts of creativity, and teachers are often required to think creatively or “out of the box.” Both while planning their teaching and during the teaching process itself, teachers draw on specialized kinds of thinking, of which creativity is a core dimension. They draw on cognitive skills that enable them to choose relevant goals and teaching resources, to analyze materials in order to identify their teaching potential, and to make decisions related to timing, group- ing, sequencing, and assessment. During the teaching process itself, they may adapt their plans in response to feedback from learners. In making decisions of this kind, teachers draw on their subject-matter knowledge and their personal theories and principles as well as the practical knowledge developed from their teaching expe- rience in making decisions of this kind. Shulman (1987) described the cognitive skills that teachers make use of as a process of transformation in which the teacher

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 98  Jack C. Richards and Sara Cotterall turns the subject matter of instruction into forms that are pedagogically powerful and that are appropriate to the level and ability of the students.The ability to think creatively is an important component of this activity of transformation. A representative example of a teacher’s creative thinking is described by Stock (2014, p. 190), in which a teacher demonstrates how reading, writing, discussion, and role playing can be used to prepare students to read Silverstein’s The Giving Tree—a classic piece of children’s literature. First, the students write briefly about an incident in which they were disappointed by a friendship, which they then share and discuss in groups.Through discussion, they explore the notion of strong friendships.After listening to the text of the story and following on from the ideas they had developed about the nature of friendship, the students then go on to imagine roles they might play in a mock trial that charged the boy in the story with being or not being a good friend.They read the text to identify sets of ques- tions they might ask to prove the boy had or had not been a good friend.They write their individual opinions on the boy and, finally, become a jury and vote on whether the boy in the story was a good friend. In teaching, creativity of this kind is valued because it can improve academic attainment. It can lead to higher and deeper levels of learner engagement. It can help develop learners who can think deeply and critically and who are able to think independently and creatively. It can also help develop learners who are will- ing to engage with and share ideas, as well as help them develop a better mastery and control of language (Taylor, 2014). Fisher (2004) reports: Research . . . shows that . . . creative activity can rekindle the interest of stu- dents who have been turned off by school, and teachers who may be turned off by teaching in a culture of control and compliance. (p. 11) Creativity has also been linked to levels of attainment in second-language learning (Dörnyei, 2005, pp. 205–207). Maley emphasized a focus on creativity through the use of texts drawn from a variety of different literary and nonliter- ary sources that can be used to elicit creative thinking and foster the ability to make creative connections (Maley, 1997). Many of the language tasks favored by contemporary language teaching methods are believed to release creativity in learners—particularly those involving student-centered, interaction-based, and open-ended elements. Such activities are therefore, in principle, ideally suited to fostering creative thinking and behavior on the part of learners (Burton, 2010). Creative intelligence seems to be a factor that can facilitate language learning because it helps learners cope with novel and unpredictable experiences (see Jones, this volume). Communicative teaching methods have a role to play here because they emphasize functional and situational language use and employ activities such as role play and simulations that require students to use their imag- inations and think creatively.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Exploring Creativity in Language Teaching  99 In characterizing the nature of creative teaching in language teaching, it is useful to describe the practices of creative teachers as well as the underlying attri- butes, dispositions, and beliefs that provide the basis for creative practice (Cremin, Barnes, & Scoffham, 2009). If creativity is valued as an aspect of good teaching, it is also important to consider how it can be supported in a school or institution. This is the focus of this chapter, in which we first describe examples of how a creative disposition shapes the design and delivery of a teacher (Sara)* teaching academic writing to university students in the United Arab Emirates.We do this through the examples we provide taken from Sara’s teaching journal. We then consider how creativity can be supported and encouraged in the institution. Sources and Practices of Creative Teaching The Teacher Is Not Committed to a Single Approach or Method Typically, rather than being bound to a particular method, creative teachers often adopt an approach that might be called “principled eclecticism.” In other words, they do not choose methods and procedures at random but according to the needs of their class.They use a wide variety of teaching approaches and a wide range of resources and activities. Sara gives this example: In my writing classes if I were only going to use one approach, my students would have given up on me a long time ago! I try and use lots of different approaches, partly because I know that different approaches will suit different learners and also because I think different approaches have different strengths. With more advanced learners, I use modelling a lot, where I encourage learners to help me collabora- tively construct a piece of text in the classroom. This is because much composition is essentially private and I believe that learners need to see how it’s done and particularly to observe the trial and error process that occurs when different word choices and sentence structures are experimented with. But it is also important to vary activities so that at other times I focus on the micro-level of text and ask learners to look at individual sentences and word choices continued * In an earlier paper (Richards, 2015), I focused on a sample of teachers in different contexts and sought to characterize how creativity was reflected in their teaching. In this paper I invited Sara—a teacher whose excellence and creativity in teaching have been frequently cited in evaluations and peer observations—to share examples from her own teaching.To do this, she kept a reflective jour- nal of her teaching in the academic writing course she teaches over a period of one semester. At the American University of Sharjah, Sara teaches research and business writing to undergraduate students enrolled in engineering, business, architecture, and humanities degrees. She also teaches experienced teachers on the MA TESOL course. Before moving to the UAE, Sara taught in Japan, China,Australia, New Zealand, and Greece.—JCR)

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 100  Jack C. Richards and Sara Cotterall and comment on the impact of presenting a sentence in one way rather than another. Many of my learners seem to do better work at this detailed level of analysis when they have another learner to bounce off, so pair work is useful here. To offset these product focused activities, I regularly include periods of continu- ous writing where learners are encouraged to focus on getting ideas down on paper and not worrying about accuracy. One thing that has worked very well with this is to ask learners to produce a graph on which they record the topic they are writing about and the date and the number of words they produce each time. If I allo- cate approximately the same amount of time to each continuous writing session, learners begin to notice that over time they are producing more words in the time available and this is very motivating. They also notice that certain topics (which one member of the class chooses each time) are more successful for them than oth- ers, and this provides an interesting point of conversation about the relationship between familiarity and fluency. The Teacher Makes Use of a Wide Range of Teaching Strategies and Techniques Creativity in teaching means having a wide repertoire of routines and strategies teachers can call upon, as well as being ready to depart from established procedures and to use one’s own solutions. In general, novice teachers are much less likely to be creative than experienced teachers simply because they are familiar with fewer strategies and techniques.The danger is that once a teacher becomes comfortable using a core set of techniques and strategies, these become fixed. Sara is continu- ally adding to her repertoire of teaching techniques: I have a repertoire of at least 20 different ways of dealing with a writing task depending on which stage of the process we are working on. Sometimes we work with brainstorming techniques like listing, cubing or mind mapping, either orally or in writing. This is almost always more productive when learners work in pairs. Sometimes we do continuous writing on topics the learners suggest, just to focus on fluency. Other times we analyze the organization of model texts, identify- ing the best sequence for the learners to follow in drafting their own texts. I also use reformulation in class a lot—this involves presenting two versions of a completed text: the learner’s original text and then a version of it that I have reworked to make it communicate more effectively. The positive thing about refor- mulation is that it involves no “correction” of the learner’s text but invites students

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Exploring Creativity in Language Teaching  101 to identify the changes that have been made and to discuss why they have been made. In this way it develops their critical skills and helps them find ways of evalu- ating and improving their own texts. The key is to keep the activities fresh and to encourage learners to contribute by deciding on activity topic, sequencing, learner configuration (pairs, individuals, groups etc.) and activity duration. This keeps them engaged and motivated. The Teacher Draws on Academic and Pedagogical Knowledge to Support Creative Practice It is important to distinguish between purposeful and purposeless creativity.While the latter may be seen in acts of creativity that are designed to entertain, to fill in gaps in the lesson, or to substitute for a well-planned lesson, purposeful creativity is linked to the teacher’s knowledge base—to his or her academic and pedagogical knowledge—and to the learners’ goals.The teacher draws on this as a reference in developing creative lessons, as we see in this example: The other day we were talking about the Introduction to their research papers and discussing what needed to be included. Since each student had at least one journal article with them in class, I suddenly hit on the idea of asking them to read and “characterize” the elements included in the Introduction of the article they had with them. This had the positive effect of the students developing their own terminology for each of the “moves” (Swales, 1990) the writers of their journal articles adopted. When different students wrote the names for these “moves” on the whiteboard, it quickly became obvious that there were some broad similarities that they could use to guide the drafting of their own introductions. Having a solid knowledge base means that the teacher has a rationale and purpose for the creative activities he or she uses. They have not been chosen merely for their novelty value but because they reflect the teacher’s knowledge and understanding of teaching and learning. The Teachers Use Activities That Have Creative Dimensions Teaching creatively means assessing activities and materials for their potential to support creative teaching. Researchers have identified a number of dimensions of creative tasks: they are said to involve open-ended problem solving, to be adapted to the abilities of the participants, and to be carried out under constraints

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 102  Jack C. Richards and Sara Cotterall (Burton, 2010; Lubart, 1994). Some of the features that Dörnyei (2001) identifies as productive language-learning tasks can also be seen to promote creative responses: • Challenge: tasks in which learners solve problems, discover something, over- come obstacles, or find information. • Interesting content: topics that students already find interesting and that they would want to read about outside class, such as stories we find about sports and entertainment personalities we find onYouTube and the Internet. • The personal element: activities that make connections to the learners’ lives and concerns. • The novelty element: aspects of an activity that are new or different or totally unexpected. • The intriguing element: tasks that concern ambiguous, problematic, paradoxical, controversial, contradictory, or incongruous material stimulate curiosity. • Individual choice:They look for tasks that give students a personal choice. For example students can choose their own topics to write about in an essay or choose their own topics and group members in a discussion activity. • Tasks that encourage risk taking:Teachers do not want their students to be so worried about making mistakes that they feel reluctant to take part in activities. Reward them for effort and not only for success. • Tasks that encourage original thought: activities that require an original response. So instead of comprehension questions after a reading passage that test recall, they seek to use tasks that encourage a personal and individual response to what the student has read. • The fantasy element: activities that engage the learners’ fantasy and that invite the learners to use their imagination for creating make-believe stories, identifying with fictional characters, or acting out imaginary situations. In the example that follows, Sara talks about how incorporating originality and novelty and introducing a strong personal element allowed her student to express his creativity in a way that motivated him to produce a much more effec- tive research paper. Samir, one of my learners, popped into my office the other day and asked me if I had a minute to read something written on his telephone. I was intrigued. When I read it, I saw that it was the opening lines of a thriller, rich with description of place and person. Samir is in my Research Writing course, but I had no idea he had the ability to write in such a lively way. I guess he wanted me to know what he was capable of in terms of writing, because he was finding some of the research writing activities rather dull.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Exploring Creativity in Language Teaching  103 That started me thinking about how Samir could tap into that creativity in his research writing. He had chosen to investigate the increasing death toll on the roads in the UAE. Next time I saw Samir, I asked him to remind me why he had chosen that topic. Shockingly, he told me that it was because one of his friends from primary school had died in a car accident shortly after getting his driver’s license. A few days later I suggested to Samir that he tell that story as the opening to his research paper, trying to make the reader feel the pathos of the situation. And it worked! What he came up with was both dramatic and moving—an excellent introduction to his very serious research topic. The Teacher Seeks to Achieve an Individual Teaching Style Bruner (1962) defined creativity as “an act that produces effective surprise.” Fisher (2004) comments: It is originality that provides effective surprise. To do the same things in the same way is not to be creative, to do things differently adds variation to mere habit, but when we do or think things we have not done before, and they are effective, we are being original and fully creative. (p. 9) The creative teacher looks for original ways of using the textbook and teach- ing materials and seeks to create lessons that reflect his or her individual teaching style. For this reason, creative teachers might be very different from each other. I view every class I teach as unique. Whatever my plan is when I walk into the classroom, achieving my goals is affected by the energy levels in class, learners’ willingness to cooperate and my own mood and energy. One day, after telling the students that I had been to an Anzac Day lunch the previous day, and finding that they were curious about this holiday, I explained briefly about the Battle of Gallipoli in Turkey and showed them a slide of the very moving words Ataturk had inscribed on a monument to all the Allied soldiers who died in the battle. This led to an analy- sis of the words Atatürk chose which invoked such sympathy. The Teacher Is Willing to Take Risks The creative teacher is willing to experiment, to innovate, and to take risks. Risk taking reflects the flexible mindset of creative teachers as well as their

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 104  Jack C. Richards and Sara Cotterall self-confidence.They are willing to try things out, even if at times they may not work quite the way they are intended, as Sara illustrates in the next example: Last semester I decided to try a new approach in my writing classes to encourage the students to spend more time actually writing in class time when I could be avail- able to comment on their writing and workshop it. So I decided that the second of the three weekly classes each week would be a time only for writing with no input from me, and no talking. At first I had to remind students to bring their laptops or the drafts they were working on. But gradually they subverted the idea by using the time to show their writing to each other, ask questions, discuss the content and generally do anything BUT write! I still think my goal is worthwhile but I will have to find a better way to set it up. The Teacher Is Confident and Willing to Make His or Her Own Decisions About How to Manage Classes Confidence can give the teacher a sense that she or he is in control of the class- room and that it is the teacher—not the book or the curriculum—working with the learners’ needs and goals that can make a difference.The teacher sees his or her input to the lesson as being decisive and so has a sense of personal responsibility for how well learners learn. The more experienced I become as a teacher, the more comfortable I am with finding a way of working with the specified curriculum. I think a course outline can be a highly creative document. Once I feel confident that I understand what the required course outcomes are, I love the freedom of finding my own way of achiev- ing them. Of course there are always recommended practices, activities, texts and books to use on any course. But there is also always room to try new things which have served you well in the past or which the students demonstrate an interest in. It all depends on how confident you feel that you know what you are aiming at. The Teacher Adjusts and Modifies Her Teaching During Lessons Flexibility is another feature we often observe in the lessons of creative teach- ers. Flexibility in teaching means being able to switch between different styles and modes of teaching during the lesson—for example, if necessary changing the pace of the lesson and giving more space and time to learners. The teacher may not need to refer to a lesson plan because he or she is able to create effective

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Exploring Creativity in Language Teaching  105 lessons through monitoring the learners’ response to teaching activities and cre- ating learning opportunities around important teaching moments. This kind of teaching can be viewed as a kind of skilled improvisation. Here Sara describes teaching as finding what she calls “teachable moments.” The longer I teach the more often “teachable moments” emerge in my teaching. It might be a topic, a particular text, a situation—many prompts can invite me to share a story or an experience with my learners which relate to the lesson goals. Usually I find these diversions are helpful; sometimes they relieve tension when we have been working hard on something. For instance, one day I was working through some examples with my EAP class of how to integrate another writer’s ideas into my own text. In the example I was using, one of the learners suddenly stopped me to ask about the name of one of the authors in the in-text citation. Since I had noticed that my learners frequently confused Western authors’ first and family names, this gave me a perfect oppor- tunity to draw attention to the names of the authors in the text and to ask them to suggest what the citation would be if each of them had written the original text. Personalizing the example in this way, and being willing to be diverted from the focus of the activity at hand is sometimes necessary. I usually tell myself if one learner has thought it important enough to ask the question, others are likely to be wondering about the same thing. It’s important to be ready to let the learners’ agenda take over at times. Creative teachers often improvise around their teaching materials, moving back and forth between book-based input and teacher-initiated input. Hence, even though a teacher may teach the same content many times, each time he or she teaches, it becomes different due to the way she or he improvises in working with the material. The Teacher Looks for New Ways of Doing Things Over time, teachers develop routines and procedures that enable different dimen- sions of their classes to be carried out efficiently and effortlessly. But there is a tendency for teaching to become increasingly standardized—the “one size fits all” approach—particularly when teachers are working within a prescribed cur- riculum and teaching toward tests. This often results in a teacher working from prepacked materials such as a textbook and “transmitting” them efficiently. This is perhaps appropriate at the beginning stages of a teacher’s career but should not characterize the lessons of experienced teachers. Here Sara describes how she seeks to introduce variety into familiar activities.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 106  Jack C. Richards and Sara Cotterall I find that the easiest way to do something new in the lesson is to invite the learners to make the decisions about different aspects of the activities. There is no reason why the teacher has to decide which activities to focus on or in which order to complete them. There are also many possibilities for arranging the grouping of learners as they work on tasks, from individual to pairs to small groups. I try and work through different aspects of lesson organization and systematically vary the following: text type, audience, purpose, skill focus, learning configuration (individuals, pairs, groups, whole class). I also routinely ask the learners to tell me how long they believe they will need in order to complete a particular activity. They have a much better idea than me and I always make sure I write some kind of “extension task” on the board while they are working, so that anyone who finishes early has some- thing else to do. The Teacher Customizes Her Teaching Creative teachers develop custom-made lessons that match their students’ needs and interests or adapt and customize the book to match their students’ interests.While in many cases, a book or course outline may work perfectly well without the need for much adaptation,in some cases,different levels of adaptation may be needed.Through the process of adaptation, the creative teacher personalizes the text or course, making it a better teaching resource, and individualizes it for a particular group of learners. In order to customize the course objectives for my academic writing course I set my students the task below: a)  The course objectives described in the catalog: Upon completion of the course, students will be able to: • Demonstrate the skills of summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting, using APA documentation style in all written work. • Critically analyze and evaluate academic texts to demonstrate logical devel- opment of arguments, counterarguments, and refutation. • Design a research proposal with a specific research question and a working bibliography. • Distinguish between personal opinion and referenced material derived from academic sources when writing a research paper.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Exploring Creativity in Language Teaching  107 • Identify and evaluate library database, and internet sources relevant to their research topics. • Synthesize material from academic texts to write a literature review for the research paper. • Write a multiple draft, successively improved, 10-page argumentative research paper based on primary and/or secondary sources, organized chronologically, climactically, or logically. • Defend the research paper’s stance in an in-class presentation. My task: 1. I started by asking the students to form groups and paraphrase each of the course goals to make sure that everyone understood them all. 2. Next I asked students to individually rank the course goals according to their personal language needs. 3. Third, I asked students to sit with other students who identified the same course goal as of most importance to them. I then asked them to explain to each other why they gave that objective the highest priority and to follow up by brainstorming different situations at university where they might use those particular skills. 4. Fourth, I used the 4–3–2 technique to have each student give first a 3-minute talk to a partner on why their objective was the most important, then a 2-minute talk to a new partner on the same topic and finally a 1-minute talk to a new partner. 5. If there is time, I ask the students to nominate someone who gave a very good talk and ask them to give their 3-minute talk in front of the whole class. The Teacher Makes Use of Technology Creative use of technology in the classroom can support the development of imagination, problem solving, risk taking, and divergent thinking on the part of teachers and students. How do teachers use technology in this way? Sara gives this example: A productive way of engaging my students and helping them to improve their writing skills is through Creative nonfiction (CNF—an idea that was suggested to me by Dino Mahoney.) CNF involves using creative literary techniques and devices (such as diaries, autobiographies, essays, obituaries, journalism and travel writing) continued

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 108  Jack C. Richards and Sara Cotterall when writing about nonfiction events. I have incorporated a CNF strand into my academic writing course by having the students write blogs. I begin by showcasing blogs to the class as a whole using the classroom com- puter and screen. For instance, a leading UK newspaper, The Guardian, recently ran a blogging competition. I start by showing a few of the winning sites such as “Scaryduck. Not scary. Not a duck.” This blog is full of short, often witty pieces, about whatever interests the blogger. The blogs express a particular point of view, are funny and are aimed at a younger adult audience, which reflects the age range and interests of my students. The blog is reader-friendly consisting of short, lively texts with lots of photographs. My students tend to engage very quickly. First, I choose one of the blogs and ask them to look at it in more detail and identify ways that the writing is creative (e.g., through the writer’s use of adjectives, irony, register, metaphor, etc.). My students bring their tablets, laptops or smartphones to class and after showcasing the first blog, I give them the web address for three other suitable blogs and ask them to browse them and be prepared to comment. I then set up their blogging task. Each student has to set up an online blog and then blog on five separate topics from a choice of eight: food, music, transport, sport, media, politics, religion, fashion. I also encourage the student[s] to read and interact with each other’s blogs. After each set of blogs, we discuss the most effective ones highlighting areas of successful creative writing. I also give personal, online feedback to my students about their blogs through one to one emails. The intrinsic interest of their chosen material and the freedom to express their own point of view has a highly motivating effect on my students and there is a crossover into their academic writing, which I foster in class and through individual feedback on their academic writing tasks.” (Mahoney in Richards 2015) Supporting Creative Teaching in the Institution One way of considering creativity is to take a laissez faire approach and assume that it is up to the individual teacher. Universities and schools have other con- cerns and are judged by how well their students perform on national exams, on how well they use technology, or on the quality of the students they are able to attract. But a commitment to creative teaching requires a change in mind set. As Fisher (2004) comments, “Success in any grand project needs help from others, which means making alliances, means benefiting from the distributed intelligence of others—developing the ‘info-structure’—interconnectivity through learning conversations with others” (p. 17). There are a number of ways in which educational institutions can discourage creative teaching, such as when the curriculum, tests, and constant monitoring drive teaching and teachers cannot depart from established or approved practices because there is too much of an emphasis on book learning, rote learning, and

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Exploring Creativity in Language Teaching  109 test scores; where teachers are not given time to be creative; when teachers are not encouraged to be creative and innovate or to develop an individual and personal teaching style; when teachers are stuck with fixed routines and procedures. An institution that believes in the value of creative teaching expresses confidence in its teachers, encourages adaptation and innovation, is open to new ideas, and sup- ports, encourages, and rewards creative teaching. Fisher (2004, p. 17) characterizes a creative school as a place where individuals, pupils, and teachers are: Motivated: • purpose, ultimate goals, and shared destiny; • openness to new ideas, innovation, and enquiry; • passion to succeed, willing to take risks, accepting difference and diversity. Given Time and Responsibility for Creative Activity, Involving: • all in the search for creative solutions; • being tolerant of mistakes in the search for better solutions; • avoiding impulsivity, allowing time for practice and for ideas to come. Able to Collaborate With Partners to Share Creativity and Ideas Including: • learning partners to generate, extend, and provide feedback on ideas; • collaborating as part of a team on creative projects and productions; • developing creative connections and links beyond the organization. Here are some ways in which institutions can encourage rather than discourage ­creative teaching. The Institution Helps Teachers Recognize and Share What Is Creative in Their Own Practice There are usually creative and innovative teachers in every school, but often their teaching skills are not necessarily recognized by or familiar to others in the school. Here are some of Sara’s examples of how institutions can provide opportunities for teachers to share creative approaches to teaching: Where I have taught in the past, some of the ways that creativity in teaching has been encouraged include: • Allocating 5 minutes at the start of regular course meetings for someone to showcase a new idea they have come up with; • Using part of Blackboard as an Instructors’ site where innovative ideas can be posted and discussed; continued

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 110  Jack C. Richards and Sara Cotterall • Encouraging teachers to see the lunch room as an appropriate place to talk about what they are trying out in class; • Telling stories about things that didn’t work so that an atmosphere of open- ness and experimentation is created; • Searching for ways to share resources and NOT “reinvent the wheel” so that teachers can spend time developing creative responses to the curriculum, rather than doing “busy work.” The Institution Encourages Creative Partnership Teachers are often most creative when they get the support and encouragement of others.There are several ways in which this can be achieved. • Through team teaching • Through peer observation • Through shared lesson planning. Some years ago in a programme I was teaching on, we instituted the idea of regu- lar peer observations in order to increase a sense of ownership of the course and enhance teachers’ confidence in their ability to teach at any level. One unexpected outcome was that teachers began sharing their teaching materials more widely and came up with a system of depositing a copy of any new material they devel- oped in a central file so that others could use it if they chose to. This had the spin-off effect of releasing some preparation time for more creative activities. The Institution Provides Resources to Support Creative Teaching If teachers want to develop creative teaching resources to support their teaching, they need access to a good resource center with up-to-date books, journals, maga- zines, computers, technology, whiteboards, and so forth they can use.An environ- ment and culture that encourages creativity and provides the resources teachers need in order to realize their creative potential is a key component of the creative capital needed to support creative teaching. Having access to a well-resourced library is critical for creative teachers. When I first arrived at AUS I set up Journal Alerts which send me an email message each time an issue of one of my favorite journals is published. Years ago, when I started teaching, continued

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Exploring Creativity in Language Teaching  111 I had to make a special trip to the library to read the latest journals on the shelf. Now I can do so from my office or even from home, simply by clicking on the library catalogue. That is a huge help and a great timesaver when you are looking for new ideas for the classroom. My university is also very generous in allowing us to recommend new books that we hear about from the publishers who visit us at the start of each semester. Some- times I read about a new way of presenting material in a journal like Language Teaching Research or ELT Journal which I am reading with my MA TESOL students. Then I get the chance to try out the approach with the learners in my academic writing class. In this way the library is a huge source of inspiration and innovation. The School Rewards Creative Teachers A school can acknowledge the value of creative teachers by recognizing their contributions in different ways. For example, • by acknowledging their achievements in in-house newsletters or annual reports when appropriate; • by giving them opportunities to mentor novice teachers; • by encouraging them to share their ideas with others by speaking at brown- bag lunch sessions, giving seminars or workshops, or leading a discussion in staff meetings. One of the best ways that our university rewards creative teachers is by encour- aging them to submit an abstract for the annual TESOL conference and offering to pay their registration if their paper is accepted. This introduces novice teach- ers to the professional world of pedagogy-based research and encourages them to make connections with teachers in other places who are engaged in similar kinds of teaching. Making the time to analyze and discuss the teaching and learn- ing approaches you are adopting in class and consider why some are more effec- tive than others can also be very motivating. Sometimes it even leads to teachers engaging in small-scale action research projects Conclusion We have focused here on just one aspect of teaching.There are many other impor- tant dimensions to effective teaching. But adding the concept of creative teaching to our understanding of what it means to be an effective (language) teacher has

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 112  Jack C. Richards and Sara Cotterall benefits for teachers, for learners, and for institutions. Creative teaching helps learners develop their capacities for original ideas and for creative thinking. It also improves the quality of their learning experiences and can help them develop increased levels of motivation and even self-esteem. For the teacher, it provides a source of ongoing professional renewal and satisfaction—because when learners are engaged, motivated, and successful, teaching is motivating for all concerned. For the institution, it can lead to increased levels of satisfaction for both teachers and students as well as contribute to the quality, effectiveness, and reputation of the school. Creative learners need creative teachers, and teachers need to work in institutions where creativity is valued and shared. Questions for Discussion   1. Do you see yourself as a particularly creative teacher? If so, do you draw on some of the same principles that Sara describes?   2. Can you give examples of language learning activities that have some of the characteristics of creative tasks mentioned   3. Do you think experienced teachers are more likely to be creative than novice teachers? Why or why not?   4. Can you think of a task that could be used to assess levels of creativity in a group of novice teachers?   5. Is a teacher who is more creative than another teacher necessarily a better teacher?   6. Examine the exercises and activities in one or more units from an ESL text- book.To what extent do you judge them (a) to involve creativity on the part of the writer and (b) to allow for creative responses from learners?  7. Do you think activities that involve controlled practice of language items can also require creative responses on the part of the learner? Give examples.   8. An activity that may have been creative when it was first used becomes less so when it is used repeatedly over a period of time. Does this mean teachers should constantly be looking for new and creative ways of doing things?   9. What are some ways in which novice teachers can learn to think and teach more creatively? 10. How can experienced teachers keep their creative spark alive, particularly when they have taught a given course many times? 11. How can a teacher find out how the learners perceive an activity that is being introduced for the first time? 12. Ask students to bring to class a text they would like to spend time on in class. Encourage them to be as creative as possible in the type of text they bring (advertisement, email message, photograph of a poster or graffiti, etc.).Allow several days between their bringing the material to class to allow you to think of creative ways of using it.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Exploring Creativity in Language Teaching  113 Suggestions for Further Research 1. Design a way of measuring the effect of creative classroom tasks on the nature of learner participation in a class of L2 learners. 2. Develop a questionnaire that could be used to assess the extent to which teachers engage in creative practices in their teaching. Then pilot the questionnaire. 3. Invite a colleague to come to one of your regular classes to observe. Think about something you would like to find out about your teaching, such as how much you talk in class compared to the students, and ask your colleague to keep a simple tally of “turns” or an approximate time tally. Use this infor- mation to prepare a survey for the students about how comfortable they feel asking questions, initiating activities or sharing information with classmates in your class.You may be surprised at what you find out, especially if you ask them to submit their surveys anonymously. References Bruner, J. (1962). The process of education. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press. Burton, P. (2010). Creativity in Hong Kong schools. World Englishes, 29(4), 493–507. Cremin,T., Barnes, J., & Scoffham, S. (2009). Creative teaching for tomorrow: Fostering a creative state of mind. Kent: Future Creative CIC. Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dörnyei, Z. (2005). The psychology of the language learner. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Fisher, R. (2004).What is creativity? In R. Fisher & M.Williams (Eds.), Unlocking creativity: Teaching across the curriculum (pp. 6–20). New York: Routledge. Jones, R. (Ed.). (2012). Discourse and creativity. Harlow: Pearson. Lubart,T.I.(1994).Creativity.In R. J.Steiner (Ed.),Thinking and problem solving (pp. 289–332). New York:Academic Press. Maley,A. (1997). Creativity with a small “c.” The Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning and Teaching, 4. Retrieved August 14, 2014, from www.njcu.edu/cill/journal-index.html Richards, J. C. (2015). Creativity in language teaching. In A. Chik,T. Costley, & M. C. Pen- nington (Eds.), Creativity and discovery in the university writing class (pp. 15–44). Sheffield: Equinox. Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1–22. Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.). (1999). Handbook of creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stock, P. L. (2014).The North American teacher research movement:The national writing project and the scholarship of teaching practice. In A. Goodwyn, L. Reid, & C. Dur- rant (Eds.), International perspectives on teaching English in a globalized world (pp. 188–198). London: Routledge. Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, D. (2014). Is the Internet making your students dumb? In A. Goodwyn, L. Reid, & C. Durrant (Eds.), International perspectives on teaching English in a globalized world (pp. 245–255). London: Routledge.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 8 CREATIVITY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING Voices from the Classroom Simon Coffey and Constant Leung Introduction: Creativity in Context “Creativity” has become a byword for good practice in language planning and pedagogy, yet there seems to be a variety of perspectives as to what the concept itself may mean, as signaled by the following two curriculum statements. These two statements are, in our view, good examples of the diversity of perspectives that we have found in professional and curriculum-oriented discussions. First, we cite one of the five educational aims listed in the curriculum document of International House London (private sector): To achieve a balance of creative and systematic approaches in the manage- ment of the school’s education. (International House London Curriculum, 2012, p. 2) We can see already here in this statement a clear conceptual frame in which the institution positions creativity in binary opposition to system, then setting as an objective the balance of these opposites. This oppositional footing suggests cen- trifugal, if not oppositional, underlying pedagogic tendencies such as chaos–order and freedom–control that need to be reconciled. Creativity, from this perspec- tive, is a matter of striking a (right) balance between inspirational and regulated thought and action. Second, we cite here the revised National Curriculum for Languages [for schools] in England, statutorily in force from September 2014 and designed as a list of bullet points (described as “matters, skills and processes”) to comprise the

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Voices from the Classroom  115 two areas of Grammar and vocabulary and Linguistic competence. The dimension of creativity figures most explicitly in the final two points (our emphasis): [Pupils should be taught to:] • read literary texts in the language [such as stories, songs, poems and let- ters], to stimulate ideas, develop creative expression and expand understand- ing of the language and culture. • write prose using an increasingly wide range of grammar and vocabulary, write creatively to express their own ideas and opinions, and translate short written text accurately into the foreign language. (National Curriculum for Languages, 2013, pp. 2–3) The statement that pupils should be taught to “develop creative expression” is given no supporting content or elaboration.Yet, within the statement as a whole, there seems to be a conflation between creative expression and literary artefacts, and the semantic prosody in this passage suggests that these are both connected to the overarching link between “language and culture,” which we assume to refer to a particular form of high cultural and literary canon. The increasing emphasis on creativity, however defined, signals a pendulum swing back from the hitherto entrenched orthodoxies of recent decades that have positioned the rationale for language learning within the communicative language teaching (CLT) paradigm.Within CLT, planning and pedagogy take as their core the identification of learners’ language “needs,” framed according to predefined functional and contextual variables such as communicative use of language in a given workplace or in academic activities. Developing creative expression within such a frame may appear esoteric or, at worst, a waste of time. In our experience as teacher educators, creativity seems to be the one area that has received relatively little attention in language teacher education research. The concept of creativity is of course itself complex, and there is a range of diverse expert opinions, as readers of this book will have noticed. In this discus- sion, we are interested in exploring the views of classroom teachers. As we all know, teachers bring their own personal values and pedagogic beliefs to the class- room (e.g., Andon, 2009; Basturkmen, 2012; Borg, 2003; Breen, 1997). So, too, do students bring their own preconceptions about their learning (e.g., Marton, 2008).That is part of the reason why classroom research tells us that even appar- ently well-established concepts such as CLT can be interpreted and enacted very differently. We take the view that creativity is no different. We need to under- stand how this widely accepted goal is negotiated and understood by language teachers working in different contexts within a situated view of professional- ism (Leung, 2013). This is all the more important, as classrooms almost every- where are becoming more diverse in terms of teachers’ and students’ ethnicities, cultures, and language practices, partly due to internationalization of language

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 116  Simon Coffey and Constant Leung teacher education and partly due to widening participation of “home” students from diverse backgrounds. Yet, against the backdrop of increasing diversity of cultural and language prac- tices, many of the taken-for-granted “functional” orientations persist, often pre- sented in institutional and policy discourse as unproblematic raisons d’être for language teaching and learning. In his critique of current orthodoxies in language learning, Cook (2000) presents the distinction between learners’ needs and wants. He deconstructs the apparently straightforward notion of “need” to ask What sort of needs—or perhaps more pertinently whose needs—are we talking about? Those of students, institutions, employers, or governments? And if the first of these, do we mean simply their economic job-related needs, or some deeper spiritual need for knowledge, self-development, and enjoyment? (p. 152) Cook’s arguments relate directly to perceptions of relevance and beliefs about the value and purposes of language learning in specific contexts; these wider contextual variables have a clear impact on the way teachers interpret and enact creativity. The Teachers, Data Collection, and Analysis To explore the concept of creativity, we interviewed five languages teachers who live and work in England; all are teachers of English except Elodie, who teaches French and Spanish (see Table 8.1). TABLE 8.1  Participants Name* Age Nationality Professional Context Katarina 36 Polish EFL in London; she teaches Juana 31 Mexican general English and is director of studies Stephen 26 British Elodie 29 French EFL in London; she teaches general English and teacher Colin 52 British education courses *Pseudonyms EFL in London Secondary school teacher of French and Spanish teacher in London; also gives one-to-one classes to adolescents and adults EFL on the English south coast

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Voices from the Classroom  117 We chose these participants because of their diverse ethnic, cultural, and lan- guage backgrounds, gender, and age. Interviews were conducted by Coffey in his office during July 2014, each lasting about 30 minutes. The interviews followed a semistructured format around a set of prompts (listed in Appendix 1). Once we had completed the interviews, we analyzed the responses following a grounded approach (as outlined by Charmaz, 2006), first grouping together deductive codes, that is, according to the response elicitation resulting directly from the research instrument, and then comparing codes and categorizing data chunks to make inductive inferences through close interpretation (Hennink, Hutter, & Bailey, 2011), paying particular attention to repetition and recurrence of in vivo codes. Analytically, we take the data to signal discursive constructions of the concept “creativity,” which reflected the articulation of the participant teachers’ profes- sional views in the performative moment of the interview.We found interpretative repertoire a useful concept to describe how teachers draw on institutional frames of reference to construct meanings of creativity, a concept developed by Potter and Wetherell (1987, after Gilbert & Mulkay, 1984) to describe “a lexicon or register of terms and metaphors drawn upon to characterize and evaluate actions and events” (p. 138).While the same speaker can draw on a range of different interpre- tative repertoires—described by Edley (2001, p. 198) as a “patchwork”—the inter- views here did demonstrate some clearly definable clusters of discursive resources that characterize the professional worlds of the speakers. Interpretative repertoires allow us to “understand the kinds of limitations that exist for the construction of self and other” (Edley 2001, p. 201). In other words, creativity is a dynamic con- cept that takes shape through patterns of talk, which are themselves influenced by the semantic and pragmatic resources available to the interlocutors involved. We deliberately drew the attention of the participant teachers to the concept of “creativity” and avoided linking the term to another noun in the first instance (creative teaching, creative use of language) to see how teachers responded to the question “What does creativity mean for you in the context of language teach- ing?”As we shall see, this foregrounding appears to have linked to other discursive constructions of creativity and reveals underlying beliefs about how students learn most effectively in instructional settings, the interpersonal dimension of classroom language learning, and the role of the teacher.At the lexical level, we were able to identify institutionally specific references to particular pedagogic worlds, mostly distinctly the professional EFL terminology (e.g., concept checking, emergent language) in comparison with mainstream UK school system descriptors (e.g., pupils, key stage 3). Beyond lexical differences, however, creativity is interpreted variably accord- ing to personal and institutional parameters (repertoires being both personal but also institutional), in particular who the agents of creativity are, whether creativity refers to creative use of language or pedagogy (what we are calling the creative language vs. creative pedagogy distinction), and how institutional norms shape the

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 118  Simon Coffey and Constant Leung teacher–students encounter (pedagogy as a commercial exchange or as nurturing adult–child relationship). Last, we were interested in asking teachers what specific training they had received relating to creativity and how creativity was integrated formally or infor- mally into their professional development. In the following section, we present the different responses given and the major themes that we identified across the data. Creative Language Versus Creative Pedagogy A clear difference emerged between teachers’ perception of creativity in language use (Stephen) and creativity in pedagogic approach(es) (the other four teachers). This difference echoes the widespread debate over interpretations of communi- cativeness and the purposes of language teaching. Stephen began his response by stating,“I think I should say that my case is a very specific one, because I consider myself a creative writer. In fact I have started writing poetry more professionally, and I always have the tendency to incorporate creative writing in my language teaching” and the main thread of his responses focused on creative language use. Stephen defined his perception of creative use of language as using creative writ- ing, poetry, and literary texts.When asked what he understood creative language to mean, Stephen said, “it’s about personal expression,” but emphasized that this personal investment in language use need not necessarily entail (at least explicitly) talking about oneself or one’s emotions:“When I talk about creative writing and poetry people might think it’s about feelings and sentiment. Not necessarily, it could be any description, for instance, describing a tree.” So personal investment for Stephen is not explicitly emotional but does signal subjectivity. This was quite different from the other four teachers, who interpreted creativ- ity through activities, meaning their choice of activities and ways of presenting and practicing language. In this case, the language did not necessarily veer from the prescribed language of the curriculum, but teachers sought to adapt this in motivating and engaging ways. In other words, creative pedagogies could be used to practice quite predictable language. An important consequence of this difference is that Stephen was the only participant to state that he thinks creativity is more suited to advanced learners. His perception of creativity as “personal expression” requires that students already have a basic core of language from which they can digress in creative directions, so he dichotomizes what he calls “ordinary” language with creative language, imply- ing that creative language use is therefore extraordinary: Using the language creatively means using (it) either in a textual or social [spoken] context in a way that we would not consider ordinary, so perhaps trying to convey a meaning which is not the ordinary one, so extraordinary meaning in a way which is creative, which is personal. (Stephen)

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Voices from the Classroom  119 This stands in contrast to Katarina’s reply when asked about creative language: “It’s not something I have thought of to be honest. For me, personally, creativity doesn’t have that connotation.”When asked if she included creative writing in her teaching, Katarina said,“I’d like to try it but for now when I teach writing I focus on them [students] following ‘models’ rather than creative writing.” When asked about the focus on creative language, Juana acknowledges that there needs to be a variety.“The language has to be varied, it shouldn’t be always the same, like restricted to ‘in a box’ or whatever is in the coursebook, it should be about making it more of an experience for the students.”When asked for an example, she states that she does not use a coursebook and it is important that her students will not be able to predict the content and format of the lesson: “adding different things, changing, extracting from the coursebook and adapting it. We’re a teacher training center as well and it comes from all the feedback, all the ideas.” Similarly, a teacher (called Cassidy) in Freeman and Johnson’s (2005) study explained that she does not use a textbook because “I’ve come to realize that it is much too easy for students to leave the language within the covers of the textbook” (p. 81). Colin is also critical of the predictable format of published coursebooks, saying, “I don’t want to criticize them but they tend to follow a similar format and so I like to supplement them with my own drawing activities.” While his personal focus is on the visual (through drawing), he acknowledges other creative strategies like music and drama (as in role play)—anything, he says, that “sets the scene” or “provides a context for the language.” Even using a song to teach phrasal verbs, he says, is “creative in a way because it makes it more exciting. It engages the senses.” For Colin, creativity is something that “comes from the teacher,” and, while not “integral” to the language lesson (“the language leads”), it “enhances the learning” through personal involvement. He gives as an example his teaching of the Brit- ish cultural term “semi-detached house,” for which he has students draw a plain rectangle with a triangle on top and then a line of symmetry down the middle. Creativity As a Personal Quality and a Professional Skill Here there was a clear divergence between Stephen and Colin on one hand and the other three participants on the other hand. This divergence stems from Ste- phen and Colin’s self-presentation as artistic/creative people rather than as teachers who can learn creative pedagogies as part and parcel of their developing profes- sionalism. As mentioned, Stephen describes himself as a creative writer. Colin went to art school and commits most of his free time to art (painting and draw- ing) alongside his professional life as a teacher.While Stephen focused on creative writing and language, Colin’s emphasis was on drawing and artwork as a creative asset to support student learning, to render “subject matter and language concepts more accessible” (Colin) through connecting language with the visual. Colin

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 120  Simon Coffey and Constant Leung states that “it [drawing] motivates them” and “they like the humor,” so the use of art/drawing in Colin’s classes has a clear relationship-building goal.We include an example of Colin’s drawing in Figure 8.1. The other three teachers did not emphasize their own personal creativity: the central focus in Katarina’s responses was on adapting material to suit the needs of her students and the context of a particular class (“For me, creativity means being able to adapt teaching to your teaching context and the students’ needs”). She gives examples of where she has adapted her teaching style and materials to teaching different contexts to show that creativity, for her, is synonymous with flexibility, quick thinking, and adaptability, which she sees as professional attributes. To illustrate her point, Katarina cites “concept checking,” which she explains is “a big concept in English language teaching.When we teach a new concept it FIGURE 8.1  Colin illustrates his use of drawing

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Voices from the Classroom  121 has to be concept checked so that we know as teachers that students have under- stood.” She gives the following example of teaching the verb to encourage: [I ask] “does anybody know what it means?” Nobody knows, so you explain. It means try to push somebody to do something, try to give them motiva- tion. So then you explain, obviously the students have a concept but not really, so you need to be creative i.e. you need to think on your feet, you need to think of ways of getting through to them, so this is called concept questions. It’s good to observe experienced teachers do that because you can think, ok,“how can you make it clear to them, what is this encourage?” so a good concept question would be trying to put it in a context, for example if I have a child, a small child and I try to encourage them not to be scared of the water, of the sea, “how can I encourage them?,” and you elicit from the students “come on, it’ll be fine, mummy’s here,” whatever, and that’s, you know, you elicit that from the students, and for me that’s creativity, because that’s thinking on your feet and putting it in context for your learners so they understand it better. (Katrina) Like Katarina, Juana understands creativity to denote adapting and explains that newer teachers, who need to plan stages of the lessons in much greater detail, are less likely to be able to adapt materials freely, suggesting that this is a skill that emerges with experience and confidence. It becomes more intuitive: Before, it was far more conscious, when I started teaching, particularly here in London, it was a lot more difficult and I spent a long time thinking “how am I going to do this, how am I going to extract this from the book and make it enjoyable for the students?” (Juana) Creativity is thereby constructed as a professional asset that develops over time as a form of professional intuition. Katarina, in particular, focuses on adaptability, using the expression “thinking on my/your feet” four times during the interview. As such, creativity is a skill that emanates from the teacher (the “responsibility of the teacher” according to Katarina), whereas for Stephen it is a personal quality that he brings to the classroom and encourages the learners to develop through facili- tating activities in which they can use language for personal expression. When asked to think of ways in which students can be creative, Katarina replies that most of the students in her school lack confidence, and she compares this with her own experience as a proactive student in Spain, where she organized her own intercam- bios (conversation exchanges). The conceptualization of creativity as a professional skill was constructed by Juana and Katarina as both spontaneous (adapting, “thinking on your feet”) but also planned (through designing and making novel resources). Both Katarina and

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 122  Simon Coffey and Constant Leung Juana, therefore, also emphasize that creativity in the classroom results from—and is therefore evidence of—effort. When I employ a teacher, the sort of teacher I would not want to be described as (is) a teacher who’s not creative. If I get feedback I like to hear “your materials were creative,” and “you showed creativity.” Creativity shows effort, maybe not for everybody, but lack of creativity would indicate a bor- ing teacher. Because, you know, it’s very difficult for adults to sit through a two- or three-hour lesson, so if you are not creative, they complain, it’s so easy for them to complain. . . We get complaints about teachers who follow the book activity number 1, number 2, number 3 . . . Students use the word “dynamic” a lot and we are always wondering where they got [this word] from, like “my teacher’s not dynamic,” but I think it just means boring and not creative, you know, can’t be bothered to push themselves maybe to pre- pare something different, to think outside of the box. (Katarina) This sense of “showing effort” is echoed by Juana: To me, it’s about making things attractive for the learners. If I create a worksheet for my learners I try to make it visually attractive. . . . I think just a blank piece of paper is uninspiring, even if you have just a few lines or a picture in the corner. It also shows you’ve made an effort for them. Elodie, the only mainstream secondary school teacher at the time of the interview (although Colin also works periodically in secondary schools as a supply [tempo- rary substitute] teacher) defines creativity as to do with creation, but it’s very vague . . .We often think about the produc- tive skills, as in being creative when you write or speak . . . maybe talk about your life or just make up a completely different story. So it’s a very personal experience. . . . But I also noticed certain students being very creative with how they were learning the language, the more passive skills of reading and listening and revising, they were using a lot of color coding or mind maps. I see that as creativity as well. (Elodie) Here, Elodie’s focus is on encouraging students to use newly taught language in personally invested ways, that is, by talking about themselves or choosing to make up a story to practice the newly taught language. She also mentions, and is the only teacher in this study to do so, that students are encouraged to be strategically creative in the way they plan their learning (memorizing and revising). Creativ- ity, for Elodie, can come from the students but is facilitated by the teacher. She equates student creativity with personal investment—an important element of

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Voices from the Classroom  123 the strategy training that features in secondary school education—giving as an example the different degrees of investment when Year 9 (14-year-old) students are encouraged to learn past tenses in their own way (student strategies) compared with when these are learned by rote. As a secondary school teacher, Elodie has to work with the subject specifica- tions in the English national curriculum for schools; she thinks that it is easier to be creative with key stage 3 pupils (11- to 14-year-olds) “than at GCSE” because older students are focused on exam preparation. She thereby constructs creative activities as an “extra”—something not strictly necessary—to core curriculum objectives. She further constructs creativity as “extra” when she compares the adults she is currently teaching (as a private tutor) with teenaged students; she believes that it is easier to be creative with teenagers because adults have a more focused, precise learning agenda. Creativity as a personal trait was more easily definable than creativity as a professional attribute. In the case of the latter, there was a somewhat imprecise conflation of creativity with good practice and student engagement that was often constructed more by pitching the notion against opposites. For example, Juana, in particular, constructed her own professional creativity by contrasting her current teaching practices with those of the way she learned languages in her country of origin, Mexico, which she characterizes as “very traditional.” She states that she consciously tries to move away from the traditional styles of teaching that she knew in the past: [T]he way we are trained to teach in Mexico it’s all a little “here’s the grammar point” without any context and it’s kind of really boring in a way because it’s all about the teacher lecturing, so at the moment the message I’m trying to get across to the teachers I have at the moment [the overseas teachers she trains in London, who come from across the world] it’s all about trying to get away from the traditional stuff and do things that are a little bit different and work with, I don’t know, cards, with colored paper and try to make the materials more attractive for the learners. (Juana) We see, therefore, that, where the teacher self-identifies as a creative type (artist, writer, etc.), creativity can be understood as a natural resource that resides in them and that they can tap into for their teaching. In contrast, other teachers associate creativity as a professional attribute, or skill, to be developed, requiring and dis- playing effort. For some, the teacher is the primary agent of classroom creativity, while for others, students can be encouraged to develop creative strategies to take greater ownership of their learning.The notion of teacher effort and professional responsibility links to judgments about creativity as a risk, judgments that are also interpreted through contextual repertoires.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 124  Simon Coffey and Constant Leung Creativity as Risk: Student Satisfaction and Student Welfare The effort trope mentioned earlier was emphasized by both Juana and Katarina and reflects their professional settings, as well as, possibly, their personal ambitions as teacher trainers. Both have managerial roles in commercial EFL schools, and both have varying degrees of responsibility for teacher development. Katarina is a direc- tor of studies in a large, established EFL school in London, and her managerial role informs her construction of the importance of creativity as she defines it, point- ing out that “students complain when the teacher is not dynamic.” She cites as an example to support this point that a reading activity can be turned into a running dictation. “Of course, when I’m observed I want to be seen as creative, I want to think of something outside of the box, something, yeah, creative,” she states.When asked to expand on this statement she gives as an example of how she would “want to be seen as able to be creative with the interactive whiteboard” and to show that she can use the “magic pen” and “disappearing dialogue” to “add suspense.” In her managerial role, she “observe(s) teachers a lot, obviously we observe new teachers a lot, and it’s good procedure,” stating that “I look to see how creative teachers are.” Juana leads teacher-development courses for teachers of English from overseas and has recently been teaching a course on “creative methodology” that involves “trying to show teachers who come from other countries how to make their les- sons varied and how to use different types of resources and to encourage them to try new things and new methods.” She then explains how teachers she has been training were resistant to the idea of not having a fully planned lesson (she has introduced to them the idea of paring back materials and lesson plans to allow space for spontaneity): It’s still around a lexical set or around this topic, and I know that the emer- gent grammar is going to be this, the language is going to be this, and you more or less know where [the students] are going to take you, but they were saying, particularly the Chinese, they were like “no, no, we can’t do that, it would be unprofessional, in our school we would never be allowed to do that, we would get fired!” (Juana) This resistance highlights a tension between safety and risk taking that was men- tioned to different degrees by all the teachers in our study, as creativity was seen as potentially high risk. On the balance between diverging from core objectives and meeting learning needs, Juana acknowledged that “Yes, well it can be kind of dan- gerous . . .” but explained the importance of training teachers to “deal with emergent language”—that is, unplanned items that emerge as students engage with a topic. Elodie feels that the affective dimension may inhibit creativity in the secondary school classroom, as students might be shy and fear looking “geeky,” so that creativ- ity is better seen as a long-term goal, which depends on the relationship between

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Voices from the Classroom  125 students and between students and teacher. To illustrate the variability of different classes’ reactions, she says that “brainstorming works well with some classes but with other classes it completely fails as a starter.”The assessment of risk in terms of, on the one hand, student satisfaction and, on the other hand, student loss of face, while both aspects are concerned with student comfort and motivation, brings into relief the contrast between the commercial imperative to keep paying students satisfied in EFL schools (Katarina points out that “students are very demanding nowadays”), and the nurturing,pastoral role of teachers working with state,secondary school students. Discussion During our analysis of the scripts, we were struck both by the metaphorical con- struction of creativity across the teachers’ statements and also by how their discur- sive construction of creativity signaled different interpretative repertoires, which we understand to be influenced by situated professional experience in particular institutional contexts. More subtly, there is a shift in repertoire between the function of creativity as a motivator across different settings.The repertoire of thinking “outside the box” as being adaptive in order to keep students happy to avoid complaints by showing effort and dynamism was prominent in the commercial world of private language schools. By contrast, Elodie’s appraisal of creativity is more tempered by the social dynamics of the adolescent classroom, and she therefore draws on a schoolteacher repertoire of affect (“shy,” “geeky”) as she points to the potential risk of face loss among mainstream school learners. The repertoire of risk was also alluded to by Juana but in the context of teacher training, where teachers themselves are encour- aged to challenge their institutional orthodoxy to do something “outside the box.” The common metaphoric construction of creativity as “alternative” and “out- side the box” poses the question:What is creativity being opposed to? Juana and Katarina in particular construct oppositions between creativity and “grammar teaching,” the latter being portrayed as “straight line” teaching, which is equated with dull and uninspiring delivery of material. Personal investment seems to be a common thread, whether this signals teachers bringing in their own creative personal flair (Stephen, Colin) or making the effort to think of presenting set lan- guage in novel and attention-grabbing ways through varied activities and attrac- tive resources or simply encouraging learners to appropriate the language in ways that are personally meaningful for them.As Holliday (2006) reminds us, notions of good practice are ideologically embedded, and it would be interesting to develop further research into how creativity is constructed across the competing agendas of different cultural, educational, and institutional settings. In the same way as Juana clearly sees her role as encouraging teachers to develop the confidence to think in different ways, we are reminded of Gebhard (1990), who, citing de Bono’s “any particular way of looking at things is only one

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 126  Simon Coffey and Constant Leung from among many other possible ways” (1970, p. 63; Gebhard, 1990, p. 162), illus- trates different models of supervising novice teachers, from directive to nondirec- tive “as teachers gain the ability to generate their own alternatives and understand the consequences of what they do in the classroom” (Gebhard, 1990, p. 162). When asked about what training they had received vis-à-vis creativity, all five teachers reported that they had had no explicit training, either during their preservice training or in their more recent in-service professional development, except for Elodie, but she feels that it was limited to finding ways to memorize creatively. Colin says that he does not recall specific reference to the word “cre- ativity” in any training courses but that “this comes up in swapping ideas with colleagues, which we do a lot.” In other words, the exchange of ideas is itself seen as a creative process. He gives as an example how different teachers adapt games, mentioning in particular, the game of “murder mystery”:“I then adapt these ideas from what colleagues have said, for example I will draw the characters on the board with speech bubbles for dialogue” (Colin). Collegial sharing was also emphasized by Juana and Katarina, who observe colleagues and are observed regularly and share ideas for how to do things in the classroom. Juana spoke about the importance of teachers observing each other and getting ideas from colleagues:“I have a huge admiration for a lot of my col- leagues and I really like observing them. It’s wonderful how some of them can just take some cut up strips of paper to work and do wonderful things with that.” As stated earlier, one of the questions we set out to investigate here was whether teachers construe creativity in terms of content or in terms of pedagogy. First, cre- ative content can be defined as language that is not usually associated with needs as identified within the orthodoxy of CLT, that is, the “bulge” discourse described by Cook as “day-to-day unemotional transactional encounters of modern urban existence” (Cook, 2000, p. 62). Either side of this sanitized, neutered language “bulge” is the language of emotional investment (what Cook describes as “lan- guage play”), which is characteristic of intimate relations or of an uneven power dynamic. “Nonbulge” language, thus defined, can therefore be literary language or, more broadly, language created for aesthetic or psychodynamic expression. This was particularly described by Stephen, who advocates using poetry in his language lessons. Second, creative pedagogy need not entail creatively produced (nonbulge) language but involves creative approaches in processing more conven- tionalized classroom language (typified in scenarios such as introducing oneself or ordering a meal). Such pedagogy might include pictorial or dramatic expression of language or indeed wordplay that is created in a novel, stimulating way, such as the drawing advocated by Colin or the student-centered strategies encouraged by Elodie. Both elements of creativity (language and pedagogy) drew on the stimu- lating novelty (Coffey, 2014) of experiencing something that was unexpected, the novelty of which draws the attention of the learner as they personally invest in either new language or a fresh approach to classroom activities.

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Voices from the Classroom  127 Concluding Remarks There was clearly considerable variation in the way creativity is interpreted by our participant teachers. It seems quite clear that their understandings and inter- pretations of the concept of creativity are at least partly shaped by their beliefs and values regarding the nature of language teaching and learning, effective peda- gogy, and institutional requirements. And the different views appear to impact the ways in which they translate creativity into their practice. In many ways, we should not be surprised by the differences among the teachers. As the research into teacher thinking and teacher practice has shown (see earlier discussion), the uptake and incorporation of ideas and concepts can be a complex process, medi- ated by a range of factors such as background educational experience, disciplinary beliefs, and professional values.There is no necessary one-to-one correspondence between the introduction of an idea or concept and its incorporation into a prac- titioner’s professional repertoire. From the point of view of language teacher education, there are good curricu- lar and aesthetic reasons to support the vitalization (some may say revitalization) of the concept of creativity as an educational goal. But it is very important that we do not assume that the concept itself (in many guises) will be assimilated by teachers and incorporated into practice in a predicted and uniform way.We need to encourage teachers to engage in self-critical and reflexive examination of their understanding and interpretation of this concept and to ask themselves, “How does creativity, as I understand it, promote language learning in my context?” and “Which aspect/s of language learning would benefit from a focus on creativity?” Questions for Discussion 1. Where does the word “creativity” appear in curriculum documents and mis- sion statements that you work with, and what does this tell you about the stance being taken? 2. How do you understand creativity (e.g., as a personal quality or professional attribute)? 3. What are some of the challenges facing teachers wishing to incorporate more creative approaches in their teaching? 4. How much is “creative language use” intertwined with or separable from “creative pedagogy”? Suggestions for Further Research 1. Examine a selection of literature on language-teaching approaches and methodologies (e.g., genre-theory approach, task-based language teaching and learning) with a view to exploring the possibility of incorporating the notion of “creativity.”

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 128  Simon Coffey and Constant Leung 2. Explore (and contrast where appropriate) the meanings of “creativity” in lan- guage teaching by studying the views and practices of two (or more) groups of language teachers with different professional experiences (e.g., types of professional training, years of teaching experience, contexts of teaching in terms of countries and/or phases of education) through interviews, analyzing teaching schemes, and/or classroom observations. 3. Study students’ responses to one’s own “creativity-inspired” teaching materi- als or classroom activities by keeping a detailed audio and/or written journal over a sustained period of time (say 6 weeks). The data can serve as a basis for careful reflexive analysis of the possible convergences and divergences between teacher intention and student understanding and uptake in specific contexts. Appendix 1 Interview Guide • Please tell me a little about yourself and your professional trajectory as a teacher. • We are investigating what “creativity” means in different contexts of language teaching. Can you say something about what that means to you? (Is creativity something that you are aware of as such or something that you incorporate spontaneously?) • What input have you had vis-à-vis creativity (your initial teacher training/in CPD/and any other influences)? • Could you give an example of an activity or strategy that you might describe as creative? • Is creativity in language teaching about teacher-initiated strategies or does it come from the student? / How do we mesh wanting to be creative with the language needs of particular student groups? • Is creativity an extra or is creativity an integral part of language learning and teaching? References Andon, N. (2009). What roles do theory and research play in language teaching? A case study on the task-based approach in language teaching (Unpublished PhD thesis, King’s College London). Basturkmen, H. (2012). Review of research into the correspondence between language teachers’ stated beliefs and practices. System, 40, 282–295. Borg, S. (2003).Teacher cognition in language teaching:A review of research on what lan- guage teachers think, know, believe and do. Language Teaching, 36, 81–109. Breen, M. P. (1997). The relationship between assessment frameworks and classroom pedagogy. In M. Breen, C. Barratt-Pugh, B. Derewianka, H. House, C. T. Hudson,

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:02 12 March 2017 Voices from the Classroom  129 T. Lumley, & M. Rohl (Eds.), Profiling ESL children: How teachers interpret and use national and state assessment frameworks (Vol. 1, pp. 91–128). Canberra: DEETYA. Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory:A practical guide. London: Sage. Coffey, S. (2014). Language learning and making the mundane special. In F. Baider & G. Cislaru (Eds.), Linguistic approaches to emotion in context (pp. 331–346). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Cook, G. (2000). Language play, language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. de Bono, E. (1970). Lateral thinking: Creativity step by step. New York: Harper. Edley, N. (2001). Analysing masculinity: Interpretative repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject positions. In M. Wetherell, S. Taylor, & S. J. Yates (Eds.), Discourse as data: A guide for analysis (pp. 189–228). London: Sage. Freeman, D., & Johnson, K. E. (2005). Towards linking teacher knowledge and student learning. In D. J. Tedick (Ed.), Language teacher education: International perspectives on research and practice (pp. 73–95). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gebhard, J. G. (1990). Models of supervision: Choices. In J. C. Richards & D. Nunan (Eds.), Second language teacher education (pp. 156–166). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gilbert, N., & Mulkay, M. (1984). Open Pandora’s box. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hennink, M., Hutter, I., & Bailey,A. (2011). Qualitative research methods. London: Sage. Holliday, A. (2006). What happens between people: Who we are and what we do. In S. Gieve & I. K. Miller (Eds.), Understanding the language classroom (pp. 47–63). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. International House London Curriculum. (2012). Retrieved July 25, 2014, from www. ihlondon.com/legacy/data/files/curriculum-document-2012–390.docx Leung, C. (2013). Second/additional language teacher professionalism—What is it? In M. Olofsson (Ed.), Symposium 2012: Lärarrollen I svenska som andraspräk (pp. 11–27). Stock- holm: Stockholms Universitets Förlag. Retrieved July 25, 2014, from www.andrasprak. su.se/publikationer/nationellt-centrums-symposierapporter/symposium-2012-l%C 3%A4rarrollen-i-svenska-som-andraspr%C3%A5k-1.136476 Marton, F. (2008). Phenomenography—a research approach to investigating different understandings of reality. Journal of Thought, 21(3), 28–49. National Curriculum for Languages. (2013). Languages programme of study for key stage 3. National curriculum for England. London: Department for Education. Government Publications. Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology. London: Sage.