Are Creative EFL Teachers Born or Can They Be Grown? Some Reflections and Implications for Teacher Training
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Abstract
Foreign language teacher creativity covers a variety of meanings. It refers to teacher creativity as a language learner/ user; teacher creativity as a performer (i.e. a person acting out in a classroom) and teacher creativity as a manager of his/her own professional development/ career. The paper describes the training implemented to novice teachers of English (n= 40). The aim was to raise students’ awareness of the concept of creativity, with special emphasis being put on FL teacher creativity and to familiarize the trainees with creativity enhancement procedures. The training affected students both cognitively and emotionally. It proved particularly useful in broadening student’s perspectives upon the notion of creativity and triggering their reflection upon what makes foreign language teacher behaviour creative
Keywords
Abstract
Foreign language teacher creativity covers a variety of meanings. It refers to teacher creativity as a language learner/ user; teacher creativity as a performer (i.e. a person acting out in a classroom) and teacher creativity as a manager of his/her own professional development/ career. The paper describes the training implemented to novice teachers of English (n= 40). The aim was to raise students’ awareness of the concept of creativity, with special emphasis being put on FL teacher creativity and to familiarize the trainees with creativity enhancement procedures. The training affected students both cognitively and emotionally. It proved particularly useful in broadening student’s perspectives upon the notion of creativity and triggering their reflection upon what makes foreign language teacher behaviour creative
Keywords
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- gradually expands to generate, modify and evaluate one’s creative behaviour (for details see Wysocka, 2011). Final session concerned students’ self –reporting. The aims of this session were: to allow Ss to verbalize their own definitions of FL teacher creativity and experiences with introducing creativity; to evaluate the training. The students’ feedback together with the evaluation is discussed in the subsequent section. Conclusions If we pose the question: ‘Are creative teachers born or can they be grown’, the answer would be both
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- Starbuck, 2006; Wysocka, 2011). Before the training, the students perceived creativity, mainly as a trait
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