Creativity in second and foreign language teaching
from TESOL Matters, Vol. 7 No. 2, April/May 1997
by Mary Ann Christison
It seems fitting that my first column in TESOL Matters should be about creativity since the English word creativity comes from the Latin verb creare, which means to bring into being or to become.
As a language teacher, I have pondered the notion of creativity in the language classroom considerably during the past two decades. Like most teachers, I have had moments of originality and creativity in my teaching, and sometimes my creative efforts have been embraced by colleagues and others in the field. Yet, even with these positive experiences, creativity has been elusive. There seems to be no way to determine when creativity will strike, and when it does, there seems to be no way to predict how others might react. I have not always understood my own creative efforts or the impact my creative ideas might have on the TESOL profession. This has troubled me because the future of the TESOL profession is tied closely to creativity and innovation. The creative ideas we have as teachers will dissipate unless there is a receptive audience to evaluate and implement them.
In the past few months, I have been reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's wonderful book entitled Creativity and have been struck by the implications of his work for English language teaching. I would like to share some of his ideas with you.
Until recently, I thought that creativity was something that happened inside a person's head. Now, I understand it is the interaction between what one is thinking and the sociocultural context in which one finds oneself.
Csikszentmihalyi's first question of creativity is not "What is it?" but "Where is it?" He believes that creativity is found in the interrelations of a system made up of three components: the domain, the field, and the individual.
A domain consists of a set of symbolic rules or procedures. Mathematics, physics, and language are domains. Mathematics and physics have sharp boundaries and well-defined rules. Language study is more diffuse, but it is still a domain.
The second component of creativity is the field. The field includes all of us teachers, the people who consider ourselves gatekeepers to the domain (p. 28).
As English language teaching professionals, we decide whether a new idea or product should be included in the domain. We decide what ideas get remembered and recognized.
The last component, of course, is the individual. Most of us have been used to thinking that creativity begins and ends with the person. The most important implication of Csikszentmihalyi's model is that creativity does not depend solely on individual creativity. It depends on how well suited the respective domains and fields are to the recognition and diffusion of novel ideas.
We can find a wonderful example of this interpretation of creativity in the Italian Renaissance in Florence from 1400 to about 1425. Many influential works of art in Europe were created during this quarter century. If creativity is only within the individual, then we have to wonder what the explanation is for an unusually large number of creative artists being active during that brief time. Was it some freak genetic mutation or a drastic change in the educational system?
The Renaissance in Florence cannot be explained solely in terms of the domain either, the sudden access to information. Otherwise, an equal spurt of artistic growth would have occurred in cities all over Europe. But, in fact, no other place in Europe matched Florence in the intensity and depth of artistic expression. The field also played an important role. The leaders of Florence wanted to make Florence the most beautiful city in Europe. They commissioned great frescoes and statues to accomplish this goal. They became involved in encouraging, evaluating, and selecting works of art. It would have been impossible to assimilate all the work the artists produced without leaving Florence in chaos.
The situation in Florence during the Renaissance is similar to that of English language teaching today. Just as the leaders in Florence had a responsibility to promote innovation, so do we as professional language teachers. The field is a very important component in enhancing creativity and affecting the rate of innovation. Csikszentmihalyi suggests three ways that a field can influence this rate. The first way is by being either reactive or proactive. The question we should ask ourselves is: What do we do as a profession do to stimulate creativity and novel thinking? The second way to enhance creativity is to consider the selection filter. The question we should ask ourselves is: How much novelty and innovation do we need in English language teaching? Do we filter out too much or let in too little? Both ends of the continuum are dangerous. On the one end, the profession is starved for new ideas; on the other end there are too many unevaluated ideas, and the field flounders. The third issue is how well connected we are as a profession to the rest of the social system and how well we are able to channel support into our own domain.
TESOL, as a professional organization, becomes important in this regard by advocating for its members.
As professionals in TESOL, we have the responsibility to enhance our own creative efforts -- set goals, pursue work we love, make time for reflection -- but we also have a responsibility to determine the merits of a new idea or product for our profession. It is our responsibility to learn the rules and content of our domain, as well as the criteria for selection and the preferences in our field, so that we can make these determinations.
Understanding how individuals, domains, and fields operate together within the creative process means that we can be more thoughtful, informed, and purposeful in this decision-making process. Then, creativity, change, and innovation will happen in such a way that all of us in TESOL will benefit.
Reference
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity. New York: HarperCollins.
