Creative Activities for the Second Language Classroom
Description:... Factors that are closely related to creative behavior are also intimately connected with language learning and the ability to communicate in languages other than one's own. These factors are fluency; flexibility; elaboration; originality; sensitivity to problems; and the ability to synthesize and analyze, to reorganize an idea, to handle complexity, and to evaluate. Creative thinking, or "divergent production," is contrasted with convergent thinking, an orientation that concentrates on finding a definite or correct approach to problems. Divergent production is explored with regard to its educational implications, foreign language outcomes, communicative ability, classroom climate, and structuring teaching methods in such a way as to foster creative behaviors. This discussion includes an informal teacher checklist on classroom climate and an interpretation of the checklist. Over 50 activities are described. These activities are grouped according to the creative thinking categories of fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality. For each activity a description is provided as well as examples and interpretation of the activity. (AMH)
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