Teaching and Accessing Creativity in the Classroom: Designing a New Curriculum for Teaching English as a second language

1.     Current situation

Creativity and innovation are becoming increasingly important for the development of the 21st century knowledge society. They contribute to economic prosperity as well as to social and individual wellbeing and are essential factors for a more competitive and dynamic Asia. Education is seen as central in fostering creative and innovative skills. English teaching is an important part of education, which is the tool of international study. Therefore, those who are not English-speaking countries attach great importance to the English education, such as all countries in Asia.

However, the English Level of Asia students are very low in the world. University education in Asia and in Hong Kong in particular has been increasingly criticized for teaching students to be test taking machines and for teaching students to master facts rather than to become innovative, independent thinkers. According to the latest “2012 English proficiency indicators report”, we found that in the 54 non-English speaking countries and regions, China ranked 36, ranked second to last in the Asian region, only better than Thailand. And Hong Kong ranked in the middle.

2. The problems of traditional teaching methods in China:

In the English classroom, we read the words, sentences, passages and the grammar. Teachers often teach students how to read, how to take the exam and how to improve grade. Nobody care whether the students really learn English well, whether they can communicate with foreigners without any obstacle. In China, learning English for most students is just trying to remember the words again and again, reciting the grammar and exam questions. As a result, they wasted a lot of time in learning English but have no any performance.

For example, there is a very famous English training school in China, which name is New Oriental. In this school, teachers will teach students how to guess the answer to the questions of all kinds of English exams and how to get the high mark. The teaching language is Chinese. In the same words, they teach the English exam taking method rather than the English teaching method.

This is a video of New Oriental teaching class:

http://video.sina.com.cn/v/b/70094890-1666022553.html

Because of the problems of traditional English teaching method, we try to look for a new method to improve the ability to English teaching and learning.

3.     Analysis

Why we need a new English—teaching method?

As mentioned above, in traditional teaching method, teachers often teach students how to read, how to take the exam and how to improve grades. This doesn’t help the students to improve all aspects of English learning. For example, some students just know how to write a perfect article but even cannot communicate with a foreign colleague. As a result, if exam papers are asking for notional performances, teaching and learning will tend to focus on propositional knowledge.

Creativity and innovation have strong links with knowledge and learning. Education is seen as central in fostering creative and innovative skills.

Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creative learning requires innovative teaching. As creativity enhances learning, it should be promoted in all curricular areas.

Creativity is not the preserve of the arts alone, but it can be fostered in all school subjects. Innovation is the production or implementation of an idea. It’s the application of such a process or product in order to benefit a domain or field - in this case, teaching.

Innovative teaching is both the practice of teaching for creativity and of applying innovation to teaching.. Therefore, innovative teaching is the process leading to creative learning, the implementation of new methods, tools and contents which could benefit learners and their creative potential. And also, Innovative teaching requires an understanding of the meaning of creativity for education and its implication.

We think we should create a better language environment to encourage students to practice English rather than taking exams and focus on how creativity can be developed across the curriculum, offering both theoretical and practical advice on how to develop students' capacity for creative thinking and achievement and use creativity to increase levels of motivation and self-esteem. Teachers need to modify their teaching methods to accommodate the changed interaction patterns.

3 The design of a New Curriculum for Teaching English as a Second Language

method introduction

Step 1 Internship

The final purpose to learn English is using it in life and work. Internship is very important for the university students who are going to society from the campus, which can help them combine the theory with the practice. At the same time, students can find their shortages and where they need to improve. Besides, students can feel the importance of English in work, which can inspire their interests of leaning English.

So, the first part of our designing is encouraging students to intern in the summer or part-time. And their assignment is summarizing all the problems they met in the intern company.

Step 2 Debate

We can take the form of debate in the English class.

1)      Topic

First of all, we have a lecture in each class. After lecture, students give the problems they met or the phenomenon they saw in their internship, which need to be related with the lecture. Then, teachers choose a problem that the students are most interested in, and confirm a topic in the last. This topic will be the debate topic in the next class, and in general it has cons and pro.

2)      Before the class

When the students get the topic, they need to prepare for the debate in next class. They can collect data, find information, discuss, and choose which side they support. In this preparing process, students will read a lot of books and papers, which can improve their ability of reading and searching information.

3)      During the class

At beginning of the class, teacher gives the new lecture. No matter traditional teaching method or innovational teaching method, taught course is a necessary part for learning knowledge, because students can catch the point easily through teaching. Or, there is no meaning about the teachers.

The next part is the debate about the last lecture. At first, students are divided into two or several groups. Each group has about 5 persons is best. If there are more students, they can debate two topics. Or they can debate in different time. But everyone need take part in this activity.

The procedure of the debate is as follows: Firstly, students state their different positions respectively. Then each group need to do a presentation about their arguments, and provide the examples or evidences according their positions, and answer the questions from other groups. At last, they need make a summary about their argument. All in all, they need to try their best to persuade others they are right.

This process aims to improve the student’s ability of speaking and listening. I think, the largest difficulty of learning English is opening the mouth to speak. If students can speak and express their idea in public, they will make a great progress in learning English. At the same time, this teaching method can improve student’s ability to analyze the problems and the ability to make immediate response. Besides, this method can strengthen their cooperation, which is the improvement of team work. 

At the end of class, teacher makes a conclusion of the debate, and elects a winner based on the debate performance. The conclusion can help students know where they do well and where they need to improve in the next time. The winner is good for encourage students to take more attention in debate and English learning. Besides, it also contributes to their competitiveness.

4)      After class

When the students finish the debate, each student should write a report about this debate. In this process, they not only present their arguments, but also improve their writing ability. Besides, this is the best way to consolidate the knowledge of the lecture and study theory. At the same time of writing, students also need to prepare for the next lecture and debate. 

5  Conclusion

Every student has a different learning style and a different "type of intelligence". A balance between different domains of knowledge would allow for the provision of opportunities for success for those students who do not possess an 'academic' intelligence.

Our curriculum is designed based on the balance of four skills that students should achieve in the English learning —— reading, listening, speaking and writing, which are the same as the traditional teaching method required. But we do this in a creative way and try our best to make the students get the skills harmoniously and let them put the skills into practice. The method has an acknowledgement of the importance of every domain of knowledge, as this facilitates the catering for different interests, intelligences and learning styles.

What’s more, our curriculum also laid emphasis on the balance between prescription and freedom and the balance of agendas. The curriculum does not involve a great deal of propositional knowledge and be covered in a reasonable amount of time, but leave space for other activities, for deepening understanding and for developing transversal skills. We recognize students' interests when designing the curriculum, so we design the curriculum in a more activated way.

It may be said that a curriculum is a political act, which involves several stakeholders including the parents, future employees of the students. Therefore, choices on what to include in the curriculum should benefit not only the learners, but also meet the demands of different stakeholders.

Consider of this, we expect that students can find the problems during their internship and fix them during the class and then put the knowledge and concept into practice when they go back to their work again. So, this circle becomes a virtuous cycle. And we want to make sure that when students finish their curriculum, they will be qualified for their job.

reference

[1] “How Pixar fosters collective creativity”, Harvard Business Review, 2008
[2]Anusca Ferrari, Romina Cachia and Yves Punie, “Innovation and Creativity in      Education and Training in the EU Member States: Fostering Creative Learning and Supporting Innovative Teaching
[3]Andrew Hargadon and Robert I. Sutton, “building innovation factory”
[4]Albert, R. S., & Runco, M. A. “Theories of creativity”. Newbury Park ; London

[5]2012 English proficiency indicators report