In his article, Creative Writing for Language Learners (and Teachers), Maley (2009) highlights the value of creative writing to combine, intuition, close observation, and personal memories.

According to James (2006), a learner can be creative with their language when they only have a little to play with. Within the confines of creativity there is a certain freedom play with the language, where rules aren’t broken but “tested”. Confined, indeed, as it could be argued that creative writing through limericks or haikus, for example, requires students to carefully adhere to rules, thus encouraging a deeper engagement with their own work, and thus deeper acquisition of language.

Benefits of CW for Learners

There are many benefits in incoporating CW into the foreign language classroom, inlcuding language development (grammar, vocabulary, phonology and discourse), increased self-confidence and increased motivation. The role of ‘play’, with language, leads to risk-tasking, a central tenet of second language acquisition. However, what is of interest to me, as an musical-auditory-visual language learner, is that it appeals to a broader range of learning styles, especially those who enjoy to learn through feelings, physical sensations, intuition and musicality. CW also encourages extensive reading, where students read more to be inspired about writing.

The author mentions the importance of publishing the students work, so that others can read and appreciate it. I think this is an area where technology may facilitate the sharing of ideas through colloborative dialogue, if the comment feature, commonly found in blogs, is activiated.

Benefits of CW for Teachers

By going through the process of learning to write ourselves, I feel we, as teachers, may gain valuable experience that will inform how we conduct our future CW lessons. So far, through a few short exercises, I can see the relevance of providing my students with my own, personal examples of CW. If students see that we have gone through the process of a certain task, hopefully they will feel motivated and confident enough to follow our model. I also agree with Maley when he writes, “CW is one way of keeping teachers’ English fresh and vibrant.” As a teacher of primarily lower level students, I do feel I am not as proficient in my own language as I should be. The very act of dipping in the dictionary and thesaurus for my first CW piece, helps to expand and ripen my own vocabulary. Finally, I do feel a certain (over!) excitement, at the prospect of improving my writing skills and developing my own CW activities. In this way, I share Maley’s view that CW effects the writer’s level of energy, in a positive way.

References

Maley, A. (2009). Creative Writing for Language Learners (and Teachers). Available at http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/creative-writing-language-learners-teachers [Accessed 31 January 2015]