Martyn Jones

Are schools killing creativity?

In an article on the Guardian online earlier this year, Sir Ken Robinson (former professor of arts education at the University of Warwick, author and general creativity expert) suggested that the rigid prescriptive school structures in place around the world are robbing our children of desirable and necessary creative thinking skills.

Part of his criticism of the traditional school system is that it has too much structure and that subjects are too separated and narrowly defined. During a TED talk in 2006, he suggested that “…creativity comes about from the interaction of the different disciplinary ways of seeing things.” Certainly the Rose review into primary education agrees. It suggested a more broad syllabus:

• understanding English
• communication and languages
• mathematical understanding
• science and technological understanding
• human, social and environmental understanding
• understanding physical education and well-being
• understanding the arts and design

Another part of his criticism is that there is far too great a focus on tests and that schools are only really preparing students to take tests and entrance exams for university. Ken argues that such importance on tests teaches students to avoid making mistakes, and that subsequently they will fail to be able to create anything truly original. Daniel Goleman (author of Emotional Intelligence) would also add that traditional tests only seek to measure IQ, but that there are many other intelligences which contribute towards creativity and that many of these are actually better indicators of how well a child will fare in life.

When I taught in Japan I was always amazed at how instructivist the teaching was and yet how creative the Japanese can be. They are renowned for the quality of their flower arranging, manga, interior design, fashion and architecture. Their natural flair for attractive aesthetics may be due to the fact that graphic design has be ingrained in their culture since the Edo period of the 15th century. The Japanese are well know for their ability to assimilate parts of other cultures into their own and to reinvent and redesign. However, Ken Robinson talked of creativity as the ability to come up with new and novel ideas. Under this definition, does this make the Japanese less creative than I give them credit for? If not, does the suppression of creativity during early schooling lead to an explosion of creativity later in life?

Guardian online article: Fertile minds need feeding

Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on TED

Daniel Goleman: Emotional Intelligence

Problem Based Learning at MIT: TEAL

Demonstration video of PBL in action at MIT:

http://web.mit.edu/8.02t/www/TEALmovie/8.01T_All_80kSorc.wmv

Frequent Quality Input = Quality Output

The title explains most of this post and is the reason why students who study abroad in a country which uses their target language, will see a great improvement in their ability.  In a country like Japan, where English is almost non-existent outside of the classroom, it is important to expose the students to as much English as possible.

There should rarely be any silences in the classroom.  You can keep repeating target expressions and new words while students are writing, or moving desks etc.

We are lucky with English as a subject because we can use language to describe anything.  This means that we can stick English words all over our school, labelling classrooms, objects, directions, maps etc.  We can fill each step on every flight of stairs with useful vocabulary.  We can create posters about our favourite sports, films, comics etc.  Our students may not try hard to read all/ any of it, but it helps to bring English to life and to get it out of the classroom.

If you often visit a single school, you could even start a weekly English radio show.  This could be as simple as playing English songs, but could also involved recorded interviews with local people who speak good English.
The best educational projects that I have read about all use a holistic approach.  This often involves the local community. Once you have covered your school in English, try approaching your local library or community center.  Given the possible benefit to your students, I doubt you’ll experience any objections.

Fairness and Fun

When we use activities which drill patterns, such as practicing affirmative and negative answers, it’s important that the activity can throw up almost as many affirmative as negative situations.  This is not just to ensure that all patterns are practiced, but to try and make the game more fun.

If we play Battleships and only draw one small boat, we could play for 5 minutes and not score any direct hits.  Whilst the students might be using English, they might not think the that the game is fun (or fair).  When there are points involved, we should balance the game in favour of correct guesses.  Higher success rates and greater point scoring lead to a more positive environment.

Teachers want the students to play games so that they can practice English*, but of course the students want to play games to have fun.

*Of course we also want the students to enjoy themselves as this can lead to greater motivation, self-study etc

Introducing New Words into a Junior High School Class

A general outline of some successful techniques I have used to introduce new words.  I find it particularly effective to create sentences which show the word in a typical context (refer to a language corpus), are relevant to the students’ lives and which are presented with a strong emotion.

• Check the new words and prepare some advice for words that you know they will have trouble pronouncing.  Also prepare some example sentences which demonstrate well how the words can be used.  Create flash cards for nouns, adjectives and verbs.  Create posters for new concepts such as “travelling to another country”, “volunteer work”, or anything which you think might not exist within your students’ schema
• Allow students to guess the reading of new words by themselves
• Provide model reading a couple of times (students repeat)
• Provide some example sentences using previously learnt grammar and vocabulary
• Ask the students to guess the meaning in their 1st language before showing the answer
• Have the students make a note of any new words that they didn’t know
• Allow students to read by themselves without teachers or ALTs supporting their volume/ pronunciation (I know some teachers feel that they can raise the volume and confidence of their students if they read together, but I do not think that the teacher should always hold the student’s hand during such activities.  Often, when the teacher stops reading, the whole class stops as well.  This does not suggest a high level of confidence to me )
• Go through the list of new words again.  This time only give model reading once before students repeat
• Go through the list of new words again.  This time only the students read the words
• Go through the list of new words again.  This time show their 1st language and the students have to translate
• Focus on any words the class had trouble with
• Have a worksheet ready with a list of the new words.  Students can write their 1st language translation and then practice writing the English word X times
• Try to make this activity fast paced and fun:  Move between the activities quickly.  Cycle through the new words as quick as the students can read them.  Support new words with funny example sentences or quirky pictures.  Vary your volume, intonation and emotion for each new word
• Remember that is you generate a lot of energy from this activity, you should consider what type of activity you will follow this with.  It’s natural to go straight into a reading / speaking activity that uses the new words.  You can use the energy in the classroom to overcome shyness and raise the general volume