THE ROLE OF INTERNAL CONSTRAINTS AND FANTASY ELEMENT IN CREATIVE LANGUAGE TASKS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Lavinia D. W. Araminta

Abstract


For the past few years, language teaching, especially for foreign learners, has become more and more creative. Creativity has been deemed paramount in the history of language use by human beings, including day-to-day language play and literary works. It is also suggested that creative language tasks are helpful for learners when it comes to writing. This small-scale study involving two Indonesian university students in Auckland was conducted to find out how adult learners, at any rate, take advantage of imagination in language learning. It examines the role of internal constraints and fantasy element in helping adult learners create meanings in doing creative language tasks. The results show that these two components in creative language tasks could help adult learners play with language. By combining prior knowledge and existing linguistic resources, the participants came up with new meanings from previously known concepts which did not seem to relate to each other. Specifically, input and outcome constraints are useful, while external constraints should be left out. Fantasy element is also beneficial as it requires an act of imagining. For recommendation, to stimulate students to experiment with language, teachers need to design creative tasks which have appealing topics and require them to collaborate.

Keywords


Fantasy; constraint; imagination; creative language task; foreign language learner

Full Text:

PDF

References


Bell, J. (2005). Doing Your Research Project. Open University Press.

Brown, D. (2007). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Pearson Education, Inc..

Carter, R. (2004). Language and creativity: The art of common talk. Routledge.

Chow, B. W., Hui, A. N. N., & Chui, B. H. (2018). Creative literacy activities promote positive reading attitude in children learning English as a foreign language. Journal of Research in Reading, 41(2), 278-289. doi:10.1111/1467-9817.12096

Cohen, W. M. & Levinthal, D. A. (1990). Absorptive Capacity: A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(1), 128-152.

Council of Europe, & Council for Cultural Co-operation. Modern Languages Division. (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge University Press.

Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge University Press.

Elias, S. (2012). Origins of human innovation and creativity. Elsevier.

Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching (Oxford applied linguistics). Oxford University Press.

Finke, R., Smith, Steven M, Ward, Thomas B, & MITCogNet. (1996). Creative cognition theory, research, and applications. MIT Press.

Goodman, S. & O’Halloran, K. (2006). The art of English: literary creativity. Palgrave Macmillan.

Liao, Y., Chen, Y., Chen, H., & Chang, Y. (2018). Infusing creative pedagogy into an English as a foreign language classroom: Learning performance, creativity, and motivation. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 29, 213-223. doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2018.07.007

Maley, A. (1998). Squaring the circle – reconciling materials as constraint with materials as empowerment. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials development for language teaching (pp. 279-294). Cambridge University Press.

McCallum, A. (2012). Creativity and learning in secondary English: Teaching for a creative classroom. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203122488

Mellou, E. (1995). Creativity: The imagination condition. Early Child Development and Care, (114), 97-106.

Ottó, I. (1998). The relationship between individual differences in learner creativity and language learning success. TESOL Quarterly, 32(4), 763-773.

Ribot, T., & Baron, Albert Heyem Nachmen. (1906). Essay on the creative imagination. Open Court Pub.

Sawyer, R., & Ebrary, Inc. (2003). Creativity and development (Counterpoints (Oxford University Press). Oxford University Press.

Smith, S., Ward, M., & Schumacher, T. (1993). Constraining effects of examples in a creative generation task. Memory & Cognition, 21(6), 837-845.

Tin, T. B. (2011). Language creativity and co-emergence of form and meaning in creative writing tasks. Applied Linguistics, 32(2), 215-235. doi:10.1093/applin/amq050

Tin, T. B. (2012). Freedom, constraints and creativity in language learning tasks: new task features. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 6(2), 177-186. doi: 10.1080/17501229.2011.628024

Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). Imagination and Creativity in Childhood. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 42(1), 7–97.

Wilde, D., & SpringerLink. (2011). Jung's personality theory quantified. Springer.

Wray, A. (2000). Formulaic sequences in second language teaching: Principle and practice. Applied Linguistics, 21(4), 463-489.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33021/lrs.v1i1.1037

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Articles in this journal have been indexed in major research databases, including: