Creative Thinking and Decision-Making Processes in EFL Creative Writing

Abstract

Creativity has been discussed, observed and researched for hundreds of years in the fields of psychology and philosophy – from the ancient notion of the inspired genius, all the way to modern psychologists trying to define creativity and prove its effects. Creativity has recently become a buzzword in EFL teaching practices. We try to stimulate creative thinking in the classroom, but possibly forget to observe the processes within it. The article discusses definitions of creativity and presents a qualitative study on the decision-making processes within EFL creative writing and its connections to students’ language learning. The qualitative study was conducted with two 3rd-year bachelor English students who were asked to plan and write a short story in English while doing a think-aloud protocol. The data were transcribed and coded in order to observe emerging categories in the students’ reasoning for plot and language use decisions.

Creative Writing for EFL Classroom: A Perspective from Higher Education

“…Previous studies and scholars have proposed the role of creative writing in language development (Hill, 2019;Kirmizi, 2015;Nguyen, 2017;Oskoz & Elola, 2016;Şenel, 2018) although at times less significantly (Težak, 2015). However, in the current study, language was perceived as the barrier for the participants, who believed that this is what makes creative writing in English difficult and caused their partial insecurity.…”

“…Kirmizi, (2015) placed an importance on creativity, ownership, subjectivity, and imagination in creative writing. In line with this, a study by Težak (2015) found that students tended to avoid clichés in their narrative stories, and thought about how to create an story that involves plot twists in order to improve its attractiveness to readers. This shows that when conditioned, students could make a conscious decision to be creative.…”

“…Digital storytelling has also been used to improve self-efficacy (Xu, Park, & Baek 2011), or in general, for L2 development (Oskoz & Elola 2016). Storytelling with the use of think-out-loud protocol also has been used in EFL classes, although interestingly, the L2 seemed to play lesser part in the production of the writing itself than the students' real life experiences (Težak, 2015). All of the above scholars have shown that creative writing reaches more potential than a mere language learning tool.…”

“…Afterall, in composing a creative writing work, students still use their real-life logic and reasoning (Težak, 2015). One example is when they need to build a character, they still see if in real life, the character's traits will likely exist or not (Težak, 2015). Creative writing is also said to improve critical thinking (Kirmizi, 2015), as what needed in writing an academic piece.…”