Cultivating Creativity Through English Writing Approach

The purpose of this study was to investigate the teaching methods English teachers’use when teaching writing to cultivate creativity. Numerous studies have shown the importance of cultivating creativity in the students’learning; therefore the need to find out the teachers’and students’views and actions on the matter was very important for the researcher. The close relationship between writing and creativity makes writing a more valuable part of any language course. The study is important because it looks at ways of cultivating creativity for Chinese students using English writing as an approach. Creativity is a vital component of the Chinese education system however students still lack the ability to learn skills that are more effective and creative.The study was conducted in an English writing class of22students in the School of Foreign Languages, NENU. There were three interviewees, the teacher of the class and two students.4writing samples from the interviewed students were also given to the researcher for further information and purposive sampling was used to choose all the participants. Three qualitative methods of collecting data were employed in this study, observation, follow-up interviews and writing sample reviews. The data from the observation and the writing sample reviews were analyzed through analytical frameworks and the follow-up interviews through content analysis.The major findings include the main methods used by the English writing teacher in the class which was the process based approach; including brainstorming, generating ideas, group or pair work and demonstration. The study also revealed that these methods do cultivate creativity; however they have their own negative impacts that somehow they also prevent the creativeness of the students. This study also talks about why some students are reluctant to talk in front of the class or are unable to share their ideas with their classmates. The teachers implications of trying to combine the methods used and the pedagogy of cultivating creativity, was through giving the students free choice of topics, free choice for the student whom they want to work with and more time for the students to prepare their work before demonstration. The creative thinking skills that were mentioned by the teacher in which he tried to integrate with his methods matches the four principles of developing creative thinking skills, the principle of fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. The implications of the findings revealed that teachers should give the students more reading materials, especially books about literature. Give some topics in the books given, to discuss and then write about the themes of what they have read. This enables the students to think creatively and become creative. When reading vivid images pop into their minds and they are able to shape those images into words. Teachers should give students free choice of topic to write about and free writing style. This way the students are able to open up their mind and free up their imaginations, thinking about different sort of topics will make them creative and eager to write about what they have decided on. Teachers of writing should also give freedom to the students to choose who they want to work with; whom they feel comfortable and easy to talk to.This study’s findings contribute to the field of pedagogy in English writing and it also gives teachers the main methods to use writing as an approach to cultivate Creativity.