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内蒙古包头市一机一中包头014030
【Abstract】
Creative education is a new and popular approach to education. It emphasizes more on developing students’ creativity. In order to carry out creative teaching,we will have to know some noticeable problems existing in our traditional English education in China. The factors which form these problems are the killer of creativity. This paper is on how to teach and learn creatively and effectively. It is composed of three parts, the first two parts containing theories on creativity and some problems existing in our educational system and in our English teaching. Some suggestions are proposed in the last paragraph.
【Keywords】
Creativity; Creative education; Creative teaching
【摘要】创新教育是一种新的受大众欢迎的教育方法。此方法更强调培养学生的创造力， 为了引进创新教学，我们必须了解中国传统英语教学中存在的一些突出问题；而这些是培养创新能力的绊脚石。作者谈到怎样能有效而富有创新的教和学。这篇文章包括三部分：前两部分包括创新理论及我们教育体系和英语教学中存在的一些问题。文章最后一部分提出作者的几条建议。
【关键词】创造力创新教育创新教学
I. Introduction
Creativity helps us make progress. The word at this time is rapidly changing with the science and information technology. The globalization is affecting our lifestyles, production and education, so creativity is the driving power ofman’s progress. It has not only created our history but also will draw the picture about man’s future. The highest goal of foreign language teaching is to train students to be capable of employing language skills and language techniques and ultimately become an independent and successful individuals living in the community. Teaching high school English is the clearance stage of teaching and learning English. Classroom teaching innovation in English teaching always requires teachers to reflect the initiative of students and give full play to the students in English teaching initiative, enthusiasm and creativity.This paper is to treat very briefly some theoretical issues on creative teaching and then followed by a few methods.
II. Creativity in English teaching
1.Definition of creativity
What is creativity? Creativity is to bring forth what does not exist either as a product or a process or a thought. Let’s tell a story to explain this definition clearer. In18th century, Karl Benz invented the first car in the world, which had four wheels, two seats, and a steam engine. His car looked like a cart. Although the process of making it was very similar to that of making a cart they were not the same after all. Later, Karl was familiar with the procedure of making cars, so he opened a small car factory and his car became an industrial product. More faster and more comfortable cars were manufactured and used by nobles. Then his car was not only a vehicle but also a symbol of status.
2.Creativity and Creative teaching
Furthermore,creative thinking is the process which we use when we come up with a new idea.And the whole essence of creativity lies in its freshness. Creativity is often unexpected and exciting, which involves breaking conventional rules and seeing things in new ways.Creative thinking is a special kind of energy,which moves through the whole body,also can simply be seen each day as something new and fresh and full of potentials.
Think over man’s history, Creativity help us make progress in every aspect. Under each milestones of our history, there were significant inventions or new discoveries by human’s creativity.For example, In the second half of the 19th century, the electric light,the radio, sound movies, the computer were invented. These outstanding persons who started new eras for the world are all full of creativity and great ability of thinking. Therefore, some overseas schools are beginning to pay deliberate attention to the teaching of higher order or quality thinking processes.But our traditional educational system aims at examination.For many years, the examinationoriented education system has hindered the development of creativity. But today’s information technology and the meoindustry revelation force people to discover new problems in science and society and then apply themselves to dealing with the problems.
3. Some problems in our teaching methods
Science and society’s development sometimes is closely related to language.In the evolution of scientific thought, language is playing a more and more active role. To obtain accurate and direct information from others, the communication skills or the interest decide the success of learning. English as the widestused worldwide language is absolutely essential for an opening country. However, all of us have noticed that the lack of creativity and interactive communication in English teaching and studying has become a serious problem in the current English teaching. Some English teachers always believe that the major task of English teaching is grammatical knowledge and is to pass various kinds of examinations without thinking, but only memorizing is boring to most of students.How can creativity fly without the wings of thinking? Students want English to become their magic stick to learn the information from foreign countries and to communicate with foreigners freely. What a student told me made me lost in meditation.He said he couldn’t express himself when meeting foreigners during his summer vacation. He was really eager to do that from the bottom of his heart.
This exposes another problem that the student’s thinking and expressing abilities are severely sealed by teacher’s outmoded teaching ways. Excess emphasis on memorization, on understanding established knowledge, and arriving at a predetermined right answer make it impossible for the student to obtain original thinking and problemsolving ability.Assessment of learning through the use of standardized tests of basic skills provides one kind of check on the effectiveness of education. We mentioned before that creativity is the process or experience to find new solutions to problems.How could the teachers who ask the listener just to copy the same answer develop their students innovating ability? Most of programs adopted in classes are dull and boring, and almost unexceptionally about teacher’s own ideas or the author’s suggestions of the textbooks but not concerning students’ understandings.
With the rapid pace of changes in the world and China’s entrance to WTO, more and more people realize that the world is not a locked one but openingup to everyone on earth. So there is an urgent need for teachers to recognize the necessity of creative and complex thinking. The future world has need of serious thinkers and skillful communicators’ service.
III. Ways to make our students more creative
1.Teachers should be creative first
In my opinion, the first step is to allow teachers to be creative. “we ourselves are trained in the education structure which based on labels, categories, specialized fields, and a strict hierarchical organizational pattern has little provision for the free and creative thinking and practicing,”( By Berenice d Bleedorn, Ph.D.P72 1996 ) In contrast, creativity is unconditioned,that is to say, to act in a way that is free and not directed by anything outside itself.It requires a teacher has to be creative to provide his kids or students with a flexible and creative atmosphere.Creative thinking, an essential factor of creativity, is not about getting high test scores, having a high IQ or being smart. Instead, it seems that creative thinking is a matter of habits. It is a conscious effort to break away from old thought patterns in order to explore new possibilities. That is socalled “think outside the box”, which is to try new ways to solve a problem.
2.Using all possible ways to inspire student’s interest in being more creative
Here are some of my successful experiences : we teachers can raise open questions to give students the opportunities to imagine. For example, Once I asked students “what do you think will happen in agriculture in the 21st century?” while teaching unit 19 (modern agriculture ) of senior English for Chinese students, Book 1. Some answers from the students were beyond my expectation,which in turn stimulated my thinking.Instead of copying down repetitions, teachers should assign open or half open homework to leave students enough space to walk across the universe.In addition, ask students to make as many sentences and stories as possible with words and structures that they have newly learned In my class, I have been requiring students to make the same sentence with various kind of words or its synonyms and antonyms.Therefore, most students now have formed a good habit of association,which I think matters more.In a word, imagination is the foundation of creativity. No imagination, no creativity.
3. Creating a creative teaching environment
Besides, Creating a creative teaching environment also matters.Creative and free environment can make students and teachers feel at ease and try to be active in class, Sometimes students’ ideas are just what we need to make the class lively and productive.Brainstorm is recommended by many famous scholars to make students think freely and offer their own solutions to a specific problem. Firstly,teachers need to divide students into several groups.and each group should have a notetaker who is responsible for writing down everyone’s suggestions.Secondly, teachers offers a number of questions or problems which arise in the text or during the learning period.Thirdly, students discuss the possible answers or solutions to questions or problems.Finally, teachers collect the notes and try to make every student explain their solutions to confirm the best choice.
4.Giving positive assessment on student’s activities
Additionally, give positive assessments on students’ activities. Everyone in the world likes to be praised and encouraged at anytime,especially in creative education encouragement Positive assessment is essential for building up their confidence and recharging power to gain more knowledge. Sometimes,each word or gesture of the teacher will affect student’s attitude towards the course itself. Teacher’s positive assessments are potential energy to power their mind.Many of the teachers believe that students’ mind is too simple or stupid, so when students produce creative thinking fragments,which are always regarded as an “foolish idea ” by the “ leaderlike ”style teachers.The creative energy is often shut down by criticizing and blaming words. So be more careful about the student’s “ foolish question ”, positive and assessment is a must to develop creative education.As teachers we ought to be good at finding something positive element about every student.Why can’t our class be studentoriented?
IV. Conclusion
In conclusion, education is the basic factor of a nation’s development,and creativity is an essential power of society and science. So creative education shouldn’t be ignored by today’s teachers. Students’ creative potential is affected by the established educational system everyday.And teachers should be sensitive enough to learn and encourage their unique and fantastic ideas.
English class is a place where the students are learning how to communicate in English. It is a must to stress more on their communication abilities. Whatever great your idea is, it is needed to be expressed and understood by others. English is like a bridge to link different cultures and people.Trying to provide a creative studying environment for students and encouraging them to learn and use English actively is a major task for educators in this area.
Bibliography
［1］Brown, H.D. Creativity and Education.Cambridge University Press23 feb 1989
［2］By Bernice D.Bleedorn, Ph.D. Introduction to an Education track for Creativity Frankl Schaffer Publications.Inc. 1996
［3］朱敏华.谈谈在英语教学中如何培养学生的创新思维能力.广东基础教育信息中心,2003 年 6 月20 日
［4］胡壮麟（北京大学英语系，北京 100871）.《对中国英语教育的若干思考》 发表于外语研究,2002 年第3期
［5］张在新等.我国英语写作教学中的主要问题［J］.外语教学与研究，1995（4）：4350.
【Abstract】
Creative education is a new and popular approach to education. It emphasizes more on developing students’ creativity. In order to carry out creative teaching,we will have to know some noticeable problems existing in our traditional English education in China. The factors which form these problems are the killer of creativity. This paper is on how to teach and learn creatively and effectively. It is composed of three parts, the first two parts containing theories on creativity and some problems existing in our educational system and in our English teaching. Some suggestions are proposed in the last paragraph.
【Keywords】
Creativity; Creative education; Creative teaching
【摘要】创新教育是一种新的受大众欢迎的教育方法。此方法更强调培养学生的创造力， 为了引进创新教学，我们必须了解中国传统英语教学中存在的一些突出问题；而这些是培养创新能力的绊脚石。作者谈到怎样能有效而富有创新的教和学。这篇文章包括三部分：前两部分包括创新理论及我们教育体系和英语教学中存在的一些问题。文章最后一部分提出作者的几条建议。
【关键词】创造力创新教育创新教学
I. Introduction
Creativity helps us make progress. The word at this time is rapidly changing with the science and information technology. The globalization is affecting our lifestyles, production and education, so creativity is the driving power ofman’s progress. It has not only created our history but also will draw the picture about man’s future. The highest goal of foreign language teaching is to train students to be capable of employing language skills and language techniques and ultimately become an independent and successful individuals living in the community. Teaching high school English is the clearance stage of teaching and learning English. Classroom teaching innovation in English teaching always requires teachers to reflect the initiative of students and give full play to the students in English teaching initiative, enthusiasm and creativity.This paper is to treat very briefly some theoretical issues on creative teaching and then followed by a few methods.
II. Creativity in English teaching
1.Definition of creativity
What is creativity? Creativity is to bring forth what does not exist either as a product or a process or a thought. Let’s tell a story to explain this definition clearer. In18th century, Karl Benz invented the first car in the world, which had four wheels, two seats, and a steam engine. His car looked like a cart. Although the process of making it was very similar to that of making a cart they were not the same after all. Later, Karl was familiar with the procedure of making cars, so he opened a small car factory and his car became an industrial product. More faster and more comfortable cars were manufactured and used by nobles. Then his car was not only a vehicle but also a symbol of status.
2.Creativity and Creative teaching
Furthermore,creative thinking is the process which we use when we come up with a new idea.And the whole essence of creativity lies in its freshness. Creativity is often unexpected and exciting, which involves breaking conventional rules and seeing things in new ways.Creative thinking is a special kind of energy,which moves through the whole body,also can simply be seen each day as something new and fresh and full of potentials.
Think over man’s history, Creativity help us make progress in every aspect. Under each milestones of our history, there were significant inventions or new discoveries by human’s creativity.For example, In the second half of the 19th century, the electric light,the radio, sound movies, the computer were invented. These outstanding persons who started new eras for the world are all full of creativity and great ability of thinking. Therefore, some overseas schools are beginning to pay deliberate attention to the teaching of higher order or quality thinking processes.But our traditional educational system aims at examination.For many years, the examinationoriented education system has hindered the development of creativity. But today’s information technology and the meoindustry revelation force people to discover new problems in science and society and then apply themselves to dealing with the problems.
3. Some problems in our teaching methods
Science and society’s development sometimes is closely related to language.In the evolution of scientific thought, language is playing a more and more active role. To obtain accurate and direct information from others, the communication skills or the interest decide the success of learning. English as the widestused worldwide language is absolutely essential for an opening country. However, all of us have noticed that the lack of creativity and interactive communication in English teaching and studying has become a serious problem in the current English teaching. Some English teachers always believe that the major task of English teaching is grammatical knowledge and is to pass various kinds of examinations without thinking, but only memorizing is boring to most of students.How can creativity fly without the wings of thinking? Students want English to become their magic stick to learn the information from foreign countries and to communicate with foreigners freely. What a student told me made me lost in meditation.He said he couldn’t express himself when meeting foreigners during his summer vacation. He was really eager to do that from the bottom of his heart.
This exposes another problem that the student’s thinking and expressing abilities are severely sealed by teacher’s outmoded teaching ways. Excess emphasis on memorization, on understanding established knowledge, and arriving at a predetermined right answer make it impossible for the student to obtain original thinking and problemsolving ability.Assessment of learning through the use of standardized tests of basic skills provides one kind of check on the effectiveness of education. We mentioned before that creativity is the process or experience to find new solutions to problems.How could the teachers who ask the listener just to copy the same answer develop their students innovating ability? Most of programs adopted in classes are dull and boring, and almost unexceptionally about teacher’s own ideas or the author’s suggestions of the textbooks but not concerning students’ understandings.
With the rapid pace of changes in the world and China’s entrance to WTO, more and more people realize that the world is not a locked one but openingup to everyone on earth. So there is an urgent need for teachers to recognize the necessity of creative and complex thinking. The future world has need of serious thinkers and skillful communicators’ service.
III. Ways to make our students more creative
1.Teachers should be creative first
In my opinion, the first step is to allow teachers to be creative. “we ourselves are trained in the education structure which based on labels, categories, specialized fields, and a strict hierarchical organizational pattern has little provision for the free and creative thinking and practicing,”( By Berenice d Bleedorn, Ph.D.P72 1996 ) In contrast, creativity is unconditioned,that is to say, to act in a way that is free and not directed by anything outside itself.It requires a teacher has to be creative to provide his kids or students with a flexible and creative atmosphere.Creative thinking, an essential factor of creativity, is not about getting high test scores, having a high IQ or being smart. Instead, it seems that creative thinking is a matter of habits. It is a conscious effort to break away from old thought patterns in order to explore new possibilities. That is socalled “think outside the box”, which is to try new ways to solve a problem.
2.Using all possible ways to inspire student’s interest in being more creative
Here are some of my successful experiences : we teachers can raise open questions to give students the opportunities to imagine. For example, Once I asked students “what do you think will happen in agriculture in the 21st century?” while teaching unit 19 (modern agriculture ) of senior English for Chinese students, Book 1. Some answers from the students were beyond my expectation,which in turn stimulated my thinking.Instead of copying down repetitions, teachers should assign open or half open homework to leave students enough space to walk across the universe.In addition, ask students to make as many sentences and stories as possible with words and structures that they have newly learned In my class, I have been requiring students to make the same sentence with various kind of words or its synonyms and antonyms.Therefore, most students now have formed a good habit of association,which I think matters more.In a word, imagination is the foundation of creativity. No imagination, no creativity.
3. Creating a creative teaching environment
Besides, Creating a creative teaching environment also matters.Creative and free environment can make students and teachers feel at ease and try to be active in class, Sometimes students’ ideas are just what we need to make the class lively and productive.Brainstorm is recommended by many famous scholars to make students think freely and offer their own solutions to a specific problem. Firstly,teachers need to divide students into several groups.and each group should have a notetaker who is responsible for writing down everyone’s suggestions.Secondly, teachers offers a number of questions or problems which arise in the text or during the learning period.Thirdly, students discuss the possible answers or solutions to questions or problems.Finally, teachers collect the notes and try to make every student explain their solutions to confirm the best choice.
4.Giving positive assessment on student’s activities
Additionally, give positive assessments on students’ activities. Everyone in the world likes to be praised and encouraged at anytime,especially in creative education encouragement Positive assessment is essential for building up their confidence and recharging power to gain more knowledge. Sometimes,each word or gesture of the teacher will affect student’s attitude towards the course itself. Teacher’s positive assessments are potential energy to power their mind.Many of the teachers believe that students’ mind is too simple or stupid, so when students produce creative thinking fragments,which are always regarded as an “foolish idea ” by the “ leaderlike ”style teachers.The creative energy is often shut down by criticizing and blaming words. So be more careful about the student’s “ foolish question ”, positive and assessment is a must to develop creative education.As teachers we ought to be good at finding something positive element about every student.Why can’t our class be studentoriented?
IV. Conclusion
In conclusion, education is the basic factor of a nation’s development,and creativity is an essential power of society and science. So creative education shouldn’t be ignored by today’s teachers. Students’ creative potential is affected by the established educational system everyday.And teachers should be sensitive enough to learn and encourage their unique and fantastic ideas.
English class is a place where the students are learning how to communicate in English. It is a must to stress more on their communication abilities. Whatever great your idea is, it is needed to be expressed and understood by others. English is like a bridge to link different cultures and people.Trying to provide a creative studying environment for students and encouraging them to learn and use English actively is a major task for educators in this area.
Bibliography
［1］Brown, H.D. Creativity and Education.Cambridge University Press23 feb 1989
［2］By Bernice D.Bleedorn, Ph.D. Introduction to an Education track for Creativity Frankl Schaffer Publications.Inc. 1996
［3］朱敏华.谈谈在英语教学中如何培养学生的创新思维能力.广东基础教育信息中心,2003 年 6 月20 日
［4］胡壮麟（北京大学英语系，北京 100871）.《对中国英语教育的若干思考》 发表于外语研究,2002 年第3期
［5］张在新等.我国英语写作教学中的主要问题［J］.外语教学与研究，1995（4）：4350.