Creativity is an essential element of pedagogical enquiry. Teachers are required to constantly cope with new situations, tasks and challenges that explore their creativity. They are the first medium and resource in the classroom environment, and play an essential role in promoting creativity in the classroom. As they work they bring with them their own personal values and pedagogical beliefs about creativity and these serve as a foundation for their decision making. To date, research on the creativity of teachers in the area of language teaching has been paid little attention. Most creativity research has centred on issues relating to creative students, and the process and concept of creativity in the context of general education and/or psychology. This study explored the views of teachers regarding creativity in EFL classrooms within the context of Indonesian higher education. An exploratory mixed methods design was employed to investigate teachers’ perceptions of creativity in ELT (English Language Teaching). Qualitative results were obtained from interviews with 20 EFL teachers. Quantitative results came from a self-developed Teacher Creativity Questionnaire (TCQ) administered to 175 EFL teachers. The questionnaire results provided a snapshot of the general trend of teachers’ perceptions of creativity and the differences in their perceptions of creativity across gender, age, teaching experience and educational background. The findings provide new insights into teachers’ perceptions of creativity in ELT. They showed that participating teachers viewed creativity as a personal achievement to engage in creative language teaching with their learners and defined it in terms of four categories: creativity as product, process, everyday practice, and cognition. Most teachers in this study saw creativity as product as the ability to create something new or different or make an improvement on pre-existing strategies, approaches, methods or material used in the classroom. A product was evident in their creativity. They also identified the personal characteristics of teachers as a key factor in a teacher’s ability to teach creatively. Willingness to learn continuously was considered as the most important quality for creative teachers. EFL teachers in this study are aware of the importance of life-long learning to upgrade their knowledge and skills. The results of this study suggest that teachers’ creativity is not only essential for engaging learners in classroom activities but also for creating the condition which allow the learners’ own creativity to flourish.
Teachers' beliefs about creativity in EFL classrooms in Indonesia higher education
Fitriah (Author). 2017
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis