Motivating learners and unleashing their creativity...

The first workshop session started with discussion on defining the notion of creativity. The participants shared ideas and views on how to motivate students. Then in the following sessions, they looked at factors affecting motivation and tried to define a creative language learner. The speaker presented a number of contexts in which learner creativity can be promoted. The delegates were presented with activities designed to promote higher order thinking skills which can also engage and motivate learners to use language creatively. The delegates agreed that a teacher is a facilitator of the language process.  The participants of the workshop discussed the following issues:

• What does a creative learner look like?
• How can learners be kept motivated?
• How can creativity be stimulated?
• What gets your students thinking and talking?

Contexts for creativity: engaging contexts stimulate creativity (cultural collage, context: what does it mean to be European?), making links, working with others outside the classroom, collective memory, introducing elements of mystery, using multi-solution problems, using authentic text, artefact, music, film, drama etc.

The delegates worked in groups to produce their final results: creativity posters.

In the workshop a variety of presentation techniques were used.

The materials are downloadable from the following websites:

http://lizfotheringham.wordpress.com/new-secondary-curriculum-workshops/

http://lizfotheringham.wordpress.com/2010/08/

http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/home/learningandwork/educationandachievement/cpd/cpd-teaching/cpd-teaching-thinkingskills/thinkingskillssubjects/thinkingskillsgeography.htm

http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/docs/key_stage_3/ALTM-KS3.pdf

http://lizfotheringham.wordpress.com/new-secondary-curriculum-workshops/

Books

Chambers, Gary (Ed). 2001 Reflections on motivation. London:  CILT

Ginnis, Paul.  2002 The Teacher’s Toolkit.  Crownhouse Publishing

Harris V, Burch J , Jones B & Darcy J (2001) Something to say? –promoting spontaneous classroom talk. London: CILT

Lightbown, Patsy/Spada, Nina.  2006  How languages are Learned (3^rd Ed)  Oxford: Oxford University Press

Lin, Mei/Mackay, Cheryl.  2004  Thinking through Modern Foreign Languages.  Cambridge:  Charles Kington

Smith, Alistair. 2000 Accelerated Learning in Practice.  Network Educational Press

Websites

http://www.acceleratedlearning.co.uk/

http://www.acceleratedlearning.com/method/index.html

http://www.cilt.org.uk/secondary/key_stage_3/support.aspx   Supporting documentation for several aspects of teaching and learning, including raising motivation

http://www.englishclub.com/tefl-articles/motivation-motivating-efl.htm

http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/171094   Online CPD module on creativity

http://www.nationalstrategiescpd.org.uk/public_content/mfl/3_questioning/webpages/extras/mfl_questioning_scr03.pdf  Using Bloom’s taxonomy

http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/docs/key_stage_3/ALTM-KS3.pdf   Active  learning and teaching strategies

http://www.school-teacher-student-motivation-resources-courses.com/acceleratedlearning.html

http://smtltd.wetpaint.com/  toolkit and strategies for the active classroom

http://socyberty.com/languages/six-effective-strategies-to-increase-motivation/2/

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/creativity-language-classroom

http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/motivating-every-learner-2385

http://www.willatworklearning.com/2006/05/people_remember.html

Blogs

http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=1004  Jose Picardo’s blog on using technology to enhance teaching and learning

http://isabellejones.blogspot.com/  Resources, research and ideas about language teaching

http://joedale.typepad.com/  Joe Dale’s blog on integrating ICT into the MFL classroom

http://rachelhawkes.typepad.com/linguacom/

Web 2 tools for creativity

www.glogster.com  create interactive posters

http://www.rebus-o-matic.com/index.php

http://voicethread.com/

www.voki.com  create speaking avatar

http://www.wallwisher.com

www.wordle.net