Creative writing for language learners (and teachers)

participants themselves have had to make very real
sacrifices to attend the workshops, for example by
paying their own airfares. The continuing success of
the workshops depends on finding sponsorship, which
makes the whole project s omewhat p recarious.
2. Outreach.
Although some interesting materials have been
produced, they are not s ufficiently well-known, even in
the region. The publisher can do only so much to
ensure that th e materials come into the hands of
those for whom they were intended. So far, the group
has not b een especially successful in popularising and
publicising the materials, and this is a weakness. The
possibility o f setting up local groups of creative
writer/teachers are being explored (in Malaysia in
particular). This is a welcome initiative but o thers
need to be taken to involve larger numbers of
teachers in the CW movement.
3. Quality.
This is a sensitive issue. Writers are almost a lways in
love with what th ey have written, and tend to resent it
if their materials are radically edited or even excluded
from publication. Fortunately, the group members
have been mature enough to consent to their work
being subjected to critical scrutiny. Even so, it h as to
be admitted that n ot a ll the work we publish is of the
highest s tandard. The project i s in the nature of an
experiment, so that w e sometimes need to leave some
latitude for work which is interesting but n ot always as
polished as we might w ish. Long-term this is a
problem we shall have to address however.
The project I have been describing here is small-
scale, modest i n its aims, and relatively insignificant. 
Its importance resides in the high degree of
commitment b y young, energetic professionals to its
aims. Ultimately, change in our teaching practices will
not c ome from top-down ministerial decrees, or from
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academic articles castigating the iniquities visited
upon the NNS teacher, but f rom the commitment o f
individuals with a belief in the practical value of their
actions. A journey of 1000 li begins with the first s tep.
References
Arnold, Jane. 1999.
Affect i n Language Learning
. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University P ress.
Boden, Margaret. 1998.
The Creative Mind
. London:
Abacus.
Carter, Ronald. 2004.
Language and Creativity: the art o f
common talk
. London: Routledge.
Cook, Guy. 2000.
Language Play: Language Learning.
Oxford: Oxford University P ress.
Day, Richard and Julian Bamford. 1998.
Extensive
reading in the Second Language Classroom.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University P ress
Dornyei ,Zoltan 2001. 
Motivational Strategies in the
Language Classroom.
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Gardner, Howard. 1985.
Frames of Mind
. London:
Paladin Books 
Gleick, James. 1988.
Chaos.
London:Sphere Books
Koch, Kenneth. 1990. 
Rose, where did you get th at r ed?
New York: Vintage Books.
Krashen, Stephen 2004 second edition. 
The Power of
Reading.
Portsmouth NH: Heinemann
Maley, Alan (ed) 2006
Asian Short S tories for Young
Readers. Vol. 4
. Petaling Jaya: Pearson/Longman Malaysia
Maley, Alan (ed) 2006
Asian Poems for Young Readers.
Vol.5. Petaling Jaya:Pearson/Longman Malaysia.
Maley, Alan and Jayakaran Mukundan. (eds) 2005
Asian
Stories for Young Readers, Vols 1 and 2.
Petaling Jaya:
Pearson/Longman Malaysia.
Maley, Alan and Jayakaran Mukundan (eds) 2005
Asian
Poems for Young Readers. Vol. 3.
Petaling Jaya:
Pearson/Longman
.
Matthews, Paul. 1994
. Sing Me the Creation
. 
Stroud:Hawthorn Press.
Matthews, Paul. 2007. 
Words in Place.
Stroud: Hawthorne
Press.
Mukundan, Jayakaran. (ed) 2006 
Creative Writing in
EFL/ESL Classrooms II
. Petaling Jaya: Pearson Longman
Malaysia
Rubdy, Rani and Mario Saraceni (eds) 2006. 
English in the
World: Global Rules, Global Roles.
London/New York:
Continuum.
Schmidt, Richard 1990. The Role of Consciousness in
Second Language Learning.
Applied Linguistics. Vol. 11,
No. 2 129-158
. Oxford: Oxford University P ress.
Schumacher, E.F. 1974.
Small is Beautiful
. London:
Abacus/Sphere Books
Spiro, Jane 2004.
Creative Poetry Writing.
Oxford: Oxford
university P ress.
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Neli Kukhaleishvili
Spiro, Jane. 2007. 
Creative Story-building
. Oxford: Oxford
University P ress.
Tan, Bee Tin (ed) 2004.
Creative writing in EFL/ESL
Classrooms I
. Serdang: UPM Press.
Tomlinson, Brian 1998. Seeing what th ey mean: helping
L2 learners to visualise. In B.Tomlinson (ed). 
Materials
Development i n Language Teaching
. Cambridge:
Cambridge University P ress. 265-78
Tomlinson, Brian (2001) The inner voice: a critical factor in
language learning. Journal of the Imagination in L2
learning. VI, 123-154.
replied on 30 December, 2009 - 16:08
PERMALINK
(/COMMENT/6238#COMMENT-6238)
CREATIVE WRITING FOR LANGUAGE LEARNERS
AND TEACHERS (/COMMENT/6238#COMMENT-
6238)
Dear Alan,
Thank you for raising such important i ssues. I feel the
necessity o f creative writing and think it i s so 
important a s I experienced the negative trends of
Soviet m ethodology where no creativity w as encouraged
and ELT writing was understood mainly as dictation -
translation. I hated writing because of this and when I
started teaching , my students hated it a s well . I felt the
necessity o f changing and inventing something .In those
days such books were not a vailable.
I wholly agree with you that..
‘Reading and writing do not h ave to be a prison house.
Release is possible. And maybe language play can
provide the key.’ I think if we take into consideration
not o nly our students' heads but a lso their hearts or
feelings , we will be able" to release "them.
I would like to add to your conditions for providing 
motivation one more which is improvisation because
trodden paths are demotivating.
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I try to vary writing tasks , make them more creative
and my students love writing because of interesting
tasks . As you say we both benefit : students because
learning to write is enjoyable for them , I benefit
because I feel the need to improvise , to make writing
more attractive to my students and think of and look
for more creative task
With best w ishes
Neli Kukhaleishvili 
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