Construction, Adaptation, and Evaluation of Learning Materials (ENG 602)

Discussant: Vernormadeth T. CaballeroProfessor: Dr. Rowena C. Mande

Topic: Creative Approaches to Writing Materials

I. What is Creativity? A. Merriam Websternoun cre·a·tiv·i·ty \ˌkrē-(ˌ)ā-ˈti-və-tē, ˌkrē-ə-\

1. the ability to make new things or think of new ideas

2. the quality of being creative3. the ability to create

B.www.HowardGardner.com“Creativity [is] the impulse to break out of conventional ways of thinking and discover a new truth about the world.” II. Key Components of Creativity

synonyms

: part, piece, bit, element, constituent, ingredient, building block; 

A. Newness: original, innovative, novelty, unusual, surprising

B. Immediacy: sudden, flash, illumination, spontaneous

C. Respect: awe, wonder, admiration, delight

D. Experiment: exploration, curiosity, preparedness, tacit knowledge, puzzle, problem solving, play, heuristic

E. Divine: intuition, insight, imagination, inspiration, illumination, divine spark, gift, hunch, mysterious, unconscious

F. Seeing relationships: connections, associations, combinations, analogies, metaphors, seeing in a new way, peripheral attention, incubation, reconfiguring

G. Unpredictable: randomness, chance, serendipity, coincidence, chaos

H. Acceptability: recognition, relevance, significance, value

III. Approaches to Creativity

A. H-creativity- Gardner-1993 picking up on Francis Galton’s nineteenth-century work on geniuses, has investigated biographical aspects of creativity in a number of H-creative people hoping to find common factors among them.

H-Creative is historically creative, and this would be someone who came up with a thought or concept that no one in the history of mankind has ever thought of.

Psychologically Creative, where someone borrows an idea from one industry or sector and applies it to another. This type of creativity in not so unique, but many innovations that have helped mankind are inducted in this fashion.

B. Psychoanalysis- Storr in 1972Although highly creative people often behave oddly, it is precisely their creative urge which keeps them sane.

Creativity has therapeutic function.C. Multidimensional View-Csikzentimihalyi 1988 Interaction between individual talents, operating

in a particular domain or discipline, and judged by experts in that field.

I. Creativity as a Four-Stage Process-Koestler (1989) takes Helmholtz’ and Wallas’ idea of creativity

It says that given a problem, puzzle, or conceptual space the creative mind does the following:

1. A conceptual space is multi-dimensional feature space where points denote objects, and regions denote concepts. Its bases are composed by quality dimensions, which denote basic features in which concepts and objects can be compared, as such as weight, colour, taste and so on.

1. Preparation stage- Soaking of all the information available

2. Incubation Stage- the process of incubating eggs, cells, bacteria, a disease, etc. The conscious mind stops thinking about the problem, leaving the unconscious to take over.

3. Illumination Stage- A solution suddenly presents itself.

4. Verification Stage- The conscious mind needs to check and elaborate on the insights gained.

The consciousness mind is you awareness at the present moment. You are aware of something on the outside as well as some specific mental functions happening on the inside. For example, you are ware of your environment, your breathing, or the chair that you are sitting on.The subconscious mind or the preconscious mind consists of accessible information. You can become aware of this information once your direct your attention to it. Think of this as memory recall. You walk down the street to your house without consciously needing to be alert to your surroundings. You can talk on the cell phone and still arrive home safely. You can easily bring to consciousness the subconscious information about the path to your home. You can also easily remember phone numbers that you frequently use.It is possible that some of what might be perceived to be unconscious becomes subconscious, and then conscious (e.g. a long-forgotten childhood memory suddenly emerges after decades). We can assume that some unconscious memories need a strong, specific trigger to bring them to consciousness; whereas, a subconscious memory can be brought to consciousness more easily.The unconscious mind, consisting of the primitive, instinctual wishes as well as the information that we cannot access. Although our behaviors might indicate the unconscious forces that drive them, we don’t have easy access to the information stored in the unconscious mind. During our childhood, we acquired countless memories

and experiences that formed who we are today. However, we cannot recall most of those memories. They are unconscious forces (beliefs, patterns, subjective maps of reality) that drive our behaviors.

E. Artificial Intelligence Approach-Margaret Boden 1990 AI- is the intelligence exhibited by machines or

software. Creativity arises from the systematic exploration

of a conceptual space or domain.IV. Why do we need Creativity? A. It is psychologically inevitable.

B. It is also historically inevitable.C. It is necessary for survival.D. It stimulates and motivates.E. Language use and language learning are inherently creative processes.

V. Who are the Stakeholders? a person with an interest or concern in something, A. Material Writers-can be manifested in the content we choose to include or the procedures they offer or the outcomes they aim to achieve. B. Publishers-must adapt their products to the new standards. C. Teachers D. Learners VI. How has Creativity been Applied?

A. The Silent Way

Is a language-teaching method created by Caleb Gattegno that is striking for its extensive use of silence on the part of the teacher as a technique.

Reverses the idea that the teacher does all the talking, and that it is the teacher’s duty to instruct.

Emphasizes the autonomy of the learner; the teacher's role is to monitor the students' efforts, and the students are encouraged to have an active role in learning the language.

Pronunciation is seen as fundamental; beginner courses start with pronunciation, and time is spent practicing it in most lessons, even with advanced students.

B. Community Language Learning (CLL)-Curran, 1976 is a Language-teaching method in which students

work together to develop what aspects of a language they would like to learn.

is based on the Counseling-approach in which the teacher acts as a counselor and a paraphraser, while the learner is seen as a client and collaborator.

It emphasizes the sense of community in the learning group.

It encourages interaction as a vehicle of learning, and;

It considers the students' feelings and the recognition of struggles in language acquisition as a priority.

C. Suggestopedia is a teaching method developed by the Bulgarian psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov. It is used mostly to learn

foreign languages. Learners are required to make no conscious effort to learn. They are exposed to texts of unprecedented length.

The relaxed atmosphere created through Baroque music, comfortable chairs and low lighting is decidedly unlike a normal classroom.

The lesson of Suggestopedia consisted of three phases:1. Deciphering 2. Concert session 3. Elaboration

Deciphering: The teacher introduces the grammar and lexis of the content. In most materials the foreign language text is on the left half of the page with a translation on the right half, i.e. meanings are conveyed via the mother tongue not unlike the bilingual method.Concert session (active and passive): In the active session, the teacher reads the text at a normal speed, sometimes intoning some words, and the students follow. In the passive session, the students relax and listen to the teacher reading the text calmly. Music (" baroque”) is played in the background.Elaboration: The students finish off what they have learned with dramas, songs, and games.Then it has developed into four phases as lots of experiments were done: introduction, concert session, elaboration, and production.[2][4]

Introduction: The teacher teaches the material in “a playful manner” instead of analyzing lexis and grammar of the text in a directive manner.Concert session (active and passive): In the active session, the teacher reads with intoning as selected music is played. Occasionally, the students read the text together with the teacher, and listen only to the music as the teacher pauses in particular moments. The passive session is done more calmly.Elaboration: The students sing classical songs and play games while “the teacher acts more like a consultant”. [2]

Production: The students spontaneously speak and interact in the target language without interruption or correction.

D. Chart for Organizing Language Teaching Materials Inputs- comprise all the raw materials the writer might wish to consider for inclusion. Processes-are what is done with that input. Outcomes-are the objectives the writer hopes to achieve through the inputs and processes.

Generic synonyms: general, common, collective, nonspecific, inclusive, all-encompassing, broad, comprehensive, blanket, umbrella

Pedagogical :  of, relating to, or befitting a teacher or education

Psycho-social- of or relating to the interrelation of social factors and individual thought and behaviorCHART FOR ORGANIZING LANGUAGE TEACHING MATERIALS

INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES*People (experiences, feelings, Generic: *Material Outcomesmemories, opinions, appearance, etc.) * Time (long/short)

(student texts, visual displays, performance, etc.)

*Intensity (high/low)*Type(active/reflective/interactive) *Pedagogical Outcomes

(evidence of learning, test results, fluency, becoming a reader, confidence,

*Topics/Themes*Mode (individual work, pairs, groups, whole class; public/private) learning to learn,

*Medium (spoken/written;handling feedback, meta-competence, etc.)

processing/producing)*Educational Outcomes

Management : (increased social/intercultural awareness, *Texts (literary/non literary; published/ *routines critical thinking, creative problem-solving, student-generated, etc., extensive *instructions independence, etc.)readers) *questions

*Psycho-social Outcomes*Reference Materials (dictionaries, Techniques: (increased self-esteem, self awareness, thesauruses, encyclopaedias, *questioning confidence, cooperation, group solidarity, reference grammars, etc) *info. gap, opinion gap, etc responsibility, attitudinal change, etc.)

*jigsaw reading/listening*Realia (objects, texts, pictures, etc.) *process writing

*reading skills*Visuals (photographs, videos, 'art', film, etc.) *visualizing

*inner speech/rehearsing*Audio (words, texts, music, sounds)

Task-types:Internet, CD-ROMs, etc. *brainstorming

*predicting*Games, simulations, role-play, *classifyinglanguage play *evaluating

*problem-solving*Oral accounts (stories, jokes, anecdotes, presentations, etc) *performing

*constructing objects*Problems (puzzles, moral dilemmas, *researchinglogical problems, etc.)

Generative procedures:*Projects *expansion

*matching*Techniques (improvization, drama, *media transferdictation, translation, etc) *comparison/contrast

*selection/ranking, etc