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# 4.1 Creativity: what is it and why use it?

Consider four ways in which ‘creativity’ can interact with general education in the classroom:

- creativity – behaving creatively
- creative teaching – teaching to support creative development
- teaching creatively – using your own creativity to develop lessons that interest and motivate students
- creative learning – learning to be creative and learning in creative ways.

One of the reasons for developing students’ creativity is that it encourages higher-order thinking (see Doyle, 1983). In the revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of learning, creativity is the most demanding and challenging of the levels of thinking, and supporting students to be creative helps them develop these higher levels of thinking. Being creative can also help develop students’ self-esteem, which in turn can support the development of affective strategies as defined by Oxford (1990), which you considered in Section 3.

Creative learning can also lead to students’ increased enjoyment of language learning and greater motivation, as well as increased potential for student-led and independent learning.

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