From spoon-feeding to self-feeding

A New Curriculum to Enable Students 
as the Host of Their Own English:

From Spoon-feeding to Self-feeding

-- by Team Chopsticks (featuring: Team Harmony)

Imagine a traditional classroom in Hong Kong. When an English teacher steps into the door, what would be the first few words from him/her trying to get back the attention from the noisy crowd and start the lecture? Probably: “Class!  Quiet please!  Listen to me.  Open the exercise book to page….”

But wait, must our classroom interaction be like this? Can this way of teaching English, through teachers giving out instructions and then students taking orders, brings out creativity?

The old curriculum: Learning English in a Chinese way

The common thought says that spoon-feeding style of education is a norm to Hong Kong students as they are less spontaneous and ready to self-exploration of knowledge. Many researchers have ascribed the phenomenon of Hong Kong students being molded into passive recipients to Confucianism heritage culture (CHC) in the paternalistic Chinese society. Its emphasis on “value of harmony, urging individuals to adapt to the collectivity, to control their emotions, to avoid conflict, and to maintain inner harmony” (Kirkbride & Tang, 1992, p.55) has deep-rooted a didactic and teacher-centered pedagogy for students are expected to respect their as an authority. Chinese students are afraid of being labeled by their peers as ‘showing off’ if they dominate a discussion (Liu & Littlewood, 1997). Wang (2010, p.208), by citing Ho & Crookall and Jackson, concluded that “remaining silent is one strategy used by Chinese students to avoid the awkwardness associated with disagreement and, thus, maintain harmonious relationships with others”.

Figure 1: Confucian maxim of modesty – scholar keeps silent

Conformity versus Creativity: Conflicting qualities?

With the “maxim of modesty” borne in mind, it is no surprise that CHC students are perceived as best-performers in rote learning without a natural urge to question established rules, especially in subjects like learning a second language where ordinary people would not attribute mastery to own creativity and invention. Educators thought that by giving out unified grammar rules and usage patterns, step-by-step instructions, made-known-to-all assessments built on absolute right-or-wrong standards, students can be easy to follow through for self-monitoring their own learning progress. However, Biggs (cited in Wong, 2004, p.156) argues that CHC students are indeed deep-learners who can perform even better in higher-level repetitive learning with an intention to understand its meaning rather than rote learning by merely memorizing and reciting of others’ examples. It is because CHC students have a belief that “skills should be first developed to produce an acceptable output which would then pave the way for creativity to flow”. In other words, conformity and creativity are not conflicting qualities.  On the contrary, often students need to appreciate the thinking skills which came up the existing wisdom before they can ride on it and bring out something new and more useful.

Figure 2: To drive creativity, add some conformity

Notion of creativity: Think out of the box, radiate to different angles

A study published by European Communities echoes the focus on creativity as a skill to develop by emphasizing the cognitive approach to creativity for education is “its connection to knowledge and thinking skills, bridging the creativity process with learning”. They cited Runco who had suggested that some “implicit theories”, which account for how ordinary people perceive creativity is, can “have detrimental effects on any attempts to foster creativity in schools” (Ferrari, Cachia, & Punie, 2009, p.16).

Figure 3: Radial thinking in learning present perfect tense

Addressing the myths, the authors summarized with the below figure to show how the notion of creativity for education should be transformed in order to be aware that the potential to become creative lies inside everyone.

The new curriculum: Creative thinking in four domains of language acquisition

To realize the above transformation, our team is introducing below a pragmatic and student-centered tool of “Six Thinking Hats” (de Bono, 1985) into the innovation of our English curriculum. We believe that the colorful tools, bundled with new media and technology of the modern age, can grab students’ attention and stimulate their radial thinking skills in listening, reading, speaking and writing which can bring out creativity in not only the classroom but also every aspect of life-long learning.

Figure 4: Rationale of the Six Thinking Hats

By using six thinking hats, students will be guided in the think an issue in different aspects.

We believe a new classroom setting will facilitate the cultivation of creativity via English learning. In Guo’s study in 2006, some directions were suggested: 

Directions	Traditional Classroom	New Classroom
Position between teacher and students	Center on teacher	Center on students
Scope of development of students	One-side	Many-side
Reaction of students	Independently	Cooperatively
Content of activities	Based on the given fact	Critically think and study
Teaching media	Single	multiple
Transmission of information	One-way	Two-way
Study state of students	Receive learning	Probe into learning

Source: Guo (2006). How to Cultivate Students’ Creativity in Learning English.

We take reference of some of Guo’s suggestions in our new curriculum design. In the traditional classroom, teacher bases on unified teaching materials and unified references, which limit the cultivation of creativity. In this new curriculum, several strategies will be used to facilitate cultivation of creativity of students.To increase the cooperation among students, students and the teacher will sit freely in the classroom. This brings cohesion among all people. There will be more interactions among different students in this classroom setting, which enhance the cultivation of creativity.

A good design of classroom activity can facilitate learning process. Classroom activities in our new curriculum include lyrics composing, mysterious story composing, role play, drama, film-making, News reporting etc. Through listening, reading, speaking and writing.

In short, our new curriculum consists of the following four main elements:

1. A harmonious learning environment
2. Teaching tool: Six thinking hats
3. Innovative classroom activity
4. New media and technology

The stakeholder’s concern for the new curriculum
With the contributions of our stakeholders - students (Team 3 “Harmony"), we expanded our thoughts and explored more tools to better meet the demand of them. A crucial point we received from the students was, “Students cannot get bored!”. Students also voiced out great demand for rooms to think, ask and speak freely. The Students demonstrated some cases in different countries which were related to creativity learning. Those resources helped us in the brainstorming process and in designing our classroom activity.

However, some students tended to stick to a particular kind of teaching method. We had to accommodate her needs, at the same time taking into account of other students’ needs.

In our exchange, we shared our different views on our perceptions on “creativity”. There were discrepancies, yet those differences allowed us to perfect our curriculum design. Drawing helped a lot in the process. we presented our ideas by using diagrams, which gave us a clear picture of the whole structure of the curriculum. 

Evaluate the extent to our curricular innovation can assess creativity in developing a new English language program
An assessment for creative learning and innovative teaching will help both teachers and students to enhance the quality of their learning.

Creative and flexible teachers continue to be so when assessing. This can be done by using a variety of assessment methods and by seeing assessment as an extension of the learning process (Simplicio, 2000).

(Ellis and Barrs, 2008) they belive in a kind of assessment that saims to detect creativity, which will also have a backwash effect on fostering creative learning and innovative teaching. Their framework of Creative Learning Assessment encompasses diagnostic, formative and summative assessment, allowing teachers to make informal judgments and also to evaluate children’s creative work in several ways.

How to make assessment interesting? Assessment does not need to be a stressful situation for the learner. It can also trigger students' imagination and needs to express their creativity. Use of several media to assess pupils – e-portfolios, video-making, projects, etc.; unusual assignments and tasks (Pleschová, 2007).

Six Thinking Hat (de Bono, 1985)
The term Six Thinking Hats is used to describe the tools for group discussion and individual thinking. The premise of the method is that the human brain thinks in a number of distinct ways which can be deliberately challenged, and hence planned for use in a structured way allowing one to develop tactics for thinking about particular issues.

Example: Open ended question (Jennifer Hauck, Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
The tests that I created with the Six Thinking Hats using my own question and questions designed by the students made a greater impact on the students testing. The students were able to answer more meaningful questions that focused on the objectives of the lesson, rather than questions that focused on minuet facts like the tests from the text did. In addition, the tests from the textbook were all multiple choice questions. The Six Thinking Hats tet were predominately open ended questions that allowed the students to give their answers as well as a factual reason for their answer.

In the extent to our curricular innovation, to use Six Thinking Hats is an effective communications  tool for teachers to teach English skills in listening, reading, speaking and writing creatively.

Technologies could act as a platform to foster creative learning and innovative teaching.
Internet
Social media
These applications offer new opportunities for people to express their creativity, make it available to a large audience and get feedback and recognition (Cachia, Compano, & Da Costa, 2007).

In terms of innovation, social computing interfaces are particularly interesting in this debate because in various ways they harness the emerging and increasing role of the user in the innovation-development process, as well as the ongoing shift towards open innovation (Lindmark, forthcoming 2009). Various online applications could be used to empower teachers to become innovative in their teaching, as well as students to develop their creative skills and learn creatively.

Conclusion on evaluation the extent to our curricular innovation
It is excellent creativity of our new designed curriculum for teaching English as a second Language in the classroom. Because our tools of Six Thinking Hats and Technologies are very encouraging intellectual peak and potential. Our methods also can attract interests and attention in a new way to our students in a creative approaching. The new designed curriculum created a overwhelming culture and environment for creative learning and innovative teaching. The outcome is Excellent as it can implicate newness and value in thinking skills of students. It also can meet the balance between prescription and freedom.

Based upon this new designed curriculum, both teachers and student could improve three types of creativity (Boden 2001): Exploratory creativity, Combinational creativity and Transformational creativity.

Totally change spoon feed to self feed. This is because in formal education there is a tendency to look for an “answer that is know before the question is posed” (Malaguzzi, 1987), thus depriving students from investigating the issue by themselves.

Recommended further readings

• Liu & Littlewood (1997): Drawing conclusions from two large-scale surveys conducted at the University of Hong Kong, the authors explored practical implications of how teachers can develop students’ oral English skills which lead to active learning roles in the classroom.

• Wong (2004): This paper captures a good insight of how Chinese-originated students overcome the difficulties of learning in a Western classroom.

• Sally Brown and Angela Glasner (1999). Assessment Matters in Higher Education. Choosing and Using Diverse Approaches. SRHE and Open University press. ISBN 0335 20242. This book towards Autonomous Assessment centres on ways of involving students themselves as we believe this is enormously valuable in helping students to develop the self-evaluative capacities that are essential for life-long learning.

References

de Bono, E. (1985). Six Thinking Hats: An Essential Approach to Business Management. Little, Brown, & Company. ISBN 0-316-17791-1 (hardback) and 0316178314 (paperback).

Ferrari, A., Cachia, R., & Punie, Y. (2009). Innovation and Creativity in Education and Training in the EU Member States: Fostering Creative Learning and Supporting Innovative Teaching. European Commission Joint Research Centre.
Guo, X. (2006). How to Cultivate Students’ Creativity in Learning English. Journal of Further Education of Shaanxi Normal University, 21(1), 233-237.

Liu, N., & Littlewood, W. (1997). Why do many students appear reluctant to participate in classroom learning discourse? System, 25(3), 371-384.

Kirkbride, P.A., & Tang, S.F.Y. (1992). Management development in the Nanyang Chinese societies of Southeast Asia, Journal of Management Development, 11(2), 54-66.

The Mcgraw-Hill Companies. (2004). 180 Creative Ideas for Getting Students Involved, Engaged, and Excited. New York, NY: Professional Publishing.

Wang, P. (2010). A Case Study of an In-class Silent Postgraduate Chinese Student in London Metropolitan University: a Journey of Learning. TESOL Journal,  2, 207-214.

Wong, J. (2004). Are the Learning Styles of Asian International Students Culturally or Contextually Based? International Education Journal, 4(4), 154-166.