How does the creative approach affect the development of gifted children’s language skills at the English lesson

Working with gifted students is extremely relevant for modern society. Schools need to provide favorable conditions for developing and supporting gifted children in various fields of intellectual and creative activity. This study aims to explore the role of creative methods in the English classroom designed for gifted students to improve their language competence. The participants of this study were second -year gifted learners. The duration of the study was five months. The research results showed that use of creative writing, drama, and in the classroom effectively fostered the gifted pupils’ creative and language skills.

Keywords: giftedness, gifted students, creativity, creative tasks, language skills.

This study focuses on the challenges that teachers face whilst teaching gifted students. We understand not all of our students grasp a subject in the same way. As teachers, we often focus our attention on our weaker students and we endeavor to support them by using different resources. However, we should take into account the needs of gifted and talented students. Gifted and talented students, also known as ‘academically advanced’ students. Such learners develop language skills more quickly in comparison to children of similar age. They are active in class discussions and are able to learn new vocabulary, grammar structures quickly. We understand that if the needs of gifted learners are not met and the learning is too easy for them, they can become disengaged. We struggled to design activities that were both enjoyable and useful and that fully engaged our gifted students. For this reason, we decided to conduct the action research. We began by asking ourselves how we can organize work with gifted children in the classroom that they don't get bored. How can we challenge in their learning in order to make progress and reach their full potential in our classrooms? In order to solve the problem, we discussed the problem with colleagues and analysed the literature on the topic of our research. There are many strategies for teaching gifted learners but we decided to use a creative approach. We chose this approach because it is a motivating way to motivate our young gifted learners through different creative tasks.

The aim of this research to determine the effectiveness of creative tasks in the development of gifted children’s language skills.

Defining « Gifted »

The label «gifted» is used to indicate high intellectual or academic ability. Lewis Terman was the one of the first who identified the high ability students in 1925. (Stephens and Karnes 2000; Morelock 1996). He identified students who scored in the top 2 percent in the general intelligence on the Binet test as gifted (Clark 2002). Over the years, scholars and researchers have proposed many definitions of this term. According to Clark (2002), brain functions may be demonstrated in such areas as academics, creativity, cognition, the arts, or leadership. Heacox (2009) declares that gifted learners have a «unique learning profile that varies significantly from average learners». They are often need a differentiated advanced tier of instruction because they need both «rigor and complexity in their learning».

Language learning and Giftedness

Language learning is an important component for gifted individuals because language plays a crucial role in intellectual development. Gifted students show differences from their peers in terms of individual characteristics and needs (Bruning & Horn, 2000). These differences mean being more competent in terms of the language development, active, irrational, focusing and long duration of attention, demonstrating creativity, critical thinking and strong memory, high levels of interest, showing high level of confidence. (Sak, 2016). Al-Khasawneh and Al-Omari (2015) stated that gifted individuals are highly motivated to learn English. It is revealed that gifted learners know the importance of learning English to succeed in all life fields since the importance of being competent in English language is accepted worldwide (Harris, Rapp, Martínez, & Plucker, 2007).

Creative approach

One of the effective strategies to engage gifted learners in the classroom is a creative method. Creativity is considered an important thing to achieving success in any field of life, including English language teaching. Naiman (1998) states that creativity is the process of turning imaginative ideas into reality. According to Csikszentmihalyi (1996), being creative means to be not just followers but leaders, not just consumers but creators, not just an audience but sharers. In the taxonomy of the cognitive domain, Benjamin Bloom ranked synthesis (creativity) as one of the most difficult skills to master. A person has to use all of the other cognitive skills in the creative process.

The action research was conducted at private school in Nur-Sultan. Action research carried out with the participation of 2nd grade gifted students. The action research was completed during the 2021–2022 academic year from January until May. In the present study, the main purpose was to identify the effectiveness of creative tasks in the development of gifted children’s language skills.

The research design was qualitative. Parahoo mentions (1997) that qualitative research is interested in individual experiences and the uniqueness of each individual’s responses. Two open-ended questionnaire were used in the current study. First, the participants completed an initial questionnaire before they started their practice with creative tasks. Finally, the final open-ended questionnaires were conducted after their practice. Participants completed questions in their native language. Because they could express their views more freely. In this study, researchers’ kept journal entries. This journal included a brief observation of student’s work during the study. Researchers noted students’ performances.

The questionnaire items were developed after a thorough reading of literature and questions were developed to collect students’ views toward using creative tasks in the classroom. Regarding to the participant’s initial responses, researchers developed three main creative tasks, such as writing (mini books, riddles and poems), drama (role-play and story acting) and arts and crafts (postcards and posters). The data were gathered from initial and final questionnaires and researcher’s journal entries. They started coding the participant’s responses after completing the study. Then the teacher’s journals were coded too.

Results

The findings were presented according to the three questions of the study. The first research question focused on organization of work with gifted children. According to the participants’ initial responses, researchers organized works with gifted children. They developed creative tasks, such as writing (mini books, riddles and poems); drama (role-play and story acting) and arts and crafts (postcards and posters). In their responses, they mentioned that sometimes they get bored in the lessons. Because some tasks are easy for them. They wanted to do tasks that are more difficult. Most of the participants mentioned that writing about their family or his/her best friend, doing posters and making riddles would be interesting and helpful for them. Some of the participants found that the story acting and making dialogues are enjoyable. Because they attend drama classes and want to be an actor or actress in the future.

The second research question of the study aimed at choosing useful creative tasks for the development of student’s language skills. It was revealed that creative tasks helped gifted students’ to improve their language skills. Moreover, some participants mentioned that they had problems with unknown words. It was emphasized that a lack of vocabulary can increase difficulties in learning new language. Creating mini-books and riddles were useful for them. During creating their mini-books, they used dictionaries and created their own dictionary called ‘my first dictionary’. They filled their dictionaries with new words and words from the studied topics. Their dictionary product was useful for other classmates too. It helped them during their story acting and role-playing tasks. Participants used new words by searching them through Internet as well. They developed their research skills through searching new information and asking questions.

The third question focused on identifying how effective is a creative approach in developing student’s language skills. All participants found that using creative approach was beneficial and helpful for them. They believed that creative tasks improved not only their all four language skills, and also creative and research skills. They mentioned that acting out tasks were interesting and funny. They could act and present more freely in front of their classmates. It helped them to create an interesting classroom atmosphere. Creative approach enhanced their interest and willingness to join the classes. Regarding to the teacher’s observation, creative tasks can improve learners’ critical thinking skills. These tasks enhanced students’ curiosity, willingness to find new information and work with different sources. They tried to ask and find answers by themselves. According to the researcher’s observation, creative approach develop students’ self-management skills. They became more organized and goal oriented. The majority of the participants mentioned that creative tasks enhanced their interest and willingness to learn target language. Moreover, participant’s views showed that creative tasks were interesting for them and they did not get bored during their lessons.

Discussion and conclusion

The analysis of the current study revealed that the creative tasks arouse the gifted students’ interest and increases their motivation to learn English. The implementation of creative approach in the development of gifted children’s language skills allows them to visualize and build images, protect their interest and search their needs. The findings of the current study is in agreement with Naiman’s findings (1998) which showed that creativity is the process of turning imaginative ideas into reality.

The findings of the present study illustrated that almost all of the participants showed positive views on using creative tasks in the classroom. They believed that creative approach was interesting and helped them to be active in the lessons. Moreover, it improved their academic performance in English. Therefore, careful consideration of activities surrounding content, process, and product is key for teachers if they want to design and implement instruction to challenge gifted students. Creative assignments could help them meet the needs of gifted students. It gave an opportunity to enhance gifted students' interests and talents for further exploring their skills. Using creative approach would help learners to be more active and gave a better chance to practice their English.

References:

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