bringing together creativity and literacy

Bringing Together Creativity and Literacy:

Igniting Gifted/More Able Students’ Creativity

and Enhancing their Language Awareness

Gifted Education Section, CDI, EDB

13 January 2021

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By Anna Tso

Associate Professor of English

Hang Seng University of Hong Kong

Topics we shall cover in the workshop:

Part 1: Linguistic creativity and its application in the ELT classroom (25 mins)

1.1. What is creativity?

1.2. Types of creativity

1.3. Applying linguistic creativity in the ELT classroom

Part 2: Creative word formation (25 mins)

2.1. Basic concepts of morphology

2.2. New words in social media

2.3. Classroom activity: Inventing new words

Part 3: Creative and moving poetry (25 mins)

3.1. Rhyme scheme, syllable counter, poetic feet and rhythm in poems

3.2. Classroom activity: Writing haiku, sonnet, acrostics.2

Topics we shall cover in the workshop:

Part 4: Creative riddles and secret languages (25 mins)

4.1. Lexical relations in semantics

4.2. Classic riddles in The Hobbit and other texts

4.3. Classroom activity: Creating and cracking riddles

Part 5: Word play and paradox (25 mins)

5.1. Delimitation of the deictic parameters in Alice in Wonderland

5.2. Classroom activity: Using paradoxes as art, catchy slogans or taglines in

advertising

Part 6: Figurative language (25 mins)

6.1. Simile, idioms, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia, oxymoron,

euphemism, etc.

6.2. Classroom activity: Writing creative poetry with figurative language

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Part 1:

Linguistic creativity

and its application

in the ELT classroom

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Part 1: Linguistic creativity

1.1. What is creativity?• Creativity is about liberating human energy (Gardner, 1993).

• Creativity is fluency and flexibility of thinking, originality, perceptiveness

of problems, and the ability to redefine and elaborate ideas (Guildford,

1950).

• “Creative thinking is imaginative thinking directed toward innovation. It

is based on questions that ask “what if,” “why” and “why not”; “how” and

“how else”?” (Diyanni, 2016, p. 37)

• Creativity is coming up with something new e.g. a product, solution, art

work, literary work, joke etc. that has some kind of value.

• “Its goal is to develop new insights, novel approaches, fresh

perspectives” (Diyanni, 2016, p. 37). 5


1.2. Types of creativity

Linguistic creativity: where one can be said to have a flair or gift with words

such as lyricists, writers, poets etc.

Logical-Mathematical: where one is exceptionally good with logical and

mathematical concepts and can usually explain complex concepts in a manner

lay-men can easily understand.

Musical: where one is gifted in composing music and or playing musical

instruments.

Visual-Spatial: where creativity is expressed in art – paintings, drawings,

sculptures etc.

Bodily-Kinaesthetic: where creativity is expressed through body movements

such as dance, gymnastics, acrobatics etc. 6


1.3. How do I enhance students' language awareness and

apply linguistic creativity in the ELT classroom? Where do I

begin?

Step 1: Wonder and curiosity

• Impress your students with playful, creative language use found in

everyday contexts and literary contexts.

• Types of creative language: jokes, puns, slogans, word formation and

word manipulation, stories, rhyme, rhythm, etc.

Step 2: Think outside the box

• To think outside the box, first, students need to know what is in the box

(the linguistic features of a language).

Step 3: Play and create

• The sky is the limit! 7

Generate your own Shx insults!

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Lewis Carroll’s long tale & spiral letter

J. R. R. Tolkien's Hobbit Runes

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Part 2:

Creative word formation(Morphology: What is in a word?)

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2.1. Creative word formation

What is a word?

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2.1. Creative word formation

Word formation processes most of us already

know:

• Adding a prefix

do undo

Adding a suffix

brief briefly

Adding a combination of prefixes and suffixes

comfort uncomfortably13

1. Borrowing

2. Coinage

3. Compounding

4. Shortening

- Acronyms

- Clipping

- Blending (portmanteau)

- Back-formations

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2.1. Ways to make new English words

5. Conversion

6. Paired word sound play

7. Scale change

8. Multiple processes

• Words are created by borrowing from another

language and incorporating into English.

Examples• Tortilla * nuance

• coup de grace *chaos

• alchemy

• espresso

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1. Borrowing

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1. Borrowing

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1. Borrowing

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2.Coinage

• These are often invented by companies with new products or processes, or taken from names.

• Note: Coinage is the least common process of word formation in English.

• “to coin a phrase”• Examples:

◦ Xerox Nylon Skype◦ Vaseline Yahoo Google

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2. Coinage (neologism)

• Brand names

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2. Coinage

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3. Compounding

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4. Shortening

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4.1. Acronyms

• Create a dialog using only text message

acronyms. Write out the full words and

then perform the dialog for each other.

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Creative class activity

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4.2. Clipping

New words are made by shortening the perceived

ending of another word or phrase.

• Examples:

◦ pro psych (class)

◦ meds combo

◦ prof prom

◦ gym zoo

◦ demo exam

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4.2. Clipping

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4.3. Blending

• Infomercial

• Bromance

• Sexpert

• Chocoholic

• Heliport

• Guesstimate

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What about these words?

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4.4. Back-formation

More examples:

• Television televise

• Priority prioritize

• Donation donate

• Enthusiasm enthuse

• Sermon sermonize

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4.4. Backformation

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5. Conversion

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5. Conversion

A “double word” is created in two ways:

1. the second word has a change of vowel, usually formed lower in the mouth.

2. the second type is a rhyme, with the first consonant changing. There may be a slight onomatopoetic association, but not always.

Changed vowel rhyme●hip hop helter skelter●singsong willy nilly●wishy washy bow wow●seesaw hurdy gurdy●splish splash nitwit

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6. Paired word sound play

Affixes are added to a base word to indicate its dimension, sometimes using affixes from other languages:

●droplet sermonette●megamall nanosecond●hankie micromanage●operetta dinette●Supersize bachelorette

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7. Scale Change

• Most words are formed through multiple

processes! • deli is borrowed from German (delicatessen) and then

clipped

• snowball is compounded from two free morphemes to form

a noun, then converted into a verb (snowballed, etc.);

• Internet is a product of clipping (international plus network),

blending (inter+net) and conversion (netiquette)

• cyberbullying is a blend (cyber + bully) and a conversion (N

-> V-> Gerund)

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8. Multiple processes

Read and study the new words in thefollowing.

Do you notice any pattern(s) of wordformation? Put them into the right wordformation categories.

Next, try inventing your own new words andshare with us your invention!

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2.2. Creative activity:

Inventing your own new words!

Part 3: Creative and moving poetry

(Phonology: Metrical structure)

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3.1. Syllable, meter, rhythm, rhyme

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Syllables What is a syllable?

A syllable is the unit of sound

It is either stressed or unstressed

“But soft, what light through yonder window

breaks.”

How many syllables are there in that quotation?

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Syllable

3.1. Metrical Structure

Stressed and unstressed syllables in poems:

• Understanding the patterns of stressed and unstressedsyllables in a poem (the “rhythm” of the poem) isnecessary if you want to understand sonnets and otherpoems with a specific form.

• Meter in poetry is a rhythm of accented and unaccentedsyllables arranged into feet.

• Meter in poetry is what brings the poem to life and is theinternal beat or rhythm with which it is read.

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Foot

• A unit of stressed and unstressed syllables is

called a “foot.”

• Each of those words represents a different

kind of foot.

For example, an iambic foot has the first syllable unstressed and the second

stressed.

Shall I / com pare / thee to / a sum / mer’s day? Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18"

Iambic foot

• A unit of unstressed-STRESSED syllables (da-

DUM) is called an iamb (or iambic foot).

• up-SET unstressed-STRESSED (da-DUM)

• re-TAIN unstressed-STRESSED (da-DUM)

Number of feet

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For the sound of Iambic Pentameter,

think of a heartbeat.

• It sounds like this:

• da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM.

• It consists of:

• a line of five iambic feet

• ten syllables with five unstressed and five stressed syllables

Iambic Pentameter

• Iambic Pentameter is a poetic form which poets and

playwrights typically used to write poems in Elizabethan

England.

• It is the meter that Shakespeare mostly uses.

• Shakespeare is famous for his sonnets, a fourteen-line

poem in iambic pentameter.

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The metrical structure in a sonnet

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Shall I / com pare / thee to / a sum / mer’s day?

foot

Iamb

foot foot foot foot

Pentameter

Shakespeare’s SONNET 138: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMH-SsH4SNo

When my love swears that she is made of truth

I do believe her though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutor’d youth

Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:

On both sides thus is simple truth suppress’d.

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love loves not to have years told:

Therefore, I lie with her and she with me

And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMH-SsH4SNo

Rhyming patterns in a sonnet

• The Shakespearean sonnet has three

quatrains followed by a couplet, the

scheme being: abab cdcd efef gg.

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Quatrain: 4 lines of

rhymed verse

Couplet: 2 lines of

rhymed verse

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)Admit impediments. Love is not love (b)Which alters when it alteration finds,(a)Or bends with the remover to remove:(b)

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,(c)That looks on tempests and is never shaken;(d)It is the star to every wandering bark,(c)Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.(d)

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks(e)Within his bending sickle's compass come;(f)Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,(e)But bears it out even to the edge of doom.(f)

If this be error and upon me proved,(g)I never writ, nor no man ever loved.(g)

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3 Quatrains

Couplet

3.2. Creative activityWrite a shape poem!

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By JodieT

Write a puzzle poem!

The Valentine Message by Granville Lawson

Dear Christine,

I know you are clever

And you can sing too

So let’s get together

I’d be lost without you!

Love from Jim

To discover Christine’s reply, read the third word of each line.

Creativity in sounds: Try them yourself!

Sound effects1. Rhyme

2. Alliteration

3. Acrostics

4. Syllables & Meter

5. Rhythm

Alliteration

• Repetition of the same consonants at the

beginning of the words.

• E.g. Cute Creams: the coolest singing kids

• E.g. Mouse milk: mild medicine for muddle minds

Acrostics: Try writing one!

I miss you terribly this day of love,

Miss you with a wound that stabs and aches.I see the love around me, and it takesSo much strength simply just to move.Soon, soon, my love, this waiting will be done.

You and I will have what we desire.On days like this we'll sit beside the fire,Undoing all the pain of days long gone.

Alliteration ABC poem:

You can do it your own way!

Awesome Allie ate apples

Brilliant Babies buy bananas

Colorful chameleons change colors

Droopy dogs dig dirt

Excellent elephants eat eggs

Funny friends find fossils

Great grandmas grow gardens

Hilarious Hilary held her hat

Intelligent igloo Inuits iron ice

Jumping jokers juggle jugs

Kind kings kick kangaroos

Lovely Lacey likes lots of lemurs

Marvelous Molly makes milkshakes

Noisy Noah nibbles nuts

Outstanding octopus ate Oreos

Purple porcupines play with pencils

Quiet Quarry quickly gets quiet

Rough Rufus rides roller skates

Stinky stars stands on stables

Tough Tommy tells Timmy to talk

Understanding us is a U-turn

Vicious likes to play volleyball

Wonderful Wal-Mart sold Whiskers

X-ray play xylophones

Yellow Yox Yo-Yoed yesterday

Zipping zebra zipped zippers

adj noun verb noun Combine this idea with Acrostics!

Poems which count syllables: Tanka

• An old form from Japan

• Subject matter: often related to nature

• three lines

• First line should have five syllables, the second

seven and the third five

• Appeals to one of our senses

Tanka sample

First autumn morning:

the mirror I stare into

shows my father's face.

(Kijo Murakami)

5 Types of creative poems: Try all of them!

1. Haiku/Tanka

2. List poem

3. Cinquain

4. Diamante

5. Acrostic

Haiku

Line 1: 5 syllables

Line 2: 7 syllables

Line 3: 5 syllables

Example:

The waves crash so loud

Upon the breezy shore line.

It’s a splendid sight.

List poem

• The first line introduces the topic and each consecutive line lists a word that describes or talks about the subject.

Example:

Christmas with my family is…

Loving

Happy

Traditional

Joyful

Fur

Cinquain

Line 1: Subject (1 word)

Line 2: Description of subject (2 words)

Line 3: Some action about the subject (3 words)

Line 4: Feeling about the title (4 words)

Line 5: Synonym for the subject (1 word)

Cinquain

Example:

Fireworks

Bright, Loud

Flying, Blinding, Exploding

Joyful, Nervous, Breathtaking, Exciting

Explosives

Diamante

Line 1: Subject

Line 2: Two adjectives describing the subject

Line 3: Three words ending in ‘ing’ telling about the subject

Line 4: Four words; the first two describe the subject;

the last two describe its opposite.

Line 5: Three words ending in ‘ing’ telling about the opposite

Line 6: Two adjectives describing the opposite

Line 7: Opposite

Diamante

Example:

Happiness

Joyful, Bright

Loving, Caring, Exciting

Great, Fun, Gloomy, Despair

Terrifying, Grieving, Crying

Dark, Mournful

Sadness

Acrostics

• The subject or topic is written vertically and eachletter of the subject or topic is used as thebeginning of each line of the poem talking aboutthe subject.

Example:

Oceanic waves

Crash onto the shore

Elevating my spirits

An awesome sight to see

Never ending calmness

Part 4: Creative riddles and secret language

(Semantics: Lexical relations)

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4.1. Lexical relations in a nutshell

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Here the Red Queen began again. ‘Can you answer usefulquestions?’ she said. ‘How is bread made?’

‘I know THAT!’ Alice cried eagerly. ‘You take some flour—’

‘Where do you pick the flower?’ the White Queen asked. ‘In agarden, or in the hedges?’

‘Well, it isn’t PICKED at all,’ Alice explained: ‘it’s GROUND—’

‘How many acres of ground?’ said the White Queen. ‘Youmustn’t leave out so many things.’

(Lewis Carroll, Chapter 9, Through the Looking Glass)

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Linguistic creativity: Puns and homonyms

• Homonymy

• Polysemy

• Synonymy

• Antonymy

• Hyponymy

• Meronymy

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Semantic relations

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Homonymy

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Homonymy

Polysemy

14 January 2021 75

Synonymy

14 January 2021 76

Antonymy (opposites)

14 January 2021 77

Hyponymy

14 January 2021 78

Hyponymy

14 January 2021 79

Meronymy

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Knowledge of semantic relations shall help you enjoy the delights inplaying with language.

Lewis Carroll's books, poems, diaries, and letters to children are filledwith with enigmas, charades, acrostics, conundrums, cyphers, andriddles.

• Non-standard grammar: the phrase curiouser and curiouser

• Strange derivation: unbirthday present = ‘a present given when it isn’t your birthday’

• Riddle: Mad Hatter’s teasing ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’

- Key: ‘Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!’ (with never spelled nevar –i.e. raven backwards).

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4.2. Riddles and enigmas

14 January 2021 82

4.2. Creative activity: Crack the riddles!

“Riddles in the Dark” (Ch.5), The Hobbit

• The riddle game, which is a contest of knowledgeand reasoning, appears in many famous writings.

• Each person takes turns asking a question. The firstone who can't come up with the right answer is the

loser.

• In The Hobbit, Bilbo and Gollum test their wits. IfBilbo wins, then Gollum has to show him the wayout of a tunnel; if Bilbo loses, he becomes Gollum'sdinner (Yum!).

14 January 2021 83

4.2. Crack the riddles in the dark!

(1st blow: Gollum to Bilbo)

What has roots as nobody sees,

Is taller than trees,

Up, up it goes,

And yet never grows?

14 January 2021 84

4.2. Crack the riddles in the dark

(Srikes back: Bilbo to Gollum)

Thirty white horses on a red hill,

First they champ,

Then they stamp,

Then they stand still.

14 January 2021 85

4.2. Gollum’s creepy response

• “Teeth! Teeth! My preciouss;

but we has only six!”

14 January 2021 86


(Gollum to Bilbo)

Voiceless it cries,

Wingless flutters,

Toothless bites,

Mouthless mutters.

14 January 2021 87


(Bilbo to Gollum)

An eye in a blue face

Saw an eye in a green face.

“That eye is like to this eye”

Said the first eye,

“But in low place

Not in high place.”

14 January 2021 88


(Gollum to Bilbo)

It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,

Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.

It lies behind stars and under hills,

And empty holes it fills.

It comes first and follows after,

Ends life, kills laughter.

14 January 2021 89


(Bilbo to Gollum)

A box without hinges, key, or lid,

Yet golden treasure inside.

14 January 2021 90


(Gollum to Bilbo)

Alive without breath,

As cold as death;

Never thirsty, ever drinking,

All in mail never clinking.

• As Bilbo is guessing, Gollum began to hiss withpleasure to himself: “Is it nice, my preciousss? Isit juicy? Is it scrumptiously crunchable?” Hebegan to peer at Bilbo out of the darkness.

14 January 2021 91


(Bilbo to Gollum)

No-leg lay on one-leg,

Two-legs sat near on three-legs,

Four-legs got some.

14 January 2021 92


(Gollum to Bilbo)

This thing all things devours:

Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;

Gnaws iron, bites steel;

Grinds hard stones to meal;

Slay king, ruins town,

And beats high mountain down.

4.3. Creative activity: Write your own riddles!

Rules for writing a riddle:

• Use present tense.

• Write 6 clues about different things.

• Begin each sentence with a capital letter

and end it with a full-stop, question mark

or exclamation mark.

• Finish with a question – What am I?

• Be clever and funny!93

4.3. Creative activity: Write your own riddles

• Think of a type of food. Don't tell anyone else!

• Write 6 clues about this type of food to make a

riddle.• Do you have it for breakfast, lunch or dinner?

• It is soft or hard and crunchy?

• Can you make it into something else?

• What does it taste like? Sweet, salty or bitter?

• What do you normally eat it with?

• What do you normally eat it from?

• What colour is it? (Can it be different colours?)

• It is a fruit / vegetable / dairy / animal?

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Part 5: Wordplay and paradox

(Pragmatics: Deixis and everyday logic,

upside down, inside out!)

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5.1. Pragmatics: Deixis in a nutshell

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5.1. Pragmatics: Deixis in a nutshell

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Problem: Not every word does name or denote any actual object.

E.g. I saw nobody.

2. Many parts of speech other than nouns do not even seem to refer to things of any sort or in any way at all.

E.g. “very,” “of,” “and,” “the,” “a,” “yes,” and for that matter “hey” and “alas.” Yet of course such words are meaningful and occur in sentences that any competent speaker of English understands.

5.1. Beyond the deictic parameter

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Alice meeting with the Red Queen

(From Chapter 2, “The Garden of Live Flowers”):

[playing with the phrase “lose my way”]

“Where do you come from?” said the Red Queen, “And where are you

going? Look up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers all the time”.

Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as she

could that she had lost her way.

“I don’t know what you mean by your way,” said the Queen: “all the

ways about here belong to me.”

That’s how Lewis Carroll plays games of words and logic.

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• “I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.

“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King

remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able

to see Nobody! And at that distance,

too! Why, it's as much as I can do to

see real people, by this light!”

Also from Ch.7, “The lion and the unicorn”

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“Who did you pass on the road?” the King went on, holding out his hand to

the Messenger for some more hay.

“Nobody,” said the Messenger.

“Quite right,” said the King: “this young lady saw him too. So of course

Nobody walks slower than you.

“I do my best,” the Messenger said in a sulky tone. “I'm sure nobody

walks much faster than I do!”

“He can't do that,” said the King, “or else he'd have been here first.”

Who is nobody?

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The shifting meaning of time deixis

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“It’s very good jam,” said the Queen.

“Well, I don’t want any to-day, at any rate.”

“You couldn’t have it if you did want it,” the Queen said.

“The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday- but

never jam to-day.”

“It must come sometimes to ‘jam to-day’,” Alice

objected.

“No it can’t,” said the Queen. “It is jam every other day:

to-day isn’t any other day, you know.”

Alice conversation with White Queen

(from ch. 4, “Wool and Water”)

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5.2. Language and logic

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• A logical sentence must be grammatical,

but a grammatical sentence can be totally

illogical.


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5.3. Creative activity: Create your wacky paradox jokes!

• A paradox is a situation

that consists of two

ideas that are both true

but which appear to be

opposite to one another.

This seems impossible,

but it actually is true or

possible.

• The Paradox Process is

a model for brand

development.

108Conlon, J. (2019). Solving brand challenges with the

paradox process.

5.3. Famous paradox quotes

• “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that

is that I know nothing.” (Plato)

• “The paradox of simplicity is that making things simpler is

hard work.” (Bill Jensen)

• “An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with

rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an

empty head.” (Eric Hoffer)

• “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand

bleed that uses it.” (Rabindranath Tagore)

• “There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's

desire. The other is to gain it.” (George Bernard Shaw)

• “I'm not offended until you think I'm offended.” (Criss

Jami)

• Now, create your own! 109

Part 6: Figurative language

(Stylistics: Simile, metaphor, personification,

onomatopoeia, oxymoron, idiom, euphemism, etc.)

110

6.1. Figures of speech: Simile

Simile:

A figure of speech in which an explicit

comparison is made between two things

essentially unlike. The comparison is made

explicit by the use of some such word or

phrase as like, as, than, similar to,

resembles, appears, or seems.

Poem using simile

A Red, Red Rose

by Robert Burns

O My Luve's like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June;

O My Luve's like the melodie

That's sweetly played in tune.

Invent your own similes!

As clever as a _____,

As stupid as a _______.

As poor as a _______,

As rich as a _______.

As strong as a ______,

As weak as a _______.

As cute as a ______,

As ugly as a ______.

As bald as a ______,

As proud as a _______.

As thin as a ______,

As thick as a _______.

As white as a ______,

As dark as a _______.

As fit as a ______,

As fat as a _______.

As dumb as a ______,

As smart as ______.

As neat as a ______,

As messy as a ______.

6.1. Figures of speech: Idiom

Idiom:

An idiom is a group of words which mean

something different from its literal meaning.

E.g. A piece of cake, a penny for your

thoughts, break the ice, raining cats and

dogs.

Creative activity: Write a poem with idioms!

“Losing Pieces” by Shel Silverstein

Talked my head off

Worked my tail off

Cried my eyes out

Walked my feet off

Sang my heart out

So you see,

There's really not much left of me.

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6.1. Figures of speech: Metaphor

Metaphor:

• A figure of speech in which an implicit

comparison is made between two things

usually unlike.

• It has no connective words such as like or

as.

Metaphor: What is it, like?

An Activity for writing metaphors

• Where is the similarity, and what other words will

help to show the similarity?

• Are there any verbs or adjectives that will help?

How could the sentence continue?

The HOT COW is a STEAMING OLD BROWN COOKER.

The COW is a WOBBLY BALLOON, HELD DOWN BY THE ROPE

ROUND ITS NECK.

A poem using metaphors

Metaphor for a FamilyMy family is an expired firecracker

set off by the blowtorch of divorce. We layscattered in many directions.

My father is the wick, badly burntbut still glowing softly.

My mother is the blackened paper fluttering down,blowing this way and that, unsure where to land.

My sister is the fallen, colorful parachute,lying in a tangled knot,

unable to see the beauty she holds.My brother is the fresh, untouched powder that

was protected from the flame. And I,I am the singed, outside papers, curled away

from everything, silently cursingthe blowtorch.

6.1. Figures of speech: Personification

Personification:

A figure of speech in which human attributes

are given to an animal, an object, or a

concept.

What am I? Make a guess.

I am silver and exact.

I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful—

Sylivia Plath, “Mirror”

Write a poem by using personification.

6.1. Figures of speech: Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia:

• A word or a group of words that makes the

sound it is describing.

e.g. Bang, crash, boom, screech.

6.1. Figures of speech: Oxymoron

Oxymoron:

An oxymoron is when two words of opposite

meanings are placed next to each other.

e.g. Jumbo shrimps, boneless ribs,

bittersweet, honest thief, deafening silence,

seriously funny

Creative activity:

Spot the oxymoron and write your own!

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6.1. Figure of speech: Euphemism

Euphemism:

• A mild or indirect word or expression

substituted for one considered to be too

harsh or blunt when referring to something

unpleasant or embarrassing.

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6.2. Creative activity:

You can come up with your own euphemism too!

• He’s big boned. — He’s fat.

• She’s horizontally challenged. — She’s fat, too.

• He’s vertically challenged. — He’s short.

• She’s between jobs. — She’s unemployed.

• She’s getting on. — She’s old.

• He’s not the sharpest pencil in the box. — He’s

kind of stupid. Not his fault — he just is.

• He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. — He’s rude and

can be pretty unkind.

• She’s on the streets. — She’s homeless.

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Summary

Creativity is:

• …the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into

reality.

• Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then

producing.

• If you have ideas, act on them. Then, you are not just

imaginative, but also creative.

References

• Aitchison, J. (2003). Language change: progress or decay? Cambridge University

Press.

• Bloom, B.S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of

educational goals. Longmans, Green.

• Carter, R. (2004). Language and creativity: The art of common talk. Routledge.

• Cook, G. (2000). Language play, language learning. Oxford University Press.

• Diyanni, R. (2016). Critical and creative thinking: A brief guide for teachers. Wiley

Blackwell.

• Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2019). An introduction to language.

Cengage.

• Gardner, H. E. (1993). Creative minds: An anatomy of creativity as seen through

the lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. Basic

Books.

• Goldberg, M. (2006). Integrating the arts: An approach to teaching and learning in

multicultural and multilingual settings (3rd ed.). Pearson.

• Graham, C. (2006). Creating songs and chants. Oxford University Press.

• Grundy, P., Bociek, H., & Parker, K. (2011). English through art. Helbling

Languages.

• Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5(9), 444–454.

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Refefences

• Lau, L.C., & Tso, W. B. (2017). Teaching Shakespeare to ESL students: Thestudy of language arts in four major plays. Springer.

• Lems, K., Miller, L.D. & Soro, T.M. (2010). Teaching Reading to Englishlanguage learners: Insights from Linguistics. Guilford.

• Jackson, H. and Amvela, E.Z. (2004). Words, meaning and vocabulary: Anintroduction to modern English lexicology. Continuum.

• Matthews, Honor. Character & Symbol in Shakespeare’s Plays. New York:Schocken Books, 1962.

• Pugliese, C. (2010). Being creative: The challenge of change in the classroom.Delta Publishing.

• Seelig, T. (2012). inGenius: A crash course on creativity. HarperCollins.

• Spiro, J. (2004). Creative poetry writing. Oxford University Press.

• Vassallo, O. (2016). Enhancing responses to literary texts with L2 learners: Anempirically derived pedagogical framework. In M. Burke, O. Fialho & S. Zyngier(Eds.), Scientific approaches to literature in learning environments (pp. 81-101).Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

• Xerri, D. (2013, Autumn). The value of creativity: Language teachers as creativepractitioners. Teaching English, 3, 23-25.

• Xerri, D., & Vassallo, O. (Eds.) (2016). Creativity in English language teaching.ELT Council.

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bringing together creativity and literacy

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