The Effects of Using Creative Thinking Activities in Learning English on Third Secondary Commercial School Students' Creative Skills

Abstract

Abstract : The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of applying creative thinking techniques: perception, divergent thinking, and convergent thinking in developing students' ability to learn English as a foreign language. The study focused on: 1. The normal performance of the students when doing exercises in English. 2. A suggested unit based on the three approaches: perception, divergent, and convergent thinking to be taught to the students after the pretest. 3. The students' expected performance after being exposed to a training session in a unit based on the three approaches to developing their thinking abilities. Quantitative research methods were utilized in data collection and analysis. Two types of data were collected: the pretest, posttest, and the suggested unit. The participants of the study were 279 students learning English as a foreign language, and they were distributed among four commercial schools: two for boys and two for girls. These participants were chosen randomly and formed into one independent group for the purposes of the experiment following the pretest The experiment was conducted in October 2001 and lasted for two weeks. The researcher was one of the teachers who taught and trained students on the exercises mentioned in the unit with the help of other teachers with whom each component of the unit and the tests had been discussed. These teachers were the senior English teachers in their schools. The experiment started when the students were given a pretest including 12 items based on the approaches mentioned before. The items were related to the students' specialization, which was commerce. After completing the pretest, the researcher began teaching the students the unit and practicing exercises, which were designed according to these three approaches. After a period of two hours, the researcher exposed the students to a posttest to identify improvements in student performance. The data analysis revealed the following results: 1. The posttest scores were an improvement over the pretest. 2. The spread of scores was reduced, and there was a substantial increase in the generation of ideas. In general, the results of this study supported the claim that creative thinking approaches develop students' performance in learning English as a foreign language. To sum up, the data indicated an improvement in performance and development in generating ideas