Making the invisible visible : eine empirische Untersuchung zur Definition und Evaluation von Kreativität bei fremdsprachlichen Schreibprodukten der Primarstufe

Als Ausgangspunkt der vorliegenden Arbeit gilt das ambivalente Verständnis von Kreativität im Englischunterricht. Während der Begriff mit dem selbstständigen Gebrauch der Fremdsprache eng verbunden (Maley, 2015) und eine Förderung von Kreativität im Unterricht erwünscht ist (Gallup, 2019), scheint gleichzeitig eine allgemeingültige Definition zu fehlen. Diese Dissonanz führt zu einer oftmals untergeordneten Stellung von Kreativität im Unterrichtsalltag (Haager, 2019; Schacter et al., 2006), die aber dem Potential von Kreativität für das fremdsprachliche Lernen widerspricht. Im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts wurde Kreativität deshalb aus Sicht der Didaktik des Englischen empirisch untersucht, um Kreativität sichtbar zu machen und deren Förderung zu ermöglichen. Thematisch spezifizierte sich die Arbeit auf die Primarstufe sowie die Schreibkompetenz, um möglichst präzise Einblicke zu bieten

Neural foundations of creativity in foreign language acquisition

This article focuses on the subject of several independent sciences, in particular linguistics and language didactics, as well as interdisciplinary research: the acquisition of creative foreign language competences. Whereas creativity is a very complex concept and very difficult to describe, it is most commonly explained with the help of examples. Due to recent technological progress, imaging methods are now able to show where creative activity, especially linguistic creativity, is located in the human brain and where it might possibly originate. The following article presents recently collected data from language acquisition-related neuroscientific studies in contrast to existing findings of language acquisition research as well as implicit language acquisition. Subsequently, all findings are used in order to draw conclusions about general as well as specific language didactics. In addition, a second goal is the demystification of apparently unproductive and unfocused states, which are wrongly stigmatised and unfairly seen as wasted time in institutionalised contexts. The results of this article, therefore, try to make those situations available again for goal-oriented foreign language acquisition

The fear factor: Xenoglossophobia or how to overcome the anxiety of speaking foreign languages

The article approaches a ubiquitous as well as a rarely adequately addressed problem area of learning and teaching foreign languages. It concentrates on xenoglossophobia, the fear of speaking foreign languages. Why do avoidance strategies as well as phobias develop during childhood especially in the foreign language classroom whenever it comes to the productive usage of the English language? Psychological, pedagogical, didactical as well as language related and neuroscientific findings are analysed and interpreted in order to help answer central questions like the above. The theoretical indications are further supported by a fundamental pilot study based on the productive language usage of foreign language students (n=108) and the according reflective and prospective analysis. The second part of the article brings all these findings together and outlines language didactical, meaningful, positive preventive, diagnostical, and therapeutic opportunities for intervention in the foreign language classroom