The importance of emotions and creativity in teaching languages

Based on Dr Simon Coffey’s research on the aesthetic dimensions of language, the workshop aimed to explore how creativity can be used as a tool within language pedagogy. The workshop, a collaboration between Simon and artist educator Daksha Patel, encouraged the PGCE MFL students to think of language and language teaching differently, through activities involving touch and sound sensations, drawing emotion words onto body shapes, translation and sculpting sounds.

Daksha Patel purposefully organised dynamic activities that the students were not familiar with in a learning setting. For instance, they were asked to move around the space and draw from different angles, and to stand against the walls and draw around their body shapes.

They therefore could gather a deeper understanding of language and language teaching through kinaesthetic learning, rather than by thinking rationally about pedagogy.

The students are teachers of different modern languages, which enriched the workshops further as they were reflecting on the sounds of language in new ways. They felt positively challenged to create different ways to think about their language, including through associations and emotions. Recognising the emotional element of learning a language made them rethink how best to help their pupils internalise and experience a language, beyond learning the grammar.

At the end of the workshops, the PGCE students reported that they would apply some of the activity ideas in their own teaching to show their pupils that learning a language doesn’t have to be about studying for a test or sitting down and reading a book, and instead that it can be creative, too.

Dr Simon Coffey was happy to see that the teacher-students enjoyed the workshops and beyond that, that their enjoyment was combined with shifts in mindset.

The project was funded by The Exchange, a space for collaboration and innovation in King’s Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy, where research from across the social sciences is communicated and generated in creative ways.

Watch the video of the workshops: