Creativity, students' academic writing, and EAP: Exploring comments on writing in an English language degree programme

Abstract

Creativity is widely invoked in certain educational and other public discourses, and has been quite extensively theorised and investigated in some circles, but still receives little attention in EAP discussions of students' academic writing. After outlining likely reasons for this avoidance, my paper explores what students and teachers in one setting had to say about creativity and related topics as they commented upon academic writing in a university English Language degree programme. Data are drawn from questionnaire responses and interview transcripts, starting from keyword searches. The discussion relates participants' comments and concerns to themes more commonly found in the EAP literature, especially questions of accommodation, content and writing task. A case is made for renewing attention to creativity and to what this may involve in EAP pedagogy, particularly but not exclusively when working with present or future teachers of English Language in multilingual settings. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.