ABSTRACT
Narrow interpretations of the words ‘communicative methodology’ have often set foreign language learning in a utilitarian world. In our attempt to link classroom interaction with the ‘real’ world outside the classroom, we have reduced that reality to a world of tourism where many loaves are bought and many predictable transactions take place but where no one tells a joke or a story. The national curriculum requires teachers to create opportunities for pupils to express themselves creatively in the foreign language. This chapter attempts to underline the importance of this area of pupil thought, to suggest the conditions necessary to encourage it and to outline the steps teachers need to take in order to set up these opportunities. It takes as its focus creative writing though, as discussed below, writing is not a skill discrete unto itself but is influenced by what one hears, reads, smells, touches and sees. The chapter concludes with a concentration on one particular area of creative writing-poetry. It describes a poetry writing project during which pupils from twenty-five schools wrote poetry in five languages.
