Effects of Creativity-Enhancing Activities on Underprivileged Technical High School Students’ Linguistic and Affective Aspects of L2 Learning

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of creativity enhancing activities (CEAs) on the learning attitudes, linguistic development, and other aspects of the affective domain of underprivileged technical high school students. The study was designed based on the hypothesis that creative thinking skills may positively affect students with low English proficiency who have psychological disorders and/or come from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. This study was conducted with 21 students from a technical high school located in Seoul. CEA-based experimental lessons were given over a period of seven weeks. In the CEA-based classes, six types of creative activities which reflected the characteristics of creative people were used. In this study, one pre- and post survey, one pre- and post-test per unit, and one semi-structured post interview were conducted. The results of the study showed that the participants had a positive perception toward CEAs, experienced linguistic achievement, and saw positive effects on both their learning attitudes and affective domain. These results support the possibility of using CEAs to support the learning not only of underprivileged students’ linguistic and emotional improvement but also that of students in other schools as well. Thus, further studies that could explore the effect of using CEAs on the linguistic and affective achievement of high school students should be conducted in the future.