The Cultivation of Creativity in Foreign-Language Education: Association Practices in a Japanese-language Classroom

Figure 1. As shown in Figure 1, the pedagogy utilizes vocabulary free association practice, vocabulary compulsory association practice, and vocabulary association writing practice to mature creative thinking skills and the exercises are meant to improve students’ language expertise. In addition, creative activities elevate their learning motivation and association practices promote their creativity by activating the three components of individual creativity. Figure 2.The mind map shown in Figure 2 is the worksheet of vocabulary free association practice.Starting from the central word presented on the worksheet of vocabulary free association practice, students write, within a given time limit, those words that immediately come to mind on the empty lines surrounding the central word. Figure 3. The worksheet shown in Figure 3 is used for the vocabulary compulsory association practice.Starting from the central word presented on the worksheet of vocabulary compulsory association practice, students write associative vocabularies based on specific items within a given time limit. Figure 4. The pictures shown in Figure 4 are used to guide the vocabulary association writing practice.At first glance, there is no relationship among the pictures. The instructor might show students three pictures simultaneously and ask them to associate based on their existing knowledge. By associating, students can write down key words and summarize the contents to write an essay. Figure 5.An answer example given by a student on the thinking theme test is shown in Figure 5. The student wrote the answers in the Japanese language. In the post-test, this student wrote more ideas in different categories than in the pre-test, and the unusualness of ideas increased. Figure 6. The items shown in Figure 6 are the evaluation criteria in the thinking theme pre-test and post-test corresponding to fluency, flexibility, and originality. They all increased in the post-test. Figure 7. An answer response to the vocabulary association writing test by a student is shown in Figure 7. The student wrote the answers in the Japanese language.In the post-test, the number of associated vocabulary words increased, and the quality of students’ vocabulary, grammar, and writing abilities had all improved. Figure 8. Results of Japanese-language expertise assessment.It shows that the scores on the post-test were statistically higher than those on the pre-test. Figure 9. Results of motivation questionnaire.It showed that about 80% of the students gave a good evaluation of all items. Table 1. These results showed that the association practices increased the number of ideas, variety of ideas, and unusualness after the practical lecture and that they promoted creative thinking. Table 2. It confirmed that students’ Japanese-language expertise had significantly improved.