Revisiting Creative Teaching Approach in Saudi EFL Classes: Theoretical and Pedagogical Perspective

Abstract

The present study aims to address the aspects of similarities and differences between the traditional and the creative teaching approaches in the Saudi EFL context by providing a comparative critical review of literature about the current teaching approaches. The study adopts a comparative critical approach that employs critical comparison to assess, critique, and synthesize the literature on a research topic in a way that enables new theoretical frameworks and perspectives to emerge. It also critically compares the previous studies dealing with creativity in teaching English as a Foreign Language with those dealing with traditional teaching approaches to explore the impediments of the application of the creative teaching approach to teaching English in a Saudi environment. The study has found that the previous studies on creativity and teaching English as a foreign language are in short of a clear understanding of how creativity can be used as an effective teaching approach and they also lack empirical evidence. In addition, there seems to be a conflation of creativity and the traditional teaching approach in the sense that although several studies claimed that they provided a creative teaching approach, their results and findings contradicted their objectives and hypotheses. In most cases, their methods were tailored to offer an impractical and illusory teaching approach, which has nothing to do with creativity. The proposed teaching approaches are incoherent and inhomogeneous which never suits either of them. Therefore empirical studies on creativity and its impact on EFL learners' minds in Saudi Arabia should be initiated.