Creative Writing as a Method of Developing Writing Skills in Czech as a Foreign/Second Language: Action Research
Abstract
This publication is the output of the Creative Writing as a Method of Developing Writing Skills in Czech as a Foreign/Second Language project which was support-ed by the Charles University Science Foundation, Prague (project no. 310015) and carried out between the years 2015-2016. It concentrates on the development of writing skills in learners of Czech as a foreign/second language at A2-B2 levels.
The research was inspired by the fact that this topic had been rather neglected in specialised linguodidactic resources on Czech as a foreign/second language, even though writing is considered as important as all the other language skills in communicative approach to language learning, which is currently the preferred method of teaching and learning foreign languages in the EU. Another impetus to our research was German creative writing instruction in particular which has been promoted in the instruction of German as a foreign language since the 1970s and where writing is perceived and composed as a process.
The project aims to deter-mine whether creative writing has positive influence on linguistic and discursive competence in acquiring Czech as a foreign/second language, as opposed to the so-called classic approaches. Our focus on these competences stems from the fact that Czech is the most inflexional of all Slavonic languages.
For the research purposes, a probe was conducted in form of a one-semester qualitative action re-search. The sample consisted of 30 non-native speakers-students of the Charles University Institute of Czech Studies at A2-B2 levels.
The respondents were di-vided into four groups-two experimental and two control ones-with upmost regard to their comparability in terms of language levels, sociolinguistic parameters, the genres and topics assigned, as well as the number of lessons taught. In experimental groups, the writing skill was developed by the method of creative writing while the control groups were taught by means of traditional approach.