Saudi EFL Teachers’ Interpretation toward Creativity

Purpose, Methods, Results Creativity is an important skill that should be promoted throughout the educational system. However, teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) in high schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) generally do not appear to use creative approaches for reasons that are not well understood. Understanding EFL teachers’ attitudes about creativity would provide valuable insights into their practices in the classroom and facilitate the planning and evaluation efforts to promote creativity in classrooms. Using a validated survey instrument adapted from Al-Qahtani (2016), the researcher collected attitudes toward creativity among 85 female Saudi EFL teachers. The study found that the participating teachers had positive attitudes toward creativity. However, they lacked certainty about the definition of creativity and were not confident in their application of creative methods. The implications of these findings in light of the research are discussed in greater detail.

Saudi education system also makes it worthwhile to study female teachers' perspectives isolation. To address this purpose, this study poses the following research question: • What are the attitudes of female Saudi EFL teachers toward creativity? This research question is divided into the following sub-questions: o What are the attitudes of female Saudi EFL teachers toward creativity in general?
o What are the attitudes of female Saudi EFL teachers toward creative classroom strategies and activities?
o What are the attitudes of female Saudi EFL teachers toward school support for teaching creativity?
o What are the attitudes of female Saudi EFL teachers toward teaching and learning creativity?

Defining Creativity
A review of the literature shows a lack of consensus on the definition of creativity (Mullet, Willerson, Lamb, & Kettler, 2016;. Some definitions highlight creative processes while others emphasize creative products and still others focus on personality traits . Moreover, some scholars highlight everyday creativity of average people while others limit true creativity to the eminent forms of creativity exhibited by the great geniuses throughout history (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007). Furthermore, research has shown cultural differences in defining and evaluating creativity (Kaufman, Niu, Sexton, & Cole, 2010). Sternberg (2003) defined creativity as a confluence of all those factors plus an investment of time, energy, and resources into the potential of often overlooked ideas.
In an attempt to tie all the different definitions of creativity together, Kaufman and Beghetto (2009) proposed a four-C model of creativity, divided into Mini-C, Little-C, Pro-C, and Big-C creativity. Mini-C creativity are the novel changes in thoughts and ideas that can shift a person's perspectives; Little-C creativity is everyday applications of creativity such as tinkering; Pro-C creativity is the type of creativity used by professionals in a field; and Big-C or eminent creativity is the groundbreaking, genius form of creativity that relies on historical and interpersonal judgment of appropriateness and novelty. Overall, Beghetto and Kaufman (2007) define creativity as the aptitude to produce a high quality, novel, and appropriate work; the ability to perceive the world in new ways; and the ability to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena to generate workable solutions, regardless of the level (Mini, Small, Pro, or Big).

Creative Teaching Methods
According to Hrešć et al. (2016), creativity does not develop in a vacuum but in a conducive environment, and without which, even the inherent creativity will not be displayed. In line with this, Sadykova and Shelestova (2016) asserted that it is the role of the teacher to create an environment that fosters creativity. Likewise, Aschenbrener, Terry and Torres (2009) noted that teachers should teach for creativity. It is important to note the difference between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity: whereas teaching creatively refers teaching that uses creative and varied teaching methods, teaching for creativity means teaching methods that help create space for and foster students' creativity (Sadykova & Shelestova. 2016). Johnson (2017) claimed that classroom creativity is generated through the interplay between teachers' and students' energies, arising much from teachers' facilitation as much as students' productivity. Because there is no precise definition of creativity, one quality of creative teachers must have is to be open-minded about creativity. According to Hrešć et al. (2016), conformity and closed-mindedness kill creativity as it reduces the likelihood of creating new insights and points of view. Thus, rather than just presenting the lessons of a book, creative teachers create individual teaching styles by adapting and modifying their lessons to meet individual needs of their students. This helps to create "effective surprises," which, according to Johnson (2017), is related to creativity. Thus, creative teachers must be familiar with a wide range of teaching techniques and strategies which they call upon when teaching, thus avoiding repetition, which kills creativity. Additionally, creative teachers must be risk takers; they have to abandon the laid-down teaching strategies and practices, innovate and use methods that are not necessarily laid down in the books (Hrešć et al., 2016).
According to Sternberg (2003), creative teachers must be knowledgeable in their subject area to enhance their imaginative capabilities, which is key to understanding creative students. Likewise, Richards (2013) explained that creative teachers must be knowledgeable in the subject area in order to build creative lessons. The use of creative teaching methods also depends on having a reflective teaching practice that can tap into new ideas and practices that are even more effective in transferring knowledge to their students (Hrešć et al., 2016). According to Richards (2013), creative teachers must be able to solve problems, use their imagination, make new connections and meanings to the contents they are to teach to their students, have original thoughts to design and implement creative teaching techniques, and strategies to pass knowledge to their students. Furthermore, Richard (2013) stated that it is of critical importance that teachers use methods of principled eclecticism, which helps integrate different methods of teaching, emphasizing on laying foundation of knowledge in the subject. These qualities are akin to Ken Robinson's (2006) notion of quality of creative teachers, packaged into what he called divergent thinking.

Creativity in EFL Classes
EFL teachers have been increasingly adopting teaching practices to foster creativity in classes (Cimermanová, 2015). Numerous studies have evaluated the importance of creativity in EFL classes. According to EFL researchers, creativity in EFL classrooms improves acquisition and remembrance of EFL, encourages students improve their imaginative skills, and gives students a personalized experience of EFL, which improves understanding and comprehension of EFL (Al-Qahtani, 2016;Hofweber & Graham, 2017;Richards, 2013;Schoff, 2016). By fostering spaces that are safe for creative expression with encouragement and support from both the teacher and the students, EFL students can gain skills to communicate appropriately and enhance novel and creative thinking (Cimermanová, 2015).Creativity also helps create an environment that allows learners to better internalize the language (Suwartono, 2017).
In the KSA, the education system has traditionally been relied on rote memorization methods rather than creativity (Daif-Allah1 & Aljumah), and EFL education is no exception; however, recently there has been an increased interest in promoting creativity in EFL classes (Picard, 2018). Some studies about the use of creative teaching methods in Saudi EFL classes have focused on technology and social media (Sharma, 2019), such as Instagram (AlGhamdi, 2018), Facebook (Al-Jarf, 2015), Snapchat (Albawardi & Jones, 2019), and blogging (Roy, 2016). Other studies have focused on using methods that disrupt the traditional teacher-student hierarchy and give students more freedom and autonomy to express themselves (Alonazi, 2017;Javid, 2018), with specific methods including the use of reading circles (Al-Qahtani, 2016), the invention of new portmanteau words as a class (Ali & Ilyas, 2020), the implementation of flipped classrooms (Al-Ghamdi & Al-Bargi, 2017), and the promotion of collaboration (Roy, 2016).

Arab EFL Teachers' Attitudes Toward Creativity
Studies on EFL teachers' attitudes toward creativity in the Arab world has included research in Algeria (Hana & Hacène, 2017), Kuwait (Al-Nouh, Abdul-Kareem, & Taqi, 2014), and Palestine (Harzallah, 2018). These studies have found generally positive attitudes toward creativity but confusion about how to define and teach creativity. Less research has addressed Saudi EFL teachers' attitudes toward creativity, but one study conducted by Al-Qahtani (2016), surveyed 45 male EFL teachers and six teacher supervisors about the extent to which they fostered creativity in their classrooms. Al-Qahtani found most of the participating male Saudi EFL teachers did not encourage creative thinking in their classes. Moreover, they did not engage their students in diverse problem-solving tasks, use a variety of teaching styles and strategies, and believe in the value of encouraging creative thinking to improve language learning (Al-Qahtani, 2016). However, Al-Qahtani's study focused only on male Saudi EFL teachers, and based on the available literature, it seems that no similar studies have been conducted on female Saudi EFL teachers to same extent as Al-Qahtani's survey. The closest available research on female Saudi EFL teachers' attitudes towards creativity comes from a study of gender differences in Saudi EFL teachers' perspectives toward factors influencing learner autonomy which briefly touched on the topic of creativity in one questionnaire item (Javid, 2018). In this study, Javid (2018) surveyed 30 male and 30 female English language teachers from Taif University in Saudi Arabia, and their response to the statement that "EFL teachers should encourage creativity among students in language use" were positive for both males and females with no significant difference between them. Javid's findings may suggest there is agreement between male and female EFL teachers in their attitudes toward creativity, but because his research only included on questionnaire item about creativity, it is necessary to research the topic in more depth.

Research Design
The purpose of this study is to describe female Saudi EFL teachers' attitudes toward creativity. To achieve this, a study using a non-experimental, survey design was conducted. According to Belli (2008), "any quantitative study without manipulation of treatments or random assignment is a non-experimental study" (p. 59).
Furthermore, as Creswell (2012) states, survey studies "describe the attitudes, opinions, behaviors, or characteristics of the population," (p. 376), which in this study is Saudi female EFL teachers' attitudes.

Participant Characteristics
The target population of this study was female Saudi EFL teachers in secondary schools in a major city in the KSA. The number of female Saudi EFL secondary school teachers in this city was 85 teachers. All 85 teachers were surveyed, and all 85 completed the questionnaire.

Instrumentation
To collect the data, a 19-item questionnaire was adapted from an earlier questionnaire designed by Al-Qahtani (2016), which gathered data on participants attitudes towards statements about the use of creativity in EFL classrooms on a 4-point Likert-type scale of agreement (Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree). Al-Qahtani previously reported high internal consistency for the questionnaire in his study (Cronbach's alpha = 0.93). However, because some modifications were made to Al-Qahtani's questionnaire, the adapted version used here was reviewed again for reliability and validity. To validate the instrument for face validity, the modified questionnaire was reviewed by a panel of four experts in English education. To test the reliability, a pilot study was conducted in which the questionnaire was given to 10 female Saudi EFL teachers. Using their responses, a Cronbach's Alpha for internal consistency was calculated, which determined the reliability of the instrument is good (Cronbach's alpha = 0.886).

Data Collection and Analysis
The questionnaire was distributed via e-mail at the beginning of the Saudi school year, in fall of 2019. Respondents were given two weeks to complete the survey. An electronic data collection method was chosen because web surveys allow for effective and economical surveying of the entire population as well as promote a high response rate (Creswell, 2012). To further improve the response rate, the researcher contacted the female Saudi EFL teachers three times by e-mail asking for their participation in the survey. In keeping with the descriptive nature of the research question and purpose of the study, the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, namely frequencies and percentages.

Results
To answer the research question, the researcher reported the responses received by participants' attitudes toward creativity and its fostering in language classes.

Creativity in General
The respondents reported that creativity is unclear to them, with 85.9% agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement that "creativity is an unclear concept…." However, despite reporting being unclear about creativity, most also agreed or strongly agreed that it is "necessary in life" (88.2%) and "essential for … student success" (89.5%), and they disagreed or strongly disagreed that it is useless (88.2%). Thus, they appear to value creativity but might not feel confident defining what it is (see Table 1).

Creative Classroom Strategies and Activities
Most of the items in this section asked about classroom activities, strategies, exercises and methods and the degree to which the teachers agree that they use them in their classrooms. As Table 2 shows, between 78.9% and 94.1% either agree or strongly agreed with the positive statements about activities that involve creativity (Items 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10). In contrast, between 83.5% and 87.1% disagreed or strongly disagreed with the negative statements about the use of creative activities (Items 2, 7, 9). Therefore, it appears that female Saudi EFL teachers appreciate the value of classroom practices that foster creativity; however, more than 9 out of every 10 teachers would like more knowledge about creative thinking activities. Only about one-half of the participants thought that creative thinking activities are appropriate in large high school classes. Also, about 2 out of every 10 participants dislike using creative thinking exercises in the lessons, but almost 9 out of every 10 teachers report employing methods that foster creativity.

School Support for Teaching Creativity
The teachers disagreed slightly that they receive support from teachers and the school. For instance, 42.3% of the teachers disagreed or strongly disagreed that their school fosters creativity. Moreover, they gave inconsistent responses on whether regular classroom teachers are responsible for teaching creativity. Still, the respondent agreed more than disagreed with these statements. Table 3 shows one-fourth of these teachers believe that creativity is not the responsibility of a 'regular' classroom teacher, indicating an understanding of creativity as elt.ccsenet.org English Language Teaching Vol. 13, No. 6;2020 being a special topic or course. Moreover, nearly half of these teachers responded that their school did not emphasize fostering student creativity.

Teaching and Learning Creativity
Items 1, 2, and 3 in Table 4 relate to the teaching and learning process of creativity. The results show that 75.3% of the participants agreed or strongly agreed that creativity can be taught. However, far more teachers-in fact all but one (98.8%)-agreed that creativity can be learned.

Discussion
Data obtained from the questionnaire on attitudes toward creativity showed positive attitudes toward creativity in general. Overall, there were high levels of agreement with the positive statements about creativity and high levels of disagreement with the negative statements about creativity. With respect to participants' feelings toward encouraging creativity in EFL classes, more than half of the participants liked the idea of employing creativity activities in their EFL classes. However, less than half had negative feelings toward the idea of creativity. Similarly, more than half of the teachers felt that creativity activities in EFL classes could improve students' attitudes toward English language, yet less than half of the participants disagreed. The female Saudi EFL teachers in this study also appeared to value creativity but reported being unsure about the concept of creativity. These findings are similar to the results of research by Aljughaiman and Mowrer-Reynolds (2005) in their study on teachers' perceptions of creativity. They found that while teachers have positive attitudes toward and perceptions about creativity and want to encourage creativity, they often feel that they lack the knowledge on how to do so.
Being unclear about the concept of creativity does not necessarily reflect poorly on the female Saudi EFL teachers' attitudes, however, because the concept of creativity itself has confounded many scholars, professional educators, and administrators for years. For example, Mullet et al. (2016) stated there is a lack of a widely agreed-upon and coherent definition of creativity; creativity is a complex construct and no consensus on how to define it. Even when a specific definition of creativity is clear, definitions from different scholars are often inconsistent. In an almost identical finding to this study, Mullet et al. (2016) concluded that while "teachers may support and value creativity in students and society, they have difficulty defining and identifying creativity in students" (p. 27). However, even though creativity is difficult to define, it is of the utmost importance to try to develop clear definitions because, as Mullet et al. explain further, "The ability to define and recognize creativity is crucial to cultivating it in students through curriculum and pedagogy" (p. 27). This finding thus has implications for the need to better define creativity, which will be discussed in greater detail in the recommendations section.
Though they may be unclear about the general concept of creativity, the female Saudi EFL teachers in this study expressed an appreciative attitude toward the value of classroom practices that foster creativity. Their appreciation for the value of creativity is a starkly different result than the findings from Al-Qahtani's (2016) study, in which male Saudi EFL teachers did not value classroom activities that foster creativity. With the KSA being a strictly gender segregated society (Saaty, 2018), it would not be surprising to see these differences in creativity in the verbal/linguistic domains become more pronounced. However, research from Javid (2018) adds another layer of complexity to this issue because he found both male and female Saudi EFL teachers responded with high levels of agreement to a questionnaire item about the value of creativity in EFL classes, with no significant difference between genders. It seems the issue of gender differences in Saudi EFL teachers' attitudes toward creativity remains an open question.
While the female Saudi EFL teachers had positive attitudes toward the value of creativity, their attitudes toward the level of support their schools provide for creative approaches were less positive. A little less than half (43.4%) of participants indicated that the disagreed or strongly disagreed that their school supports creativity. Al-Qahtani (2016) also found that male Saudi EFL teachers reported a lack of support as well, which shows that the problem is nationwide in the KSA and does not only affect girls' schools or certain regions. These findings are also similar to Rubenstein et al. (2013), who found that while teachers' may feel prepared to support and encourage creativity in their students, their school environments might impede their perceived ability to do so. In other words, even when teachers want to promote creativity in their classrooms, they may feel unsupported. This feeling of a lack of support is an important finding that should be investigated further to determine more about the reasons for this belief.
The results also showed that most of the female Saudi EFL teachers agreed that creativity is an area of knowledge that can be taught and learned. More importantly, a higher number of teachers-in fact all but one-agreed that creativity can be learned, while slightly fewer teachers believed it could be taught. This raises the following questions: if they believe it can be learned more than taught, from where do they think students learn creativity and why do they think it is hard to teach? Perhaps the reason it is hard to teach goes back to the lack of a clear definition of creativity and the teachers' uncertain attitude toward the general concept of creativity. The belief that creativity can be learned more than taught seems to align with a general belief that creativity includes something unpredictable and something beyond the control of the teacher. Still, the positive attitude these teachers have toward teachability and learnability of creativity is promising. The research on the beliefs of writing teachers shows that the degree to which creativity can be taught is debated, with some teachers holding the apparently contradictory positions that creativity can't be taught even while they make a living teaching creative writing Myhill& Wilson, 2013). Despite some uncertainty about how creativity can be taught, Stoller (2002) insists that teaching creativity should be an important component of English language classes (Stoller, 2002), regardless of gender. According to Stoller, when creativity is properly fostered, students' skills in problem solving and critical thinking are enhanced, and this will improve students' language learning.

Conclusion
Overall, this research showed that female Saudi EFL teachers held positive attitudes toward creativity in the classroom. However, the descriptive study also suggested that they are unclear about what creativity is. Moreover, the teachers reported that low levels of agreement that their schools support teaching creativity.
As findings from this present study along with previous research from Al-Qahtani (2016) show, teachers who report implementing creative learning also report that they are not receiving the level of support needed from schools to implement creative approaches. These areas of support, or lack thereof, can include funding, technology, training and professional development, or other educational materials and resources. Thus, it is recommended that schools provide teachers with more support so they can better implement creative teaching and learning methods, which will allow teachers to feel better able to foster creativity effectively.
To achieve these above recommendations, it may be necessary to create an official center for creative instruction at the national and local levels. Ideally, every school district or at least every city should have a local center for creative instruction that would help provide training, operationalize creativity, and share resources that would benefit all teachers, not just EFL instructors. These centers would be instrumental in turning creativity from a vaguely defined title to a practical set of skills and strategies to be employed in the classroom.
One interesting finding from this study was that the results differed from Al-Qahtani's (2016) similar study that addressed male Saudi EFL teachers' attitudes rather than female. Al-Qahtani reported that the teachers in his study had somewhat negative attitudes toward creativity whereas the female Saudi EFL teachers had positive attitudes toward creativity. However, Javid (2018) showed no significant difference in male and female Saudi EFL teachers in their response to a questionnaire item about whether EFL teachers should promote creativity among their students. These discrepancies in Saudi EFL teachers' attitudes towards creativity should be studied more explicitly and methodically, so that it can be determined if the contradicting results are because of gender differences or other factors. Thus, it is recommended that future research include both male and female Saudi EFL teachers and their attitudes toward creativity.
Finally, qualitative research study could include classroom observations to determine firsthand the ways in which Saudi EFL teachers use creative teaching methods. The present study only asked teachers to self-report their use of creative methods, but that has room for bias and error. In order to directly determine actual creative teaching behaviors, and observational method would be necessary.