Creative writing and foreign language development

This study investigates the effect of a creative writing programme on EFL students? success in writing classes. Two elementary level classes of the English Preparatory School were chosen randomly as the subjects of this study. There were 35 students grouped into two, one as experimental and the other as control. The subjects in the experimental group studied writing in the creative writing techniques designed for them only. The subjects in the control group studied the standard curriculum. Besides, to get to know the students better and observe their common perspectives towards writing, an attitude questionnaire was given to both groups at the beginning and a similar one was given to the experimental group at the end of the study to determine whether the students have developed a positive attitude or not. The Hypothesis put forward for this study was; `If creative writing techniques are used in writing classes, students improve their writing skills and write better. The research question was: `Can we improve our students? writing skills in English if we apply creative writing techniques as a classroom process?? Data was gathered from two examination results and from student portfolios. As a result of data analysis, a statistically significant difference has been found between the scores of the first and the second examinations. When the portfolio scores were analysed, the findings indicated that creative writing techniques were effective in foreign language writing skills development and these techniques raised awareness on how to write better in a foreign language Keywords: EFL, ELT, L1, L2, FL, writing, creativity, creative writing