Imitation and creativityare two distinct issues that can be debated and still debated by people. In this post you will see how imitation and creativity find their existence and became a debatable issue in the learning process. These two points are what I am also interested in. I have been always curious about that and now I found an opportunity to get more involved in this issue and figure out what is your point of view on this controversial issue :) I think that it will be joyful journey for me to discover more different perspectives on this issue with the help of your contributions.
Learning by imitation =)
It is known thatimitation is one of the important characteristics of all species in the world because every species has an instinct to imitate and learn. For example, think of big cats like lions, what do they do? They bring their kitten to show how they hunt a gazelle or antelope. This shows how kitten learn which is by observing. When they reach their potential hunting skill they will imitate what their mothers and fathers did in the past. Let me give another example for you to become more clear on this issue. For example, we as human beings learned a language, I want you to ask yourself how did you learn your mother tongue? It is hard to tell me an exact answer. Considering this issue, there have been investigations on how human beings acquired their first language and the second language. As a result of these studies, different kind of opinions have been suggested. Some of the researchers say that we have an innate knowledge of language when we were born. On the other hand, some of them say that no human beings learn by observing and imitating what they see around themselves because imitation is our instinctive characteristic that lead us to learn. Furthermore, if we look from a literary perspective, we can see that imitation is a matter of tragedy because tragedy aims to educate people morally through the imitation of serious actions like divorcement, corruption, death, downfall and so on. This kind of imitation of serious actions will give people close equivalent what they do in their lives and what they get as a result. In other words, people are educated by imitation of what they do and what they get as a result. This is one side of the box when we think of creativity which is also regarded as an important feature of learning, the scenario can be different from the previous one.
Learning by creativity =)
Creativity in learning has been discussed for many years whether should be students given space for to use their creativeness or not. We can face with different ideologies on this issue as well. However, as our focus is on creativity, I will deal only with the necessity of creativeness. It has been accepted that creativity plays an important role in the learning process as well as other factors ( task related, information gap activities, group works) that I didn't mention. For example, when we were a child, it has been thought that if adults don't generate childlike sentences like "baby go boom" children generate this type of utterances as a result of their creativeness development. This example shows that if a child has no model to imitate and learn expressions like "baby go boom", this kind of utterance can be a result of his/her creativeness. Considering this perspective , it can be understood that creativity became an important issue in learning.
=> There will be links related with these two issues, which can lighten you before you share your opinions about them, here are the links below:
In the first link it was said that "Creativity improves the self-esteem, motivation and achievement of learners." whereas in the second link it is said that "Children learn to be selective about whom
they imitate, how to find people who know how, how to get other people to show
them how, and how to express appreciation.." Here are two distinctive opinions exist into these two links. Now, here are thequestions that I want you to focus on before you share your opinions:
What do you think about these issues?
Do you support both factors or one of them?
If you favor of imitation can you share your opinion why do you support it?
If you find creativity important can you share your opinions why do you think so?
If you have any personal experiences regarding with these two points in your learning process you can either share your opinions through you experiences as well accordingly. THERE WILL BE RELATED VIDEOSBELOW FOR FURTHER INFORMATION IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN =))
In the link above you can see how chimpanzees learn by imitation.
In the link above you can see how children learn by imitation.
In this link above you can see how children learn by using their creativeness.
If it is not opening above please copy and paste the link below into the link bar, it will lead you to the page that includes this video.
Firstly, I would like to tell you that your topic is very good especially, in our department.In addition, I like your blog you have covered all the instructions that are needed and I like the visual aids and the related links..etc. In my opinion, the both issues are quite important in human beings lives as you said. They have big roles on our lives in terms of developing ourselfs in such areas.Therefore, I can not say that this one is dominant or this one.Imitation is really important in the way of starting to learn things .Creativity is important too in the way of discovering things in our selves which will have big roles on our lives.I mean if I discovered that I am good at task-based approaches I can focus on these kinds of approaches in some areas that I can develop myself.
Çimen=)) Thank you for your comment. I agree with you as well. I think I also don't say that one is prior one is not. I also give importance to both of them. You give importance to creativity in terms of discovering ourselves beside learning. You sad that we will discover ourselves' talent right? I think yes your are right, the more we use our creativity the better we understand our ultimate talent in doing a task. For example, I can give you an example from my life, when I discover myself that I am not good at using my imagination in drawing something, I decided to be a teacher instead of being an art student.=)) This shows that creativity make me aware of my weakness at drawing using my own creativity although I love drawing. =) I like your points Çimencik thank you for giving personal example as well.
Your ideas are great about Imitation and Creativity. I think your ideas are strong and you supported your ideas with good examples.I have some ideas about some points.Firtsly, imitation as Skinner's desription, is, in my opinion, important for early developemtn of children because as we saw in the Language Acquisiton class. Imitation happens until a certain time, then other innate charateristics begin to develop more than the use of imitation. Your example about tradegy and imitation are very good because you analyzed them very well. I think(I am not sure)that tragedy may not be the way for children to educate them for the life because if we don't teach them what right and wrong is, we can't except from them how they should behave properly accoring to our ideas.Then, if we mean imitation with the tradgedy, children may imitate the immoral actions without help of an adult(if the adults know morality). But, this issue is debatable, however, you defended your ideas very well. Lastly, there is a question in my mind. If we don't allow our children to imitate bad behaviors, what would happen?
Evren=)) thank you for your comments, they opened a new way of thinking in my mind as well. I think you support the importance of imitation in learning by giving example from Skinner's description. I saw that you support the tragedy to some extend; however you said that tragedy may not be appropriate way to educate children. Actually I didn't make a specific categorization like "tragedy educate children" but the main reason that I put tragedy as an example regarding with imitation is tragedy take imitation as basis as imitation exist in human nature in learning. I give this I gave tragedy as an example to show that generalization. However, I can agree on you that tragedy may not be appropriate way to educate children as they are not fully aware what is going on around you. In other words, as they don't have a competence to fully understand the abstract phenomenon, you say that they may not be able to understand the message of tragedy. Yes, I agree with you in this point but on the other hand I agree your opinion that you said that imitation is important for early development of children. You asked me a question that if we don't allow children to imitate bad behaviors what would happen? I think that's a good question. I would say that if we don't allow them to experience bad behaviors and their consequences they may not be able to understand the consequences of their bad behaviors. For example, Skinner's Operant Conditional says that child touch the fire and it hurts their finger and after a while children understand that this is not good to touch and understand not to touch. This is what you say right? Yous say that If children don't misbehave, which is touching the fire accidentally, how they will learn what is wrong and what is right, which is not to touch the fire again. Considering this concept, I am agree with you, we should allow children to misbehave so that they will learn on their own what is right to do or what is wrong to do.
Imitation and creativity..like you said in he beginning of your post is a debatable issue in regards to how children acquire their mother tongue as well as a foreign language. I am glad that you chose this topic for us to ponder upon and voice our own individual opinions :) In my point of view, coupled with my basic knowledge that I gained in our language acquisition class, both concepts, in this case imitation and creativity, play a big role on a child's language learning process as a child can imitate the words called 'mama' or 'baba' as he or she is exposed to the language at a very young age, as well as their own unique creative aspect of mind because as children perceive more and more their surroundings and their linguistic abilities are being in process of development, they play with the language to utter some funny words that are not voiced before. I for one, once called my grandfather, whose name is Mustafa, by my own creation of name..Kuğkafa :) This type of utterences of children not only bring a smile on adults face but also show their creativity of mind. I think a child both needs imitation to create a basis for their developing linguistic ability and creativity to create their own individual language learning system :)
Nil, Thank you so much for your comments as well. I liked your example. You shared your childhood experience with us which I found it so nice. This was very good example that can be very good example for creativity of children in the language acquisition. This show us what kind of creative child you were in the past;) I understood from your comments that you are also among the ones that support the importance and necessity of both characteristics in language acquisition. I am glad to see your comment in my blog because your comments as my other classmates' comments brought richness in my blog. It seem that most of us including me give importance to both of these characteristics as we can't actually distinct them from each other. =)
I think the examples you gave are very important. You explained both imitation and creativity in a good way. Learning English requires both imitation and creativity we cannot separate them from each other. We need both of them. As you said children start to learn by imitating everything they see around them. As they hear someone speaking in English or writing they start to imitate. For example, in kindergarten we go, children try to write the English version of the word that we write to board although they still don't know to write it's Turkish version. Similarly, we say the word and they repeat it so they imitate us to learn. They also create different words to express themselves.
İlayda thank you for your comments, they lighten me. You also shared your personal experiences with me which I found them so interesting. I learned how kinder-garden children learn;) they must be so cute while they are creating different words to express themselves. Your examples showed us how they imitate while they are learning English is spoken around them, which I think broaden my subject as a result of your contributions as well as my other friends'.
I know that when the issue is making a specific text readable means that it should be well-organized and well-written (correct grammar structure, not using very high and complex English words). For example, when I was taking the course called Advance Reading and Writing, I was taught how to write a good essay by applying certain methods of doing this. In addition to, when we are writing an essay, we were supposed to write the title so that it gives a reference to readers what this text about; moreover, we were supposed to write according to the organizations of the paragraphs, we weren't supposed to start writing without making an outline the steps and organize the paragraphs within. We were supposed to make transitions between paragraphs so that it will lead the reader to know what will be in the next paragraphs. All I have mentioned above were the prerequisites for the good readable text. All I know to check the spelling mistakes from the application in the computer that is
In response to the question , my answer as a students will be as following: I would use blog to discover what is happening around and I would try to learn how people use their blogs and for what purposes. Moreover I would prefer to use blog as assistant for my profession. when I try to look from teacher's perspective, I would say that posting my students related sources with the course through the blog and make them be aware of the the positive sides of using blog, I think would make them interested in my lesson rather than getting bored from the standard ways of distributing materials. This way of doing would bring a diversity to my class and as a result my course could become an enjoyable one.
Firstly, I would like to tell you that your topic is very good especially, in our department.In addition, I like your blog you have covered all the instructions that are needed and I like the visual aids and the related links..etc. In my opinion, the both issues are quite important in human beings lives as you said. They have big roles on our lives in terms of developing ourselfs in such areas.Therefore, I can not say that this one is dominant or this one.Imitation is really important in the way of starting to learn things .Creativity is important too in the way of discovering things in our selves which will have big roles on our lives.I mean if I discovered that I am good at task-based approaches I can focus on these kinds of approaches in some areas that I can develop myself.
ReplyDeleteÇimen=)) Thank you for your comment. I agree with you as well. I think I also don't say that one is prior one is not. I also give importance to both of them. You give importance to creativity in terms of discovering ourselves beside learning. You sad that we will discover ourselves' talent right? I think yes your are right, the more we use our creativity the better we understand our ultimate talent in doing a task. For example, I can give you an example from my life, when I discover myself that I am not good at using my imagination in drawing something, I decided to be a teacher instead of being an art student.=)) This shows that creativity make me aware of my weakness at drawing using my own creativity although I love drawing. =) I like your points Çimencik thank you for giving personal example as well.
DeleteYour ideas are great about Imitation and Creativity. I think your ideas are strong and you supported your ideas with good examples.I have some ideas about some points.Firtsly, imitation as Skinner's desription, is, in my opinion, important for early developemtn of children because as we saw in the Language Acquisiton class. Imitation happens until a certain time, then other innate charateristics begin to develop more than the use of imitation. Your example about tradegy and imitation are very good because you analyzed them very well. I think(I am not sure)that tragedy may not be the way for children to educate them for the life because if we don't teach them what right and wrong is, we can't except from them how they should behave properly accoring to our ideas.Then, if we mean imitation with the tradgedy, children may imitate the immoral actions without help of an adult(if the adults know morality). But, this issue is debatable, however, you defended your ideas very well.
ReplyDeleteLastly, there is a question in my mind. If we don't allow our children to imitate bad behaviors, what would happen?
Evren=)) thank you for your comments, they opened a new way of thinking in my mind as well. I think you support the importance of imitation in learning by giving example from Skinner's description. I saw that you support the tragedy to some extend; however you said that tragedy may not be appropriate way to educate children. Actually I didn't make a specific categorization like "tragedy educate children" but the main reason that I put tragedy as an example regarding with imitation is tragedy take imitation as basis as imitation exist in human nature in learning. I give this I gave tragedy as an example to show that generalization. However, I can agree on you that tragedy may not be appropriate way to educate children as they are not fully aware what is going on around you. In other words, as they don't have a competence to fully understand the abstract phenomenon, you say that they may not be able to understand the message of tragedy. Yes, I agree with you in this point but on the other hand I agree your opinion that you said that imitation is important for early development of children. You asked me a question that if we don't allow children to imitate bad behaviors what would happen? I think that's a good question. I would say that if we don't allow them to experience bad behaviors and their consequences they may not be able to understand the consequences of their bad behaviors. For example, Skinner's Operant Conditional says that child touch the fire and it hurts their finger and after a while children understand that this is not good to touch and understand not to touch. This is what you say right? Yous say that If children don't misbehave, which is touching the fire accidentally, how they will learn what is wrong and what is right, which is not to touch the fire again. Considering this concept, I am agree with you, we should allow children to misbehave so that they will learn on their own what is right to do or what is wrong to do.
DeleteImitation and creativity..like you said in he beginning of your post is a debatable issue in regards to how children acquire their mother tongue as well as a foreign language. I am glad that you chose this topic for us to ponder upon and voice our own individual opinions :) In my point of view, coupled with my basic knowledge that I gained in our language acquisition class, both concepts, in this case imitation and creativity, play a big role on a child's language learning process as a child can imitate the words called 'mama' or 'baba' as he or she is exposed to the language at a very young age, as well as their own unique creative aspect of mind because as children perceive more and more their surroundings and their linguistic abilities are being in process of development, they play with the language to utter some funny words that are not voiced before. I for one, once called my grandfather, whose name is Mustafa, by my own creation of name..Kuğkafa :) This type of utterences of children not only bring a smile on adults face but also show their creativity of mind. I think a child both needs imitation to create a basis for their developing linguistic ability and creativity to create their own individual language learning system :)
ReplyDeleteNil, Thank you so much for your comments as well. I liked your example. You shared your childhood experience with us which I found it so nice. This was very good example that can be very good example for creativity of children in the language acquisition. This show us what kind of creative child you were in the past;) I understood from your comments that you are also among the ones that support the importance and necessity of both characteristics in language acquisition. I am glad to see your comment in my blog because your comments as my other classmates' comments brought richness in my blog. It seem that most of us including me give importance to both of these characteristics as we can't actually distinct them from each other. =)
DeleteI think the examples you gave are very important. You explained both imitation and creativity in a good way. Learning English requires both imitation and creativity we cannot separate them from each other. We need both of them. As you said children start to learn by imitating everything they see around them. As they hear someone speaking in English or writing they start to imitate. For example, in kindergarten we go, children try to write the English version of the word that we write to board although they still don't know to write it's Turkish version. Similarly, we say the word and they repeat it so they imitate us to learn. They also create different words to express themselves.
ReplyDeleteİlayda thank you for your comments, they lighten me. You also shared your personal experiences with me which I found them so interesting. I learned how kinder-garden children learn;) they must be so cute while they are creating different words to express themselves. Your examples showed us how they imitate while they are learning English is spoken around them, which I think broaden my subject as a result of your contributions as well as my other friends'.
ReplyDelete