Understanding Culturally Influenced Approaches to Creativity in an English for Art Purposes Program

Oct 15, 2026

Examines how culturally influenced views shape creativity in an English for Art Purposes program, where students and instructors often hold contrasting expectations about originality. Observes tensions between learners who tend to imitate skilled peers as a learning strategy and instructors who encourage “thinking outside of the box.” Uses program context, student diversity beyond nationality labels, and an art workshop self-portrait assignment in Photoshop to illustrate copying behavior and prompts interviews to compare perceptions of creativity, learning from examples, and Eastern versus Western creativity.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Literature Review and Hypothesis

Understanding Culturally Influenced Approaches to Creativity in an English for Art Purposes Program “To lead, one must follow.” Lao-Tzu’s quote embodies the belief that many 1st-semester students at our institution hold regarding their approach to creativity. Whether working on an essay or an art project, many have a tendency to imitate a more skilled person’s work as a way of learning, improving, and building confidence. Conversely, it is not uncommon for their instructors to push them to generate original ideas and think outside of the box. These conflicting approaches and other opposing cultural tendencies can lead to a host of challenges for both instructors and our student artists, especially students from Confucian heritage cultures. This article shares observations of these challenges and suggestions for addressing them. Introduction While no bell rings, there is a strong auditory indicator that classes are getting out in the halls of our English for Art Program, an abrupt linguistic shift. The tones of fluent Chinese replace elementary English as students ease into the comfort and convenience of their native language. While 66% of the students categorized as “international” at our private art university come from China, Taiwan, and Korea, in the Intensive English Courses (the first two levels of ESL in the program), that number normally exceeds 95%, with more than 90% from mainland China. Similar to an EFL setting, our classes commonly consist of what may be perceived as fairly homogeneous groups—students who are all new to our university, all within a narrow age range, all having a similar educational background, and all aspiring to careers in art and design. However, as Spack cautions in “The Rhetorical Construction of Multilingual Students”(1997), in which she calls attention to the dan The CATESOL Journal 28.2 • 2016 • 61 ger of constructing students’ identities via simplistic labels, we seek to appreciate our students’ heterogeneity. While well-meaning attempts have been made to establish best practices for teaching English language learners based on their cultural tendencies, the results have often led to the essentialization of student groups based on nationality. One common example is labeling East Asian students as a group who values collectivism and the teacher-centered classroom, where the “transmission of knowledge remains the standard practice as well as an educational aim”(Feng, 2003, p. 9). While no one can deny the influence of the Confucian tradition on Asian education, the complete picture is much more complex, more connected to the global community than ever before, and constantly in flux (Spack, 1997) . The fact that our students seem to be “homogeneous” from an admissions office standpoint, yet are truly diverse, makes them their own myth busters. As we get to know them as individuals, we learn that they attended different types of schools, where the quality of education varied. We learn that some embrace Western culture, while others reject it. We learn that some rebel against their parents, while others cannot make a decision without consulting them. We learn that some are visual learners, who will thrive in the fine arts, while others are remarkable aural learners, pursuing degrees in music and multimedia communications. And we would be doing them a grand disservice to ignore the individual attributes that this surface “homogeneity” helps bring to light. As Carson argues in “Cultural Backgrounds: What Should We Know About Multilingual Students?,” we as teachers “ … have an obligation to know them as they know themselves and to use that knowledge to inform our pedagogical practices”(1998, p. 739) . It is with this spirit that we approach our research: not to perpetuate cultural myths and stereotypes but instead to attempt to understand how students differ from their “teachers’ necessarily restricted understanding of learners’backgrounds”(Carson, 1998, p. 739) in order to bette

FAQs

Why do some students in the program copy more experienced classmates’ work?

Students may view imitation as a way to learn a new skill, including copying a “master” to learn technique. The article frames this as a common learning and confidence-building approach.

What challenge do instructors face when students’ views of creativity differ?

Instructors encounter conflicting cultural expectations about originality versus learning through emulation. The article notes difficulties especially for students from Confucian heritage cultures.

How did the photography workshop assignment reveal students’ creative approaches?

Students created layered self-portraits by combining a self-portrait with another photograph in Adobe Photoshop. Although most produced original self-portraits, three students copied the style of a more experienced student, shown in Figure 1.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Indoniesian Boy