Abstract:

Academic community recently revealed interest in exploring the potential links between multilingualism and creativity. However, the benefits of merging programs fostering creative capacities and multilingual abilities continue to escape the attention of educators. It is evident that creativity-fostering programs operate separately from those offering multilingual instructions. Moreover, the latter, in the best traditions of bi-/multilingualism approach, neglect the importance of nurturing intercultural competence. However, the efficacy of a program combining all these efforts can be directly inferred from empirical findings and theoretical considerations advanced over the last 15 years. These studies present a case for a relationship between linguistic, cultural, and creative competences. Evidently, these competences can be nurtured through education. In the presentation, we introduce a new paradigm of Plurilingual Creativity, which proposes a broader perspective on the relationship between acquisition and use of multiple languages and development of creative potential. We discuss the impact of language users’ multicultural and emotional experiences on development of certain cognitive mechanisms and personality traits underlying their creative capacities. Then, we propose a new Plurilingual Intercultural Creative Keys education program, which constitutes a unified teaching model blending language-learning and creativity-fostering instructions into school curriculum.

The goals of the program:
a) to foster children’s creative potential regardless of their intellectual and creative predispositions;
b) to promote multilingual competence;
c) to nurture intercultural competence in a diversity of student populations.

To accomplish these goals, the program focuses on techniques modifying multilingual instructions to develop creativity-fostering cognitive functions and personality traits facilitated by plurilingual experience.

Keywords:

Multilingualism, multiculturalism, creativity, education.