Why the battle for creativity is worth fighting

We hear regularly that the pipeline of future linguists is drying up and, given the views above, we need to ask ourselves as professionals about balance: where is the place of authenticity and creativity within the ‘knowledge rich curriculum’ (Gibb 2010) and reduced teaching time on the timetable? Can they cohabit to develop intrinsic motivation for language learning? This is why St Mary’s University, Twickenham and The Queen’s College, Oxford have joined forces to create a Special Interest Group on Creativity in the MFL classroom. Following our talk on creativity in the MFL classroom session at the Language Show in November 2024, we felt it was time to bring practitioners together to think about creativity and authenticity in languages lessons. So, our Special Interest Group [SIG] for Creativity in MFL was born. This article summarises the work of the SIG and our journey to promote creativity in the MFL classroom.