Some people might say that creativity eludes measurement, and that we just know 'instinctively' if something or someone is creative or not. However, it's probably also desirable to have some kind of more scientific, objective measure of how creative someone is. That is especially important if we want to assess the impact of what we do in the classroom on learners' creativity.

There have been several attempts over the years to come up with suitable tests of creativity. One very widely-used test is the ATTA - the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (Goff & Torrance, 2002). This includes various tasks that ask individuals to offer solutions to a problem (to assess verbal creativity), and to complete or create pictures from a stimulus (to assess non-verbal creativity).

How good are you at identifying creativity?

To find out, read pages 155-156 in the chapter "Getting Creative in the Languages Classroom" in Creative Multilingualism: A Manifesto (2020), and try the task there. Then check your answer with what is suggested on page 172 of the chapter.