Let's start by thinking back to some of the characteristics that we associated with creativity: flexibility, imagination, curiosity, tolerance of ambiguity, to name but a few. Arguably, those are traits that would be very useful for learning another language.

There is some evidence that people who are more creative do better at language learning.

For instance, flexibility indicates the ability to come with a large number of ideas quickly, a a sort of mental fluency. That might relate to the ability to use a wide range of vocabulary, potentially (Albert & Kormos, 2004).

Tolerance of ambiguity refers to "the degree to which you are cognitively willing to tolerate ideas and propositions that run counter to your own belief system or structure of knowledge" (Brown, 2000: 119). That seems to sum up a lot of what learning another language is like! Indeed, having higher levels of ambiguity tolerance has been linked with more successful language learning (Ely, 1989). People who are more tolerant of ambiguity might be less inhibited about being totally accurate in speaking the target language, for instance, hence take more risks with their language use, and therefore gain more opportunities to practise speaking.

In other words, we might anticipate that more creative people are better able to learn a second or foreign language. Indeed, Albert and Kormos (2004) found that 15-16 year old learners of English who scored more highly on a test of creativity also tended to do better on an oral narrative task.

But what about learning a language? Does that help people become more creative? And does that apply to all kinds of language learning, or just some kinds?

Make a note of your own personal response to this question and then read the next section to find out what research has to say about it.