Creative Writing and Target Language Acquisition : Student perceptions from Bangladesh

This is a portion of a multifaceted case study of an experimental creative writing seminar that was offered to English as a foreign language (EFL) students at a university in Bangladesh by a visiting researcher. The principal question addressed in this part of the study is, do the students in the class identify creative writing as useful in improving their English language ability in the following areas : writing, reading comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, public speaking, and listening? The answer to this question, though answered in relation to this individual case study, of students at a university in Dhaka, Bangladesh, will have universal applications to other English programs, in other settings, in other countries. The reason for this is simple, in that creative writing is usually considered the domain of the native speaker and not of the EFL or ESL (English as a Second Language) student. If students of English identify creative writing to be useful in their second language acquisition, then it behooves administrators of EFL or ESL programs to include creative writing courses, or at least elements of creative writing, in their curriculums