Keyword: «creative learning tasks»

The relevance of the topic under research is determined by the fact that creative thinking is a forerunner of innovations necessary for the development of society. Creative thinking fosters generating complex ideas, decision making, personal growth, also adaptation to the modern world requirements in the context of globalization and competition with artificial intelligence among professionals. Moreover, the digital era shifts focus from the transfer of knowledge to students to application of this knowledge in problem-solving. Foreign language classes, English classes in particular, open up an opportunity to unleash students' creative potential. Thus, the article aims to outline factors affecting positively the formation and development of creative skills in students in the English language classroom at a non-linguistic university. The research draws on the humanistic approach to teaching which underpins students' self-actualization. Apart from that, the work takes the tenets of the cognitivism theory as a starting point considering learners to be active participants of cognitive activity. An important role in the research is played by Vygotsky's sociocultural theory positing the value of students' interaction for acquisition of knowledge and skills. The findings of this study revealed specific features of creative thinking, its multidimensionality is shown. Theoretical knowledge about the nature of the concept under study enables to identify a number of factors ensuring activating creative thinking skills in foreign language teaching: teacher's personality and behavior, an effective learning environment, principles underpinning learning tasks. Theoretical implication of the article is due to a complex description of creative thinking that allows to deeper understand its nature and on this basis properly integrate it in English language teaching. Practical implication of the article lies in the fact that factors of activating creative thinking skills identified in the study can be applied in syllabuses and curricula design depending on the learning context, aims and learners' needs. The described principles underpinning the creative tasks allow to expand teacher's methods and maintain students' interest and motivation for learning English.