Reclaiming Voice and Identity: Teaching Creative Writing as a Tool for Empowerment in Multicultural Classrooms

In increasingly multilingual and culturally diverse EFL classrooms, creative writing offers a transformative space for learners to develop linguistic skills while negotiating personal and cultural identities. This study investigates how integrating creative writing into undergraduate literature courses, Drama, Poetry, and Short Story at King Khalid University (Saudi Arabia) impacts learner engagement, self-efficacy, and intercultural competence. A mixed-methods action research design was implemented over a 12-week semester with 45 female students. Participants engaged in structured creative writing tasks and submitted weekly reflective journals. Quantitative data were collected via two validated Likert-scale instruments: the Creative Writing Engagement Scale (CWES) and the Self-Efficacy and Autonomy Scale (SEAS). Thematic analysis of 135 reflective journals revealed three core themes: Voice and Self-Expression, Cultural Reflection, and Empathy and Perspective-Taking. These accounts illustrate how writing supported identity exploration and intercultural empathy. Structural equation modelling confirmed a substantial direct effect of creative writing engagement on self-efficacy (β = .79, p < .001), and a significant indirect effect on perceived language development (β = .43, p < .001). These findings suggest that creative writing is not only academically beneficial but also emotionally and culturally enriching. The study recommends the broader inclusion of creative writing in EFL curricula as a learner-centred strategy that fosters linguistic growth, identity expression, and intercultural competence.