How to use poetry in a language classroom. What are the benefits of using a poem in the language classroom?

How to use poetry in a language classroom. What are the benefits of using a poem in the language classroom?


Poetry, like the other literary genres, can be fruitfully used as a model of language for teaching the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The reading and writing of poetry, classified as a literary activity, has helped to keep this form of linguistic expression out of the typical EFL classroom while many teachers agree that poetry promotes language acquisition. While this might be true of poetry as a reading activity, however the use of poetry in the writing class can provide an effective and collaborative means of language learning and of personal expression.

In an EFL classroom, picture poems, pattern poems and haiku can offer ways of making English a means of personal expression, creativity and development, serving to reduce affective barriers in a nonthreatening learning environment. Popular song scripts can also facilitate awareness of pronunciation, intonation and sentence flow. A broader perspective on the use of poetry in the language classroom can lead to meaningful and successful language learning. It is important that texts should provide good potential for a variety of classroom activities in order to give students more chance to gain true familiarity with any work as a whole. Most importantly, the texts should have the capacity to engage the interest of the students. 

How to use poetry in the language classroom

Here are some ways poetry can be used perfectly in a language classroom. 

1. By establishing theme: EFL teachers can teach with a theme and its accompanying guiding questions of a poem.  The perfect poem, however, can lead to a wonderful writing reflection or discussion that allows students to construct the theme and essential questions for themselves.

2. Focusing on facts: Creating poetry is a wonderful way for students to share information they learned through class or independent study. Teachers can bring life to otherwise dry and lifeless facts in an EFL classroom!

3. Inspiring writing: Poetry shouldn’t be just a part of the language arts curriculum. It offers another way to communicate and demonstrate our understanding of a concept in content areas. It is a method for deepening comprehension and developing a level of empathy and knowledge that can be  applied to real-world situations. Poem can be used to informally assess science and math. It can help students link content areas.

4.New perspectives: One of poetry’s transcendent powers is its ability to consider issues from new perspectives. Poetry open students eyes to new ways of seeing.

5. Igniting curiosity: Much has been said in educational texts about inquiry learning. Students are naturally inquisitive, and there is not much more we need to do but focus their natural curiosity. Poetry can do this!
Using poetry in the classroom is a great tool but we cannot forget that right material should be selected, so students can maximize their learning. It has to be interesting and adequate for each student level, reading about new thing is usually interesting for students. 

Using poetry in the classroom is a great tool but we cannot forget that right material should be selected, so students can maximize their learning. It has to be interesting and adequate for each student level, reading about new thing is usually interesting for students. 

The benefits of using poetry in a language classroom:

Poetry is a way for teaching and learning basic skills. It can be used as an enjoyable and a rewarding tool with the properties of rhyming and rhythm . It helps students to easily learn with the supra- segmental aspect of the target language,such as stress,pitch,intonation.

The most important benefits of using poetry in language classroom are as follows:
# It encourages creative writing.
# It helps students to appreciate sound words and patterns.
# It develops phonic skill.
# It makes students to express their feelings and opinions.
# It provides a great opportunity to play with language.
# It reinforces the ability to think and to experiment with students understanding of the world.
# It helps to acquire vocabulary.
# Poetry is the most concentrated form of literature and says it in fewer words and in less space.
#It generates collaborative activities.
# Poem helps to develop oral and mental capacities.
# Poems often enhance students to make confident interpretations, as their personal opinion is vital.
Thus, it can be said that poems and songs suitable for the target group can be successfully used to achieve objectives if used properly and systematically.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

'The Bus' by Arun Kolatkar: Summary and Analysis

'The Bus' by Arun Kolatkar: Summary and Analysis Summary:   'The Bus' by Arun Kolatkar is the opening poem of the thirty-one section of his collection of poems 'Jejuri.' It describes the bumpy journey from the starting point to its destination which is the temple of Khandoba. It is a State Transfort bus the windows of which are screened by the tarpaulin with which the bus has been covred to keep the possible rainfall , and also to keep off the cold wind which keeps blowing throughout the journey. It is a night journey which the bus has undertaken ; and after several hours of the arduous journey the passengers start waiting eagerly for daybreak.  The bus is full of the pilgrims who are bound for the temple of Khandoba where they want to offer worship; and the passengers might have included a few tourists who merely want to satisfy their curiosity about what kind of a temple it is and in what surroundings the temple stands. One of the passengers sits op...
Read more

Roland Barthes’ Theory of Five Codes

Roland Barthes’ Theory of Five Codes According to Roland Barthes,   all narratives share structural features that each narrative weaves together in different ways. Despite the differences between individual narratives, any narrative employs a limited number of organizational structures (specifically, five of them) that affect our reading of texts. Rather than seeing this situation as limiting, however, Barthes argues that we should take this plurality of codes as an invitation to read a text in such a way as to bring out its multiple meanings and connotations. Rather than reading a text for its linear plot (this happens, then this, then this), rather than being constrained by either genre or even temporal progression, Barthes argues for what he terms a "writerly" rather than a "readerly" approach to texts. According to Barthes, "the writerly text is   ourselves writing , before the infinite play of the world (the world as function) is traversed, inters...
Read more

“The Invitation "by Kamala Das: Summary and Analysis

“The Invitation "by Kamala Das: Summary and Analysis The Persona’s Bitter-Sweet Memory of a Sexual Experience The persona in the poem recalls her experience of the sexual act with a lover. (The persona is most probably the poetess herself). On a certain day, she felt as if a man’s fist was alternately tightening itself and then loosening its muscles. It seemed to her that the man were forming some firm resolve and then becoming somewhat uncertain. In other words, the poetess was feeling tortured by her memory of her experience of love-making with a lover of hers. The lover had gone away after making love to her, and had not returned. The woman (who, as we have already indicated, could be the poetess herself) knew that her lover would not come back, but she could not forget her experience of love-making with that man because the experience had been a most delicious one. The bitter-sweet of the memory of her sexual experience continued to haunt her. The Sea’s Suggestion...
Read more