POETRY as a vehicle for TEACHING ENGLISH September 5, 2005   Present: Susan, Rik, Maggie, Georgia, Paul, Chris, Martha, Keith, Richard POETRY as a vehicle for TEACHING ENGLISH   INTRODUCTION:   We felt that poetry was a great opportunity to contextualise language and so make learning more motivating and fun. It is also an opportunity for students to do highly creative things with language.   Many students though may not like poetry even in their own language. They may find it confusing and difficult to understand, especially in a foreign language, as metaphor and abstractness are often key to the poetic effect. With such students, activities where they create poetry may be a better approach rather than trying to understand poetry from classical sources.   Poetic license also may confuse some grammar-oriented students, at the same time it may delight others!   When analysing poetry one of the biggest challenges is finding good and accessible poems to use.   OUR IDEAS:     Georgia and Chris talked about ‘Jabberwocky’ by Louis Carroll from ‘Through the Looking Glass’.   http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html   Chris: Read one verse from the poem with his students First.               Reviewed the parts of speech (verb, adjective, …etc.) Second.    Read one verse of the poem and analysed it for the parts of speech (which is a verb, which is an adverb …) Third.             Students tried to understand the meaning of the chosen verse Fourth.         Students wrote a summary of that verse to be shared and discusses amongst each other The aim of that exercise was to ‘get into’ a text that you don’t understand, go through it and analyse it. How to ‘attack’ a text.   Georgia: Taught the poem more for ‘tone’ and emphasis and as a practice for non-verbal communication.   Keith: Used a poem “Valentine” by Carol Ann Duffy about an Onion! http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/865.html   It’s a poem that uses the onion as a metaphor for love. Students would then (after discussing metaphors) offer other opinions or other metaphors of love (a pen, a beach ball …) some of which were amusing.   Paul: Used E.E. Cummings http://www-scf.usc.edu/~thier/ee/   work in a university class. E.E. Cummings is challenging, devoid of punctuations and controversial. It could be used by higher level students to identify where punctuation should /could go.   Paul also gave a handout of some lyrics of songs with poetry that could be used in ESL. Songs often make poetry more accessible and offer a new opportunity to listen to the “poem”. The songs he offered, by Michelle Shocked, http://www.michelleshocked.com/   contained a story that could be analysed and used by students as a platform to relate their own story and feelings. One was a Ballad and is a good introduction to story writing. (a pirate story in poetry). The other called VDF is story of a childhood. http://www.mixed-up.com/lyrics/artists/shell.html   http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/card/0,,492633,00.html   Keith: Once used a poem that had a story. The students read it and then he had the students rewrite it as a new report or a regular story. Poems could be used this way – transformed (for the sake of English practice) into a story, a play, a re-enactment of the poem. Paul commented that country is good for stories.   Chris: Once used ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’- the students enjoyed it. http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/pussy.html   Keith: Bring out the student’s creativity as opposed to inputting a poem for them to read and analyse. Talk about metaphors, put up some images on the walls and the learners then come up with metaphors using those images and try to create a poem with them.   Chris: Took the popular poem ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you’. http://violetsareblue.info/   He then had the students brainstorm different colours to replace the existing. They would then have to readjust the poem for the new word (colour) to make once again a rhyme. Some of them were amusing (roses are red, violets are white, I really love you, so meet me tonight) – or something like that.   The learners would then complete the class by voting which was the best poem, which was the sexiest, the sweetest, the most daring …etc.   Keith: Used Limericks; gave examples, explained the pattern using names of people (There was a man named Bill, who loved to climb a hill …). The students then would pick different people’s names in the classroom and create a funny limerick around that name. Of course, al the students enjoyed themselves with that all while learning or practicing rhymes.   Chris: ‘Jazz Chants’ these are passages that you must repeat with a rhythm. Example: (with a beat) ‘where were you last night’ – ‘I’d rather not say’ – ‘who were you with last night’ – I’d rather not say’ – more…   The students learn to read and speak with a rhythm as opposed to speaking every word clearly and independently. Jazz Chants have rhythm and repetition. Chris’ students for the rest of the course would often answer (in a funny way) ‘I’d rather not say’ to questions.   Chris:   Learning poetry is a way for people to learn about a culture of a nation. You may dislike learning a language but if you pick up some poetry (through books or through songs), you increase your love for that language because you discover part of the culture of the people.   Richard: Pointed in the direction of a source of language used in poems that can be found here: http://esl.about.com/cs/reading/a/blpoetry.htm   The additional file ‘Introduction to Poetic Devices for ESL Classes.doc’ is from http://esl.about.com – a wonderful resource managed by Kenneth Beare.     Microsoft Word Document Poetry and Songs.doc Additional Files Introduction to Poetic Devices for ESL Classes.doc