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What are the advantages of using poetry in the EFL classroom?

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The unique advantage of using poetry in the EFL classroom is the opportunity it presents students to cement their knowledge of syntax and practice pronunciation rhythm.

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Poetry can be challenging to non-native speakers of English, but in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom, it can offer some benefits unavailable in other kinds of writing. The greatest benefit is that it can help students explore figurative uses of language. This is something the instructor may not want to get into in classes below the advanced level, but once students have a solid grasp of grammar and syntax, poetry can show students new ways of using English.

One poem that can reinforce students' knowledge of syntax is "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. The poem famously uses made-up words, but the syntax is regular. Take the first two lines:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe ...

In the phrase "slithy toves," what parts of speech are the words, and how do you know? We see the phrase is preceded by...

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an article, so one of them would have to be a noun—"toves." What part of speech is "slithy?" We know adjectives come before nouns—as in "red car"—so it would have to be an adjective. A good exercise for this poem is to have students identify which words Carroll made up, then identify their parts of speech. Once they have that, it can be fun to have students make up definitions of the words. What are toves, anyway—plants, reptiles, birds, or something else? By the end of the exercise, students feel a sense of mastery over what can be an initially daunting piece of writing, which is a great feeling for language learners.

Another benefit to learners of English is the rhythmic quality of poetry. Learning to hear and then reproduce the rhythms of spoken English can be one of the hardest things for non-native speakers to learn. A poem with a regular meter builds the rhythm into the language, and so it can be more valuable for teaching emphasis than even song lyrics. Take the first two lines of Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz":

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy ...

The meter is very regular: iambic trimeter. The instructor could read the lines a few times so that students can hear the emphasis, then underline the syllables—not necessarily the words—that are stressed. Once they see it is a regular pattern, students can practice reading the lines—or the rest of the poem—out loud. The Poetry Foundation website is a great resource for finding poems. Choose something that you think would be appropriate for your class's proficiency level, and have fun with it.

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www.poetryfoundation.org

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What are the challenges and advantages of using poetry in the EFL classroom?

Using poetry in an English as a foreign language (EFL) or English as a second language (ESL) classroom has been shown as an effective means of teaching vocabulary—as long as students are given the chance to respond personally to the poetry, making it meaningful to them. Teachers may find it useful to comb through a poem for vocabulary and then ask students to provide similar words that could be used for examples in the poem. Activities such as this one require that students use context clues and learn fine distinctions between similar vocabulary words.

Students may also feel successful in working with the limited amount of text that a poem presents, when compared to short stories or even novels. Poetry, when carefully selected by teachers, presents the opportunity to read and interpret a complete idea or narrative in a relatively shorter amount of time than some other literary options do. This success can increase student confidence, which leads to increased interest and sense of self-efficacy with a new language.

Poetry does present some challenges, however, in the EFL or ESL classroom. Often, the syntax of poetry is not what is expected in the typical, spoken language, making it harder to interpret and perhaps even providing incorrect modeling clues. Sentences may divide in the middle of lines, impeding comprehension if students are not taught to color-code or otherwise mark complete thoughts as they read.

Poems may also rely on metaphors or idioms that are not common to the student's native language, and teachers must be careful to explain uses of language that rely on a more thorough knowledge of the language in order to ensure student comfort and success.

I'm linking an article which examines the use of poetry in the EFL/ESL classroom for your review.

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