LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 10 : 11 November 2010
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         K. Karunakaran, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.

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A Six-Step Approach to Teaching Poetry Incorporating the Four Skills

V. Vasanthi, Ph.D.

Introduction

Teaching poetry has been always a difficult task. Teaching has to be subtle in the sense that there is no touchstone to evaluate the discourse of the lecture or the comprehension of the student. The process of comprehension is latent on the part of the students and therefore the results are not conspicuous for the teacher.

Two Methods of Teaching Poetry

There are, on a broader scale, two methods of teaching poetry. The commonly used technique is the traditional method in which a poem is introduced with a paraphrase and extraneous details are furnished as and when the poem is read aloud in the class. This method is wrought with many disadvantages and some can be acknowledged as under:

1. The learning is artificial and induced where in it stops with the paraphrase and other details provided by the teacher, as the student responds mechanically.

2. Sometimes there are multifarious allusions, which lead to the disruption of a coherent acquisition.

3. If the author and the context of the poem are introduced before the poem, the student's notion becomes pre-set closing the doors for manifestation and analysis.

Furthermore, the traditional method can be compared to the dissection of a living organism wherein the species is "murdered", as Wordsworth says in his poem titled Tables Turned, 'We murder to dissect'. (Merchant, ed. 124).

According to Ted Hughes, a renowned poet of the post-modern age, a poem is "an assembly of living parts moved by a single spirit. The living parts are the words, the images, the rhythms" (Scammel 12).

A poem is an experience retold, which can be relived any number of times. Allen Tate, a famous critic of Emily Dickinson, remarks that the poet "speaks wholly to the individual experience" (Sewall 27). Ted Hughes speaks about his poem, The Thought-Fox thus: "As it is every time I read the poem the fox comes up again out of the darkness and steps into my head" (Scammel 20).

The Second Strategy

Hence it can be inferred that the teaching of poetry needs special attention, a new strategy in which the students are made to live the poem and experience it, and are given the freedom of thought and imagination to form personal views about it.

This research paper discusses a modern, thematic six-step approach to poetry teaching, which also develops the four skills, viz., reading, and writing, listening and speaking.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Implementing Explicit Grammatical Instruction in Thailand Schools | Nature of Sentence Intonation in Kannada, Tulu and Konkani | Language and Gender - Linguistic Analysis of Intermediate English Textbooks in Pakistan | Development of Punjabi-Hindi Aligned Parallel Corpus from Web Using Machine Translation | Paralinguistic and Non-Verbal Props in Second-Language Use: A Study of Icheoku and Masquerade in Nigeria | Economic Perspectives and Life-style Characteristics of the Aged Population in Tamil Nadu, India | Redefining Secularism - An Analysis of John Updike's Terrorist and Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist as Post-9/11 Novels | Reduplication in Bengali Language | Development of Time-Compressed Speech Test for Children between 8 - 12 Years of Age in Telugu | Bridging the Gap - The Potential of Contrastive Rhetoric in Teaching L2 Writing | ELT in Yemen and India - The Need for Remedial Measures | Relationship between Multiple Intelligence Categories and Learning Styles of Students in Pakistan | Internet as an Educational Resource in Vocabulary Instruction | The Effectiveness of Technology in Teaching Study Skills | A Study of the Comparative Elements in the Poetry of Keats and Ghani Khan | Sentence Pattern Method - A New Approach for Teaching Spoken English for Tamil/Indian/EFL Learners | Enhancing Language Skills Using Learn to Speak English Software in Engineering Students of Andhra Pradesh | Problems in Teaching of English Language at the Primary Level in District Kohat, NWFP, Pakistan | An Appraisal of the Practicum - Finding the Gaps between Theory and Practice in Teacher Training Institutions in Pakistan | A Study of B.Ed. Students' Attitude Towards Using Internet in Vellore District, Tamilnadu, India, Masters Dissertation | Politics of Sambalpuri or Kosali as a Dialect of Oriya in Orissa | A Six-Step Approach to Teaching Poetry Incorporating the Four Skills | Lexis of a Suicidal | A Case Review of Tamil Diglossia | Comparison of Markedness of Lexical Semantic Abilities in Normal Children and Children with Hearing Impairment | Social Effects and Other Impediments in Teaching Literature | Aligning the Connotations of Love and Freedom in the Novels of Iris Murdoch | Spiritual Communication and Managerial Effectiveness | A PRINT VERSION OF ALL THE PAPERS OF NOVEMBER, 2010 ISSUE IN BOOK FORMAT. | HOME PAGE of November 2010 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com

V. Vasanthi, Ph.D.
Department of English
Loyola College
Chennai 600034
Tamilnadu, India
drvasanthiravi@gmail.com

 
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