Chaudhary, Shreesh
(2018)
Website review teaching poetry: a review of some
websites.
Language and Language Teaching, 7 (1).
pp. 70-73.
ISSN 2277-307X
Abstract
Poetry is perhaps the oldest and most popular
genre of literature globally. Yet poetry remains
under-utilized in language classrooms and also
a source of lot of anxiety. In India, poetry is
taught mostly as a part of literature component
in the syllabus. However, can it also be used in
the "language" classrooms? Can it be used for
teaching language? How can it be best taught
for its own sake? Is it possible to teach how to
write poetry? Is it possible to create among
students a liking for (English) poetry? These are
some of the questions that fuel our anxieties in
using poetry to teach language. At the center
of this anxiety is the asymmetry that use of
language purely for informational purposes has
over using language for aesthetic reasons in
classrooms. There is a change coming; research
shows that our knowledge of language, among
other things, includes our ability to decode
sentences, but 'motivation' plays a central role in
language acquisition. With this awareness there
has arisen a not too-well articulated but an evergrowing need in language classrooms in India for
new material that is both authentic and interesting.
Poems as songs have always answered this need.
Today they are available easily and aplenty at
the Internet
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