The Beauty of Using Poetry in the Languages Classroom
“How do you spell ‘friend’?” Piglet asked Pooh.
“I don’t have to spell it,” says Pooh. “I just feel it.”
“Poetry is emotional, personal, creative, and communicative….. a powerful vehicle for internalizing new words
and expressions in a foreign language” says Diane Farrug in her blog ‘Write Poetry in a Foreign Language’ and
she goes on to share various ways of doing this…
http://suite101.com/article/poetry-in-foreign-language-classes-a44904
But that’s about writing poetry. I want to encourage you to have your students read and hear poetry – not to
analyse the language and translate it, but to use it as a stimulus for critical thinking and creative production. In
the draft achievement standard in Languages 3.2, students are required to give a clear spoken presentation in
target language that communicates a critical response to stimulus material. What fun to use poetry (shorter
than a novel!) – or even song words, hymns, slam and rap, proverbs or limericks, depending on the target
culture – for example, try Prévert in French, Albert Wendt in Samoan, Goethe or Ernst Jandl in German, Kenji
Miyazawa in Japanese, Nicolás Gullén and Gloria Fuertes in Spanish. Find a You Tube clip on the same theme, a
podcast, mood music and soul food to go with it, limited only by your imagination – or rather that of your
students!
“Choose the right poem or extract and you could fire students’ love of learning a language. Just learning one
line can be satisfying, and it embeds key grammar and vocabulary in the memory, too. Poetry also provides an
incentive for working on pronunciation. You have to get it right to hear the poem's music “
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6278641
You can use poetry in Languages classes, not to teach students to write or even appreciate poetry, but to
develop their communicative competence, at the heart of the Learning Languages section of the NZ
Curriculum.
Carla Cariboni Killander in her research Poetry in Foreign Language Teaching: Aspects of a Major Challenge
talks about dramatizing poetry as “a powerful tool in stimulating learning …..learners become intellectually,
emotionally, and physically involved ….. within the framework of the new culture……..Learners use the target
language for specific purposes, language is more easily internalized and, therefore, language is remembered.”
http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=16&ved=0CE4QFjAFOAo&url=http%3A
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D2278653&ei=APRxUOmEBqiZiQfThIFY&usg=AFQjCNE1DbBzPxN4HpqeHdzF_LIPKIvAPQ&sig2=YOq7_KKtRoZaf
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In my reading, I have found this article Using poetry with mixed ability language classes by Brian Tomlinson
useful, as it reinforces the explicit literacy strategies in focus currently, albeit the examples are in English.
http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=25&ved=0CEsQFjAEOBQ&url=http%3A
%2F%2F203.72.145.166%2FELT%2Ffiles%2F40-15.pdf&ei=dQByUICTJIiviQePsICwCg&usg=AFQjCNGKmCPN0IT0s5NMAPf2DrB11UOVCw&sig2=TnnNoYbJrC2K11
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 Pre-reading strategies (to arouse curiosity, make poem accessible – focus on content only, not
language): related to the poem/theme - discuss controversial topics; listen to songs, look at pictures;
read related poem in mother tongue;
 During reading (to elicit emotional response): listen (teacher or podcast www.librivox.org), look at
pictures, listen to mood music; present poem line by line or in jumbled order.

Post-reading: discuss emotional response (without teacher judgement or correction); offer choice of
communicative task e.g. group interpretation; interviews with poet/characters; drama, mime or
dance versions; turn into short story, pop/rap/slam; continue poem; rewrite from different
perspective; compare with poem on same topic.
The poem is not the task; it is the stimulus for communicative tasks. I like that!
Lesley Parris
Regional Facilitator, Learning Languages, Team Solutions, 2012