To teach the language poetry is a powerful literary item that can be used in the classroom. The language used in poetry is figurative/artistic which gives pleasures along with the theme to the readers.
Poetry can not be obliged to be abide by the grammatical rules. A poet is allowed to write freely and can cross the boundaries.
The following rules can be point out to teach poetry that we should be familiar:-
* Gives student pleasure while learning
* Exposes students to figurative aspect of language.
* Teach rhyme, meter, verse and rhyme.
* Teach contextual words and sentences
* Help to express their emotions and feeling strongly
* Help to present the subject matters attractively.
The teacher can go through the following activities to teach poetry effectively, interestingly and meaningfully.
a) Pre-reading Activities
The following activities can be done in this stage:-
* Display pictures related to the poem
* Talking about the writer, poet or title
* Guessing about the poem
* Giving background information about the poem and the poet
* Presenting new vocabulary related to the poem
* Asking questions related to the poem
b) While-reading activities
* As students to predicate the next stanza
* Ask students to underline the difficult words
* Clarify or give the similar vocabulary of the difficult words
* Ask students to clarify the stanza or lines
* Ask students to do exercises related to the poem
c) Post-reading Activities
* Ask students to summarize the poem
* Ask students to perform (if possible)
* Ask students to write criticism of the poem
* Asking them to write the poem in prose
* Ask them to write a similar poem
* Ask students to write their views as it they were in the same situation or context.
The above points can be used while teaching poetry in the English language classroom.
Thank you !!