Using Poetry in ELT. Pedagogic Principles & Practical Approaches. Using Literature in the English Language Teaching Classroom

Using poetry in English Language Teaching (ELT) can be a very rewarding experience for both teachers and learners and offers several tangible benefits. Aside from the affective and motivational dimensions, allowing students to engage with poetry can expose them to authentic language in use; raise their awareness of the culture-specific dimensions of communication; expand their competence in linguistic analysis; increase their capacity for critical thinking; stimulate their creativity and help to generate a much stronger personalisation of learning. For each of these reasons, poetry clearly has much to offer and can enhance the successful development and application of communicative skills.

In this paper, I explore some of the pedagogic principles and practical approaches which underpin the use of poetry as a classroom resource in English Language Teaching. I then showcase a set of sample materials exemplifying some of the ways in which I have used poetry in my own TESOL classes. I close my paper by proposing a step-by-step pedagogic framework, which participants can then use as a guide when seeking to develop poetry-based ELT materials of their own.