Implementing Poetry in the Language Class: A Poetry-Teaching Framework for Prospective English Language Teachers

Poetry has often been neglected as a favorable tool for language teaching. What is more, its role to expand human experience and create language awareness has not been fully realized. As a reaction to often-underestimated value of including literature in the language class, this article proposes a poetry-teaching (POT) framework for language practitioners to bridge the gap between literature and language teaching methodology. Step-by-step procedure followed in the framework aimed at helping prospective teachers incorporate poetry into language teaching, while at the same time offering various materials and activities to be used in their future teaching practices. The proposed framework was presented to 21 student teachers at an English Language Teaching (ELT) department of a state university in Turkey to help them integrate the ideas of using poetry in a micro-teaching context. Prospective teachers acted both as learners and teachers while following the steps of the suggested framework, and reflected on this experience through reflective diaries and stimulated recalls of their teaching performances. They also took part in semi-structured interviews at the end of the study. Qualitative analyses revealed that poetry can have a place in language teaching by using a systematic and guided framework tailored to the features of a language classroom. With the help of the proposed framework, implementing poetry in the language class helped to promote motivation, creativity and self-expression along with multi-skill development and interaction among learners. However, incorporating poetry into the language class was challenging in terms of time and effort required and difficulties in material selection and design. This study suggests that poetry can become part of language teacher education. In this regard, this article proposes implications for teachers and teacher educators for the implementation of poetry in language teaching practice.