Poetry and English Language Teaching: A Response-based Approach to Teaching Speaking

Asep Suparman
Indonesia University of Education
The classroom use of poetry for teaching language, despite its being accorded high status and irrelevant to the interests and concerns of the students, has been deemed flourishing because, at a more practical level, literature to which poetry belongs can help learners achieve their main purpose for being in the classroom; that is, to improve their English. When we talk about poetry, it is inseparable from talking about literature. It is due to the fact that the term literature includes such works as drama, poetry, prose, etc. Hence when we discuss English poetry, we have inevitably to touch on English literature as a whole. This essay is therefore mainly composed of the discussion of: the definition of literature, teaching approach the teacher may employ, poetry as a tool for eliciting students' responses, response-based instruction to teaching speaking, and the assessment system the teacher could possibly adopt.

Literature: from definition to approach

There have been various attempts to define literature. How one defines literature reflects the way he sees it as one. Referring to this perspective, when literature takes its position in the language classroom setting, the way language teachers view it will affect the approach they employ to orchestrate classroom activities. This approach, based on Anthony's (1963 in Richards and Rodgers, 2001) hierarchical arrangement, is the level at which a set of axiomatic correlative assumptions and beliefs about language and language teaching is specified. It deals with the nature of language teaching and learning. Murdoch (1978), cited in Lazar (1993), viewed literature as a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions. By virtue of this view, it can be inferred that literature provides source material for eliciting strong emotional responses from students. Along the same line, Purves, et al. (1990), as cited in Musthafa (1994), suggested that literature is one toward which the reader perceives and responds. Using literature in the classroom is therefore deemed a
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fruitful way of involving the learner as a whole person, and provides excellent opportunities for the learners to express their personal opinions, reactions and feelings. This view also corresponds to Rosenblatt (1978) and Weaver's (1988) transactional reading. They argue that the meaning of any pieces of literature does not lie in the text itself but arises from individual's transaction with the text (Rosenblatt, 1978 in Hudelston et al., 1994; Weaver, 1988 in Golden et al, 1992). Referring to this view, the teacher may employ a responsebased approach where he, as Musthafa (1994) put it, "can provide students a wealth of literary collection (all types of literature for all levels) from which students can make their own choices" (p. 55). The reason for letting students choose the text on the basis of their interests is to ensure that they experience a sense of personal relevance and meaningfulness. It is also suggested by Hudelson, et al. (1994) that, since 1986, there has been significant progress in learning when students are given opportunities to bring in their interests into the learning process. In addition to that, the texts may be accorded high status, but often seem remote from and irrelevant to the interests and concerns of the students, and being made to read texts so alien to their own experience and background may only increase students' sense of frustration, inferiority, and even powerlessness. The teacher therefore needs to select texts for classroom use which reflect the lives and interests of the students (Musthafa, 1994; Popp, 2005). One of literature genres teacher may use to engage language learner among others is poetry. To this relation, Wyse and Jones (2008) argued that poetry plays a significant role in the classroom. They suggest that poetry is one of the most important linguistic opportunities for the primary classroom, offering degrees of intensity, subtlety and artistry which are largely unavailable to other areas of study.

Eliciting response through poetry

Poetry is a type of literature in which the sound and meaning of language are combined to create ideas and feelings (World Book, 1984). In this respect, poetries, when used in the English language classroom settings, at any rate, may serve as the fuel to ignite ideas and feelings of the students. Their evoked ideas and feelings in turn serve as the basis for generating discussion, controversy, and critical thinking in the classroom (see reading poetry in the next section for the elaborated discussion on the act of reading poetry).

The advantages of using literary texts for language activities are that they offer a wide range of styles and registers; they are open to multiple interpretations and hence provide excellent opportunities for classroom discussion; and they focus on genuinely interesting and motivating topics to explore in the classroom (Duff & Maley, 1990 in Lazar, 1993, p. 27). Likewise, according to Patel and Jain (2008), poetry "helps in the all round development of the student, particularly the emotional, imaginative, intellectual and aesthetic sides. It enriches the expression of students and introduces a variety of language pattern" (p. 137). Based on the aforementioned explanation, poetry can be used as the text for eliciting students' responses. Teacher may invite students to read poetry and let them unravel the many meanings from the poetry in question. These multiple levels of meanings the poetry may evoke are considered as responses of the students, for, as noticed earlier, these meanings are not readymade there in the text; instead; they are derived from interaction between the content and the structure of the poetry author's message and the experiences and prior knowledge of the students as readers (see Musthafa, 1994). In this sense, the focus is not on studying or reading poetry itself, but rather on how to use poetry for speaking practice. Poetry is thus seen as a resource which provides stimulating language activities including classroom discussion.

Response-based classroom discussion

When it comes to teaching English, the question that might rise is that what approach fits perfectly the characteristic of children. In relation to this, Paul (2003) argued: All approaches to teaching have strong and weak points, and that standard approaches may not fit our particular teaching situation, so we need to draw on ideas from a number of different approaches and add ideas that come from our own experience. (p. 2) We need to develop a general approach based on our views on how children learn most effectively, and then teach, manage, and assess the children in ways that are consistent with this approach. (ibid, p. 2) Furthermore, he suggests that some approaches are compatible with each other but others are diametrically opposed to each other and that some that are dominant in western educational psychology may have less validity when used as a starting point for understanding how to teach English to learners in Asia to which Indonesia belongs. Teachers need therefore to form their ideas by viewing the established approaches to how learners learn. Some of the most recognized approaches are worth understanding, for many teaching methods are heavily influenced by one
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or more of these various approaches. This way, we teachers can draw on conclusion of which aspects of each approach we agree or disagree with. In a broad sense, teaching methods are classified into language-centered methods, learner-centered methods, and learning-centered methods (Kumaravadivelu, 2006). Response-based conversation may be included into learner-centered method because it is the learners and their responses toward poetry that become the central issue of the discussion taking place in the classroom, not the poetry itself. At practical level, a response-based conversation task may be designed in accordance with (but not necessarily) the following steps: Selecting poetry Musthafa (1994) suggested that English teachers "provide students with a wide variety of literary works" (p. 56). The poetries may vary in difficulty, topic, and length. This is to allow the students to choose the most likeable poetry, and hence enable them to experience literary reading as close as possible to real life reading. Futhermore, he argues that this is crucial to ensure students' willingness to relate to and personally involve themselves in the literary work they read. Similarly, Lazar (1993) argued that teachers should select materials in line with the major interests of the students, alternatively they could give students a list of certain literary texts with a brief summary of their content, and ask students to select the ones they would like to study, and provide opportunities within the classroom for personalisation, by letting students work individually on those texts which interest them the most. Reading poetry Having selected material, the students are invited to read the poetry of their choice. Reading is vital here so as to ensure the students to get through their aesthetic experience. This way, they will deal with their subjective values in raising their responses toward the poetry they read. This is why the act of reading poetry is often referred to as aesthetic reading "in which the students engage in slow, careful reading and experiences its resulting delights and imaginative freedom" (Goldstein, 2009, p. 2). The term aesthetics itself may cover a wide range of categories to include aesthetic judgments, aesthetic pleasures, aesthetic values, aesthetic attitudes, aesthetic interest, aesthetic sensitivity, aesthetic properties, aesthetic character, aesthetic appreciation, aesthetic responses, and so on (Budd, 2008). From this perspective it could be concluded that the aim of reading
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poetry is to evoke students' subjective or personal judgments, pleasures, values, attitudes, interest, sensitivity, appreciation, responses, and so on. Discussion Lastly, having done with reading poetry, the students are bidden to discuss what they learn from, feel about, and think of the poetry in question. As previously discussed, aesthetic reading deals with subjective experience; hence the responses from students will likely vary. These different responses will successively become the engine to spur the discussion, controversy, and critical thinking; and in all likelihood the students will try their best to defend their opinions and arguments, either against or for each other. In this respect, teacher should not expect to reach any definitive interpretation of a literary text with his students, rather acknowledge validity of the students' responses (see Musthafa, 1994).

Assessment
Previously noted, the focal point here is not the studying or reading poetry itself, instead using poetry as a stimulating material for classroom discussion. Hence, the assessment should as well have its focus on the conversation, not the reading activities. Any attempts to assess language in a classroom speaking activities are most likely to encounter practical problems, for speaking skill is more difficult to record than other areas of language skills. The teacher therefore needs to determine criteria he is going to apply in his assessment system (Wyse & Jones, 2008). To this end, teacher may adopt communicative competence assessment suggested by Verhoeven (1992). This assessment system comprises five components as outlined below: Linguistic Competence It refers to the mastery of rules of word formation and vocabulary (lexicon), pronunciation (phonology) and sentence formation (syntax). This knowledge of the language code is framed in terms of understanding the literal meaning of the utterance. Discourse Fluency It refers to the ability to use the rules and conventions of combining grammatical forms and meanings to achieve unified spoken texts in different genres. This unity of text is achieved through cohesion in form and coherence in meaning. In short, it is the ability to use cohesive
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devices including pronouns, synonyms, conjunctions and parallel structures which help to link individual utterances and show the logical or chronological relations among a series of utterances. Sociolinguistic Competence It refers to the mastery of cultural rules of use of the language and rules of discourse. With respect to cultural rules of use, the emphasis is on appropriateness of communicative acts and the naturalness of speech within given socio-cultural contexts. Illocutionary Force It refers to the ability to use socially appropriate illocutionary acts in discourse. These include those acts (i.e. complaining, requesting, inviting, claiming, etc.) directed at achieving rhetorical effects; mimic effects and feedback (see also Austin, 1962; Grundy, 2008; Searle, 1975; Searle, 1976). Strategic Competence It refers to the mastery of verbal and non-verbal strategies to compensate for breakdowns in communication and to enhance the effectiveness of communication, by paraphrases, avoiding, gestures, varying intonation, speed or rhythm, repeating, feedback, turn taking and topic switching.

Reference
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Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006). Understanding Language Teaching: From Method to Postmethod. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Lazar, G. (1993). Literature and Language Teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press. Musthafa, B. (1994). Literary Response: A Way of Integrating Reading-Writing Activities. Reading Improvement , 31 (1), 52-58. Patel, M. F., & Jain, J. P. (2008). English Language Teaching: Methods, Tools & Techniques. Jaipur: Sunrise. Paul, D. (2003). Teaching English to Children in Asia. Hong Kong: Longman Asia ELT. Popp, M. S. (2005). Teaching Language and Literature in Elementary Classrooms (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. R. (1976). A Classification of Illocutionary Acts. Language in Society , 5 (1), 1-23. Searle, J. R. (1975). A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts. In K. Gnderson (Ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge (Vol. 7, pp. 344-69). USA: University of Minneapolis Press. Verhoeven, L. (1992). Assessment of bilingual proficiency. In L. Verhoeven, & J. H. de Jong (Eds.), The Construct of Language Proficiency: Applications of Psychological Models of Language Assessment (pp. 124-136). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, Co. World Book, Inc. (1984). The 1984 World Year Book: The Annual Supplement to The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: William H. Nault. Wyse, D., & Jones, R. (2008). Teaching English, Language and Literacy (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.