Using Poetry to teach English

1
Using Poetry to teach English
2
Why Poetry?

• Practice vocabulary or grammar
• Teach pronunciation, stress and rhythm
• Short and structured form of creative writing
• Creativity
• Think about the language in a different way
• Lots of grammar and vocabulary to try and express
  themselves

3
Poetry in the ESL Classroom

• Stand alone creative writing exercise
• Practice new vocabulary (chunks)
• Practice new grammatical structures
• Practice phonemes with rhyming
• Short, structured exercises
• Clear guidelines
• Examples
• Time limits

4
Execise 1 2 lines, 2 words

• Goodbye city
• Hello beach

5
Exercise 2 - Acrostics

• RAIN
• Running homeAfter schoolIn a dreamNoisy
  teacher is gone
• HOPE

6
Exercise 3 - NOUN VERB ADVERB

• Sandwiches sit silentlyCrows consider
  cunninglyMice meander merrilyCats crawl
  carnivorously

7
Exercise 4 - Stems

• Loneliness is my fathers voiceLoneliness is
  my mothers graveLoneliness is a word she
  leftLoneliness is the last thing she gave
• Happiness is ...........

8
Exercise 5 - Haiku

• A haiku is a Japanese syllabic poem. The first
  line has five syllables. The second line has
  seven syllables. The third line has five
  syllables. You can give students the first two
  lines.
• Finish this haiku.
• Waiting in darknessAn aged blind man sitting
• Waiting in darknessAn aged blind man
  sittingWhere is my whiskey?
• Teaching is my life

9
Exercise 7 Word play

• Nobody knows the woman he loves.
• Nobody knows the woman he lovesThe woman he
  loves knows nobodyHe loves the woman nobody
  knowsHe knows the woman loves nobody
• David hopes Mary will love his family

10
Adapting to your students

• Challenging but not frustrating
• Start simple
• Do not over complicate one point at a time
• Interpretation and
• comprehension only for
• very high levels