A Poetic Approach to Teaching English: Personal Account

Abstract

This paper accounts for teaching English vocabulary through rhythmic patterns, including short verses. It is a personal account of poetry as a valuable tool for both learners and teachers. Adopting a qualitative research design, the study set out to refute the longstanding view that poetry is hard to learn and teach. It derives illustrations from the researcher’s personal experience, who is basically, besides composing poems, a teacher of  English as a foreign language and curriculum designer. Ten short poems were used to clarify that poetry, which has taken a backseat in English language teaching for years, can now be a vivid teaching approach that numerous teachers and ELT experts advocate. On the main, verse-based teaching is motivational, amusing, and scaffolding. Based on the discussion, the study recommends using simple and easy-to-understand verses to enhance vocabulary learning, partially because rhyming words are more memorable and useable in conversational English. The study concludes with some suggestions to strengthen the evidence of the viability of poetry in TESOL programs.