Poetry Workshops for Teaching Vocabulary and Writing: Multiple Intelligence and Phonics Approaches

Incorporation of literature, i.e. poetry, into EFL curricula and methodologies has increased since 1990s. In Iranian Institutes, however, there is still a gap and need for consideration of literature. Most of the institutes stick to a fixed curriculum which stands rather distanced from literature than close. This study aims at evaluating the effect of teaching vocabulary and writing procedures through poetry to advanced students who have almost finished Summit 2B books and have time for a complementary program. Poetry has specific features that make it suitable for teaching language to EFL classes. Drawing on phonics and multiple-intelligences approaches, a teacher can engage students’ talents, i.e. painting/drawing, playing music for a musical poem, creative writing, etc. to produce a more communicative atmosphere and higher rate of participation in classrooms. Vocabularies and organized writing can be better memorized, recalled and practiced if students are exposed to authentic literary materials, i.e. poetry. Holding several workshops, William Blake’s poetry─ Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience─ was selected for teaching vocabulary and paragraphs of description (e.g. human character), comparison and contrast (i.e. between the songs) for 2/3rd of the entire 18-session semester. Drawing on Hess’s model of teaching poetry to advanced classes (a nine-step process), poetry of William Blake was taught. As the students’ writing papers and exam results on Summit books in the previous terms were at hand, this made data analysis easier. Through both qualitative and quantitative exams at the end of the last semester (paragraph essay writing, questions on vocabulary and writing and questionnaire, students’ abilities were assessed and compared with their own status in previous semesters to see if they outperform themselves; it was made clear that most students agreed upon poetry as a great help to their EFL learning process and got better scores (by 10%) compared with their previous term

Keywords:

Poetry Workshop , Multiple Intelligence , Phonics Approaches , Summit 2 , William Blake