USING A “PROSING POEM” STRATEGY IN TEACHING POETRY IN THE EFL CONTEXT OF INDONESIA

The present article reports our reflections on how to teach an introductory course on poetry in an Indonesian tertiary educational institution where English is a foreign language. The reflections are made on the basis of our experiences of teaching the course, the main challenge of which centres on...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: M Misbahul Amri, Yazid Basthomi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association for the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language in Indonesia (TEFLIN) 2022-05-01
Series:TEFLIN Journal
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journal.teflin.org/index.php/journal/article/view/1416
Description
Summary:The present article reports our reflections on how to teach an introductory course on poetry in an Indonesian tertiary educational institution where English is a foreign language. The reflections are made on the basis of our experiences of teaching the course, the main challenge of which centres on students’ wronged perception of what poetry is; students tend to have an entrenched idea that poetry must be perplexing. The reflections have led us to a teaching strategy which we call “prosing poem.” Applying the strategy, we help students by providing made-up prosaic forms of the poems. This strategy has proven to help demystify students’ idea on poetry as a difficult subject. It allows students to unpack the poetic texts in a less daunting way as they can rely on their English mastery without having cognitive block.
ISSN:0215-773X
2356-2641