This document discusses the beneficial functions of poetry for second language learning. It argues that poetry can develop students' second language complexity through activities like reading and writing poetry. Poetry conveys meaning through unique features like grammar, vocabulary, registers, and themes not often addressed in textbooks. It also motivates learners by involving them in personal creative processes. The document provides examples of how poetry illustrates these concepts and recommends including poetry in language classrooms, particularly highly constrained forms, which force learners to stretch their skills through formal requirements.

1. Beneficial Functions of Poetry
in Second Language
Learning
Natalia Reilly ©
SSTESOL, 20013

2. Why Poetry
• Poetry is an authentic, non-paraphrased utterance of
personal perception created under constrain of linguistic
norms and in certain socio-cultural environment, it is a
unique holistic linguistic formation.
• By introducing the activities of reading and writing
poetry such qualities as developing students’ second
language in complexity, motivation, integration into
socio-cultural environment, can be expanded
(Hanauer, 2001, 2003; Akyel, 1995, Lazar, 1996; Melin,
2010).
.

3. • by conveying meaning through grammar
• by using unique vocabulary
• by illustrating registers
• by representing avoided themes
• by motivating language learners
How Poetry Works

4. How Poetry Works
• Meaning through Grammar
• Poetry reading and writing (Hanauer, 2001) are
construction processes of linguistic interpretation,
in which, by noticing and understanding grammar
structures, SLLs construct and develop
interpretations of the poem content.

5. • Meaning through Grammar
• Articles
Use a/an with singular count nouns
that are not specific and are being
mentioned for the first time.
Use the when you are talking about
something specific (Folse, 1012).
Ex. He has a watch.
The watch on the table is not his.

6. • Meaning through Grammar
• Articles
I knew the drummer
for a garage band named Skuzz.
My God, he was hot! I knew a drummer
for a garage band named Skuzz.
My God, he was hot!
I knew a drummer
for the garage band named Skuzz.
My God, he was hot!
it

7. • Meaning through Grammar
• Past Progressive Tense
An action in the past (past
progressive) was interrupted
in the past by another action
(simple past) (Folse, 2012).
Ex. I was sleeping when
you called me.

8. • Meaning through Grammar
• Past Progressive Tense
The sky was burning;
Metallic ash fell like rain.
“Are we dead?” she asked.
Metallic ash was falling like rain.
“Are we dead?” she asked.
The sky was burning;

9. How Poetry Works
• Unique Vocabulary Use
• To create meaning in poetic texts the
unique word associations are used, so the
stylistic analysis of poems with the focus on
the words which are more memorable
improves language learners’ understanding
of vocabulary and discourse (Akyel, 1995).

10. • Unique Vocabulary Use
All that you can get
Pales in comparison to
All that you can see.
I slid to the floor and cried.
God brought him back home.
My son was deployed

11. How Poetry Works
• Registers Understanding
• Reading poetry can increase language
learners’ awareness of different language
registers, so it will be easier for the learners
to express themselves and to understand the
meaning of native speakers’ discourses
(Lazar, 1996).

12. • Registers Understanding
The hall is empty
The night is dark and lonely
Life sucks without friends
Is there life on Mars?
Do you think we’ll ever know?
Do you really care?

13. How Poetry Works
• Representation of Avoided Themes
• Poetry has the particular value of the unique
in terms of representing avoided in textbooks
multileveled human experience touching the
themes of death, pain, treachery, passion
(Hanauer, 2001, 2003; Lazar, 1996; Melin, 2010).

14. • Avoided Themes
Don’t stare into them
My eyes tell nothing but lies
I’d eat you alive
Someone’s messed up head...
Somebody else’s body...
Someone else is deadFake a smile, a laugh.
The day might go by faster.
Less complication.
Their War, Not Mine

15. How Poetry Works
• Motivation
• Personal involving in the processes of reading and
writing poetry can become a source of motivation for the
students as well as their teachers which, in its turn,
alleviates internalization of the target language by the
learners (Hanauer, 2003; Lazar, 1996).
• Hanauer (2012) has pointed out that the first stage of
poetry writing by second language learners is the stage of
generating personal motivation necessary for second
language acquisition.

16. Teaching implications
• Reading poetry, according to Akyel (1995), Hanauer
(2001), Lazar (1996), Melin (2010) focuses students’
attention on the forms(phonetic, morphologic, syntactic,
semantic, pragmatic) of a language without which
second language learning cannot take place.
• To include the activity of reading poetry in the second
language classroom is especially important because the
highly praised in language classrooms authentic
speaking activities focus on meaning while quite often
ignoring the form (Hanauer, 2001).

17. Teaching implications
• Writing poetry with high formal constraints (acrostics,
cinquains, haikus) is an advantageous activity in comparison
with writing free-style poems of looser formal constrains
(similes) because the highly form-oriented poetic task forces
students to stretch and transform their L2 linguistic and
conceptual world at a higher level of knowledge and to
search for new vocabulary, new, more elaborated syntax, and
new, more complex conceptual world; while a free-style
poetry writing task lets students use familiar vocabulary and
simple syntax (Tin 2011).

18. Teaching implications
• Poems with high formal constraints:
Acrostics: every line starts with the letter provided by
the keyword (formal constraint), and the whole poem
must relate to the keyword (semantic constraint)
Joy
Jar of amazing feeling
Overcoming sadness
You should get it (Tin 2011, p.222).

19. Teaching implications
• Poems with high formal constraints:
Cinquain (to review parts of speech)
Line 1/ one word: a single noun (or the title)
Line 2/ two words: two adjectives that describe Line 1
Line 3/ three words: three –ing verbs that are actions
Line 4/ four words: a phrase or sentence of feeling
Line 5/ one word: a single noun that renames Line 1
Cats
Aloof, curious
Sleeping, hiding, purring
A friendly ball of fur
Kitty
(Folse,Goussakova,2012, p.62)

20. Teaching implications
• Poems with high formal constraints:
Haiku Night
Line 1/ 5 syllables Under crimson clouds
Line 2/ 7 syllables Illuminated cities
Line 3/ 5 syllables Cower from the dark

21. References
Akyel, A. (1995). Stylistic analysis of poetry: A perspective from an initial training course in TEFL. TESL Canada
Journal/Revue TESL Du Canada, 13(1), 63-73.
Folse, K.S. (2012). Keys to teaching grammar to English language learners: A practical handbook. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press.
Folse, K.S., Goussakova, E. V. (2012). Workbook for keys to teaching grammar to English language learners. University
of Michigan Press.
Hanauer, D. I. (2001). The task of poetry reading and second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 22(3), 295-323.
Hanauer, D. I. (2003). Multicultural moments in poetry: The importance of the unique. Canadian Modern Language
Review, 60(1), 69-87.
Hanauer, D. I. (2012). Meaningful literacy: Writing poetry in the language classroom. Language Teaching, 45(1), 105-115.
Lazar, G. (1996). Exploring literary texts with the language learner. TESOL Quarterly, 30(4), 773-776.
Melin, C. (2010). Between the lines: When culture, language and poetry meet in the classroom. Language Teaching, 43(3),
349-365.
Tin, T. B. (2011). Language creativity and co-emergence of form and meaning in creative writing tasks. Applied Linguistics
(Oxford), 32(2), 215-235.
*All haikus were written by native speakers of English, the students from Creative Writing classes at
Seminole State College.(2001-2006).