Poetry in foreign language teaching. Aspects of a major challenge
Author
Summary, in English
Debating the role of literature, and poetry in particular, in foreign language teaching (FLT), many
scholars underscore the enormous potential represented by literature when it comes to developing the
students’ critical thinking, analytical skills, ability to understand other cultures and emphatic attitude.
Nevertheless, poetry represents a challenge within foreign language teaching. Focusing on my
personal experience of teaching Italian at Lund University, Sweden, where XXth century poetry is
included in the literature course at the undergraduate level (7,5 ECTS credits), I will first discuss what
difficulties students encounter when faced with the task of reading poetry. I’ll then provide an example
of a lecture in early XXth century Italian poetry from D’Annunzio to Hermeticism to show some
methods that can be used to facilitate the students’ comprehension and how their motivation can be
increased.
scholars underscore the enormous potential represented by literature when it comes to developing the
students’ critical thinking, analytical skills, ability to understand other cultures and emphatic attitude.
Nevertheless, poetry represents a challenge within foreign language teaching. Focusing on my
personal experience of teaching Italian at Lund University, Sweden, where XXth century poetry is
included in the literature course at the undergraduate level (7,5 ECTS credits), I will first discuss what
difficulties students encounter when faced with the task of reading poetry. I’ll then provide an example
of a lecture in early XXth century Italian poetry from D’Annunzio to Hermeticism to show some
methods that can be used to facilitate the students’ comprehension and how their motivation can be
increased.
Department/s
Publishing year
2011
Language
English
Pages
18-26
Publication/Series
Proceedings of the International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI), Madrid, 14-16 november 2011
Full text
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Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Languages and Literature
Keywords
- Literature in foreign language teaching
- poetry in foreign language teaching
- XXth century Italian poetry.
Conference name
International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, 2011
Conference date
2011-11-14 - 2011-11-16
Conference place
Madrid, Spain
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISBN: 978-84-615-3324-4