Teaching Conditional Sentences and Past Progressive

 

                                      Teaching Poem in Nepal

Creating a poem is summarizing what life is and teaching it, is making an academic effort to immortalize the poet. This is what I believe in.

                                                                       

Abstract

      This piece of writing aims at presenting simple stages of teaching a poem. Ways of teaching a poem are many and varied. However, I've tried my best to give general stages of teaching a poem.  A poem may be difficult to understand as it consists of writer's point of view, style and intention. It might have used various literary terms and complex writing mechanism. Successful teaching and learning undergo through various steps along with number of activities. This article further sheds light on the fact that a poem can be used as technique of teaching particular grammatical structures too. If a teacher uses simple poem as an activity to teach some grammatical items the classroom presentation becomes lively and meaningful learning takes place on the part of the learners. Poems have an immense linguistic value as they provide authenticity and cultural values. Poems can be regarded as a useful resource for practicing language structures. I think teaching a poem is a technical as well academic work that can immortalize a poet. A poet can be immortal if his/her poems remain popular among generations to come. To be transmitted to his/her ideas and broadly speaking culture to the future generation, it is necessary to be read. Generally, teaching and reading go side by side. In most of the cases, teaching is prerequisite to reading. Poetry makes use of deviated form of languages. Literal meanings are rare. Wide possibility of ambiguities is true. Figurative use of language is the main feature of a poem. The central idea moves round the nature of the poet. This means his/her feelings, thoughts, styles and opinions are the responsible factors for the complexity of a poem. Therefore, background information of a poet precedes actual classroom teaching. Some poems can be understood without knowing the poet and his details as well which don't require information of the writers. Another important thing is the 'word'. Most of the readers/teachers look for meanings for the gist. But it is true that meaning of each and every word is not necessary to understand a piece of writing. Instead, student centered activities are very important for clinical teaching and student’s participation is the first and foremost requirement.                                    

         A poem is a technical tool to express thoughts and feelings of poets. The theme or the intention of the writer cannot be understood knowing the meanings of only single words and sentences. Perfect understanding demands practical knowledge of form, poetic device used and the writer's intention as well.  "A piece of writing in which the words are chosen for their sound and images they suggest, not just for their obvious meanings. The words are arranged in separate lines, usually with repeated rhythm and often the lines rhyme at the end." Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary 8^th edition. In this way, poems are rich in metaphors and figurative uses of language and to understand it one needs technical knowledge about the deviated form of language and its use.

         Besides, poetry provides readers with opportunity to generate own meanings which doesn't take account of a poet's background information. "Poetry is any strongly felt experience expressed in rhythmic language. It makes the best use of expressional possibilities of language by allowing free play to extensions of meanings." (Lohani and Devkota, 1998. P, iii)

       It is evident that no readers no poems at all. Teaching a poem is not only creating environment for learners where they carry out various activities to understand it but also to contribute to increase the number of readers making a poem popular among readers. The increase in readers make a poet long lived. This causes poet's ideas to transfer from one generation to another in an endless cycle but without teaching it is almost impossible.

     Poetry is one of the interesting ways of contextualizing a grammar lesson. A poem, in a language classroom, generates such an effect that engages tongues, ears and even eyes of the students. A poem produces such a situation where the learners feel comfortable in the classroom. In this way a poem can be taken as a device for teaching particular structures of language such as conditional, progressive, present tense etc. In this context, I think it is relevant to put a part of a simple poem that has been created by me to give students the concept of conditional sentence type 2. It goes:

      If were a gardener

      I would plant red roses for you

      If I were a poet

      I would write beautiful poems too

      But as I'm only an average boy

      I sing a song for you

      As best as I can.

                       

                                        If I were in the government

                                        I would give you the best constitution

                                        If I were a policy maker

                                        A good educational policy too.

                                        But as I'm just an average teacher

                                        I facilitate your learning

                                        As best as I can.

               

There are many poems written by famous poets for contextualizing a grammar lesson in an interesting way. Simply, students are remarkably enthusiastic to read and listen to a poem. It is evident that once a poem is learned, it stays in students' mind rest of their lives with all grammatical features and vocabulary. "Poetry is a particularly effective tool for practicing a particular grammatical structure because its very nature demands that it be spoken, repeated, wrestled with, and considered. With each repetition and consideration, the structure becomes more deeply internalized." (Celce-Murica and Hilles 1998, p.122). 'Surprise party' is a poem for contextualizing 'Past Progressive'. This poem goes:

                

When I reached my house at seven

Max was playing the guitar.

Jane was sitting on the table

eating pickles from a jar.

Mark was sitting at the piano

playing sonatas for Louise,

and my parrot Paul was singing all the tunes and melodies.

Bob was sleeping under the table:

he couldn't even stay awake.

And my dog was in the Kitchen

eating up the birthday cake.

                                                                 (Celce-Murica and Hilles 1998, p.121)

                                       

     Teaching poetry needs special participatory effort on the part of the students/learners. In other words, teaching itself is a creative task and teaching poem is something more than it and therefore, it requires a lot of pre-reading, while reading and follow up activities. The students should be familiar with the background information of the poet. Moreover, there are some other important things to be considered before and while teaching a poem such as theme, setting, tone, form, relevancy, implication and the poetic devices used in it.

             In the context of Nepal, particularly in the eastern part of Nepal, either in a school or a college, teaching poem is entirely teacher centered. That is to say, Grammar Translation Method is in massive use in teaching poem. Student participation is very rare. They are just silent participants or passive listeners. They just do what they are asked to follow i.e. listening carefully and note taking. We, the teachers generally do the following things in the classroom:

·         We slightly talk about the poet, followed by the background of the poem.

·         We translate the poem into Nepali.

·         We give line by line meaning of the poem.

·         We give summary and the theme or the central idea of the poem.

          The above mentioned four things give the picture or glimpse of what we, the teachers of Nepal do in the name of teaching poems. Obviously, these activities kill the creativity and the potentials of the learners instead of helping them to understand what the poet intends to express through the poem. It is because teaching poem is not a spoon fed activity. It is really a creative work requiring intuitive, academic and practical knowledge in depth. We should be sure that we can't teach our learners anything but we can help them to learn something.

        Some of us, the teachers are worried about words. So, we try to teach them the meaning of each and every word deductively. As inductive teaching requires various activities to activate students to find the meaning of words, we happen to look for each word in the poem. In this way, dictionary has been made as sole material for teaching poetry. But it is true that we don't have to know the meaning of all the words to understand a piece of writing. That is to say, an inventive teacher is the one who is able to determine the necessary words to be dealt with while teaching a particular poem.

Teaching procedures

The following stages can be suggested in teaching poems:

Step 1: Introducing the poet to the students

·         Giving brief background information of the poet.

·         Telling interesting things/facts about the poet if any.

·         Motivating students to find out something about the poet.

·         Giving information of the works/ creation of the poet.

·         Asking some questions relating to poet's life, manner, and character and so on.

·         Making as many comparisons as possible.

Step 2: Introducing the poem to the students.

·         Giving brief information of the poem such as what the poem is about, when it was written but detailed information at this stage is not advisable.

·         Motivating students through some enthusiastic talks about poetry.

·         Reading the poem loud enough to hear in the classroom several times.

·         Asking the students to close eyes and pay full attention while reading to them.

·         Eliciting students' response.

·          Asking them to follow while reading aloud.

Step 3: Dealing with the form of the poem.

·         Rhyme, rhythm, stanza/verse, arrangement

·         The rhetorical devices used (simile, metaphor, etc.)

·         Helping students with figurative meanings.

·         Exploiting unusual language features.

Step 4: Dealing with the linguistic features of the poem

·         Telling the students that poetry generally has unusual syntax.

·         Asking the students to read the poem time and again to paraphrase it.

·         Helping the students to find the common paraphrased form of the poem.

·         Having discussion on some necessary vocabularies at this stage.

·         Organizing some activities to minimize likely linguistic difficulties.

Step 5: Dealing with the content of the poem.

·         Asking questions about the content of the poem.

·         Encouraging the students to discuss the content of the poem.

·         Dealing with the cultural content of the poem.

·         Organizing various activities to overcome the difficulties that act as the cultural barriers.

Stage 6: Reviewing the plot of the poem

·         Asking students to review the poem to get the deeper meaning.

·         Encouraging the students to find the theme of the poem and own meaning.

·         Relating own experiences with the subject matter and encouraging the students to do so.

·         Asking students to write a poem on any topic they want.

   

 Conclusion

             In a nutshell, the above mentioned steps of teaching poem are hoped to be universally applicable but not the full and final ones. This implies that there is no hard and fast rule of teaching poem.  An efficient teacher makes use of own steps on the basis of the topic, level of the students and their needs. In fact, various activities that engage and stimulate students should be given emphasis. Moreover, various games, puzzles and fun activities that bring life and laughter in the classroom are important. Such activities can be useful materials to reduce multiple ambiguities of metaphorical language. Traditional practices are still in wide use which should be discouraged. For this, a teacher should be hardworking, dedicated and inventive. A teacher who is very good at setting relevant activities to explore ideas of the learners is a real teacher.

 

 

                                            REFERENCES

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Lazar, G.(1993). Literature and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Lohani, S. P. and Devkota, P.P. (1998). Generations. Kathmandu: Modern Printing Press.

 

Rai, S. (2010). Communicative Proficiency of the students. An unpublished M.Ed. Thesis. 

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