A
good poem is a piece of art in which the imagination and the personal
taste of the poet dominate. The aim of teaching poetry is, primarily,
to enable learners to develop the skill of enjoyment and
appreciation. The present system of teaching poems, followed by
language teachers, hardly helps to realize the ultimate aim of
teaching /learning poetry. Second language teachers, usually consider
it as a daunting task and many students display hostility to poetry-
a sense that it is difficult or ‘alien’ dominates in them.
But
the fact is that poetry remains as an inescapable part of language
teaching. The main reason for poetry classes being uninteresting in
the second language situation is that the teacher does not take into
consideration the linguistic, cultural and psychological barriers
which stand in the way of a proper appreciation of poetry. Contrary
to the common belief that teaching of English poems is an
uninteresting task, it can be really fun, interactive, and
stimulating through contextualized activities, supported by very
sophisticated audio- visual software and other creative resources. A
careful integration of ICT into English Language Teaching (ELT) can
certainly enhance the quality of language teaching, especially of
poems. A move in this regard will help to overcome many of the
existing barriers in the teaching/learning of English language.
An attempt to infuse ICT is made here. The poem selected for the
purpose is Winter Evening Settles Down by T.S. Eliot.
Prepared by
Sree Rekha.R,
HSST
-English, DBHSS, Thiruvalla
