Experimenting with poetry

It all started with a lesson plan based on an activity from Günter Gerngross, Herbert Puchta and Scott Thornbury's "Teaching Grammar Creatively". The activity aimed at teaching verbs of the senses-looks, sounds, smells, tastes, feels-a problematic area for students, at least the way it was presented in the school book of 6th grade.I needed something to make an impression, to stay with them after the lesson. So after the presentation and the consolidation I decided to try something I had never tried with this class before. Ask them to write poetry. When I started explaining the activity I was not at all sure if everybody would be able to cope with it. In fact, I thought that some students may even start nagging or refuse to do it.To my surprise, nothing of the above happened. On the contrary, the moment I explained what they had to do everybody-and I mean everybody-set to work. Some of them asked to work in pairs and I didn't mind this.

So adapting the activity a little, first I gave them a model text to fill in with the verbs of senses. Here's the model text:

Happiness is the colour of poppies in spring.
It________ like chocolate ice cream.
It ________ like peach blossom.
It ________ like the cry of an eagle.
And it __________ like the wide open sky.

After we filled in the gaps-that was too easy for them-I kept this on the board:

Happiness is the colour of poppies in spring.
It tastes like ________________________.
It smells like _______________________.
It sounds like _______________________.
And it looks like _____________________.

and told them this was their model poem to complete.

It didn't take us long. It was like everyone felt so ready, so eager to write about happiness.
When I went home and read the poems I was so touched! So proud of them! And I have to admit they really surpised me! Their poems were works of art!

All this taught me something that I sometimes forget although I see it very often! That students are at their best when they are able to express themselves in the foreign language, create with their existing knowledge . Also, they are proud to present their products to their classmates.

So we should give them opportunities to be creative in the classroom more often. Sometimes these things we are afraid to try are the ones that give the best outcomes.

Some useful advice before you try using poetry with your class is to make it clear to students that poems don't have to rhyme to be poetry. Free poetry without rhymes is a type of poetry they could also experiment with. Poetic expression doesn't necessarily call for rhyming. In fact, you can even express yourself poetically in a story or an essay.Poetry is just a way of expression, unique and specific to everyone's perception of the outer world, beauty of the inner world, experiences and feelings.

Good luck!

And I proudly present our poems:
1st Primary School of Amyntaio
6th grade School year 2015-2016

A note here-that may contribute to this poem's comprehension-is that one of the students has a little baby sister at home!

Resources: 

Book: Teaching Grammar Creatively-Günter Gerngross, Herbert Puchta and Scott Thornbury

   Articles: The power of poetry in Primary Classrooms- Matthew James Friday

                   www. edutopia.org/blog/power-of-poetry-primary-classrooms-matthew-friday

                   Five reasons why we need poetry in schools- Elena Aguilar

                    www. edutopia.org/blog/five-reasons-poetry-needed-schools-elena-aguilar

                   A downloadable toolkit for poetry

                   www.thepoetrytrust.org/images/uploads/pdfs/Toolkit%20for%20Teachers.pdf

Prepositions: A brainteaser for our students

The most vivid memory of my school years is my dear English teacher, Naki, who used to make us circle prepositions spotted in texts, lesson after lesson. This is something I like to do with my students, too, from the beginning of my teaching career. It is a "ritual" we follow in every reading lesson and my students know it by now!

Prepositions are an important part of the English language and they are everywhere! They are in prepositional phrases, phrasal verbs, idioms and expressions. They can go with verbs, adjectives or nouns and then we also have prepositions for time and place. Greek learners- and not only them,I am guessing- find it really hard to remember where to put it and if they remember that they need a preposition, they may still have problems in finding which one they should use.

A problem with prepositions is that they usually cannot be translated especially if you try word-to-word translation - something Greek students try more often than needed- contrary to our advice not to do so! So most of the times, the choice of the correct preposition is not something they can logically correlate with their mother tongue knowledge.

So, how can prepositions be taught? There is actually no rule or pattern that we can teach our students. They have to learn most of them by heart. What is very helpful, however, is to learn to recognise and spot a preposition when they see one. To do a lot of gap-filling exercises with prepositions. To read different kinds of texts mostly long ones. Literature, articles, and, if they prefer the internet, blogs.

One might argue, though,that prepositions are not that important! Especially nowadays that there is a shift towards the communicative function of the language. But I believe that a sense for prepositions is essential for learners that wish to acquire a sense for the language. In my opinion, especially when we talk for levels B2 and upwards, the appropriate usage of prepositions can distinguish a competent learner from a fluent one. But, you can't start teaching prepositions at level B2, it is knowledge that has to be built slowly starting from year 1 of learning English. We should make our students aware that prepositions are as significant as tenses-talking about Greek teachers, I know our obsession with tenses-and the sooner they realize it the better.