A Paper
Written by:
Lita Tri Lestari
Utami Maulina
1B
A. Definition of Poetry
Poetry is the expression of ideas and feelings through a rhythmical composition
of imaginative and beautiful words selected for their sonorous effects, (Tomlinson,
2002: 38). Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in
conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns, lyrics, or prose poetry. It is
published in dedicated magazines (the longest established being Poetry and Oxford
Poetry), individual collections and wider anthologies. Poetry and discussions of it have
a long history. Early attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on
the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song, and comedy. Later attempts concentrated
on features such as repetition, verse form and rhyme, and emphasized the aesthetics
which distinguish poetry from more objectively informative, prosaic forms of writing,
such as manifestos, biographies, essays, and novels . From the mid-20th century,
poetry has sometimes been more loosely defined as a fundamental creative act using
language.
Poetry is as one of the pieces of literature that can be studied from various
aspects. Poetry can be studied from its structure and its elements, given that the poem
is a structure composed of various elements and means of allegory. Throughout the
era, poetry always experienced changes and developments. This is because the essence
as works of art that always happen the tension between convention and innovation.
Poetry is always change according to the evolution of taste and aesthetic concept of
change, (Pradopo, 2000: 3).
Watts-Dunton says that poetry is the concrete expression and artistic nature,
while Lescelles Abercrombie said that poetry is the expression of the experience that is
imaginative, which is just as well apply in a speech or statement that is expressed with
a language community, who take advantage of every plan with a mature and efficient.
Therefore, each poem is an imaginative expression of human experience, the first time
that we got, when we read a poem, is experience. More people read poetry so the
reader will get more experience, particularly experience of imagination, (Tarigan,
1986: 7-8).
B. Elements of Poetry
Sweetland explains the elements of poetry and the description of quality
characteristics:
POETRY- has an overall central theme or idea within each poem.
Images - the mental pictures the poet creates through language.
Diction - the selection of specific words.
Form - the arrangement of words, lines, verses, rhymes, and other features.
Cadence - A rhythmic change in the inflection of sounds from words being
spoken. Sometimes referred to the flow of words.
Couplet - two lines of verse that rhyme at the end and are thought as one unit.
Meter - A rhythm that continuously repeats a single basic pattern.
Rhyme - Words that end with similar sounds. Usually at the end of a line of the
poem.
Rhyming - Two lines of a poem together with the same rhythm.
Rhythm - A pattern created with sounds: hard - soft, long - short, bouncy, quiet -
loud, weak strong.
Stanza - A part of a poem with similar rhythm and rhyme that will usually repeat
later in the poem.
Verse - A line of a poem, or a group of lines within a long poem.
D. Definition of Pronunciation
There are many experts that have views what pronunciation in language
teaching is. Kelly (2000:1) is one that views pronunciation through the constituent
parts. He argues that pronunciation has two main features namely phonemes and
suprasegmental features. He has broken down the main features of pronunciation
and explains it by showing a diagram below.
G. Problems in Pronunciation
In our country English plays as a foreign language. It means that people use
English only in school when they have the lesson in the classroom. Since it is rarely
used by people as medium of communication, students may find many difficulties in
pronunciation of English. According to Arini (2009), there are two common mistakes
that a learner makes. First, they fail to make long vowels or diphthongs when it is
followed by voiced consonants. Secondly, they fail to shorten long vowels or
diphthongs when it is followed by voiceless consonants. She adds that there are other
problems or difficulties related to pronunciation. One of them is hearing problem.
People have different hearing ability. It affects people to make mistakes when
pronouncing words. OConnor (1998: 1) gives a good illustration related to how
important our ears are. He says:
Language starts with the ear. When a baby starts to talk he does it by hearing the
sounds his mother makes and imitating them. If a baby is born deaf he cannot hear
these sounds and therefore cannot imitate them and will not speak.
So does English. If one cannot listen to English pronunciation well, he cannot
produce it well too. Kelly (2000: 8) makes a brief and clear explanation related to
difficulties may be faced by individual learners. They are:
1) The learners first language may have a one-to-one relationship between
sounds and spelling. The concept of there not being such a relationship may be new.
2) Even if such a concept is not new for the learner, they will have to become familiar
with new sound-spelling relationships.
3) There may be sounds, and combinations of sounds in L1, which do not occur in
English.
4) There may be sounds, and combinations of sounds, used in English which do not
occur in L1.
5) English may use stress and intonation patterns which feel strange to the
learner.
The learners may have problems related to learning English pronunciation.
However, we as teacher need to offer help to overcome their problems. The solution to
the problems will be discussed later.
H. Benefits of Using Poetry to Language Teaching
Poetry can pave the way for the learning and teaching of basic language
skills. It is metaphor that is the most prominent connection between learning and
poetry. Because most poetry consciously or unconsciously makes use of metaphor
as one of its primary methods, poetry offers a significant learning process. There are
at least two learning benefits that can be derived from studying poetry:
The appreciation of the writers composition process, which students
gain by studying poems by components
Developing sensitivity for words and discoveries that may later grow into a
deeper interest and greater analytical ability
Sara (2003:17-20) also explains the educational benefits of poetry as follows:
provides readers with a different viewpoint towards language use by going
beyond the known usages and rules of grammar, syntax and vocabulary,
triggers unmotivated readers owing to being so open to explorations and
different interpretations,
evokes feelings and thoughts in heart and in mind,
makes students familiar with figures of speech (i.e. simile, metaphor,
irony, personification, imagery, etc.) due to their being a part of daily language
use.
As ubuku (2001:1) mentions, poetry is a rewarding and enjoyable
experience with the properties of rhyming and rhythm both of which convey love
and appreciation for the sound and power of language. At this juncture, it can be
stated that students become familiar with the suprasegmental aspects of the target
language, such as stress, pitch, juncture, intonation by studying poetry.
Moreover, poetry employs language to evoke and exalt special qualities of
life, and suffices readers with feelings. It is particularly lyric poetry which is based
on feelings and provides still another emotional benefit. Poetry is one of the most
effective and powerful transmitters of culture. Poems comprise so many cultural
elements - allusions, vocabulary, idioms, tone that are not easy to translate into
another language ( Sage 1987: 12-13).
METHODOLOGY
Pre-activities:
1. Have the students look at the advertisement on slide and elicit where they
might see such an advertisement. Read the advert and then ask some questions
about it. (e.g. 'What is the shop selling? What does it taste like? What is special
about the day that it is on sale? Why would someone buy chocolate on this day
and for whom?')
2. Call on a student to read the beginning of the poem. Ask the students what a
'rose' and 'violet' are; if they don't know, point at the flowers around the poem
to show them. Ask the students what words they think go in the blanks. Give
them a minute to discuss with their partners, then reveal the answers on slide.
While-activities:
3. Distribute worksheet to students. Have the students look at the table in
worksheet Activity 1. Go through the words and phonemes across the top, then
ask which column 'me' belongs in, based on its vowel sound. Have the students
add the remaining three words from the word bank to the table and then go
through their answers with a partner.
4. Read the poem aloud, emphasizing the words that rhyme. Replace them with
non-rhyming words to show how it sounds better with the rhymes. Elicit what
this kind of text is called (a poem). Ask if they have they heard a 'Roses are
red' poem before and if they know other kinds of poems. Note: If a student
points out that violets are, in fact, purple, challenge them to find a word that
rhymes with 'purple'. Explain that the writer probably cheated and chose 'blue'
because there are far more words that rhyme with it.
5. Put the students in pairs and have them fill out the table with more words that
rhyme with those from the poem.
6. Ask which words in the poem rhyme with each other ('red' and 'bed', 'blue' and
'you' and the name of the company). Elicit how many syllables there are in the
word 'syllable' (three). Clap to count syllables if the students have trouble with
this. If needed, practice counting syllables with familiar words.
7. Have the students complete the activity on their own, then have them pair
check before finally going over the answers as a class. Ask the students if they
think poems always need to have the same number of syllables on each line.
(No, but they should be similar.)
8. Recite Poem and clap with the syllables/rhythm. Have the students clap the
syllables with you while repeating the poems so that they can get a feel for it.
9. Then, ask students to count number of syllables in each line in Activity 2.
Post-activities:
10. Distribute one word card from Handout to each student then have them mingle
to find the word that rhymes with theirs.
11. After that, have the pairs with rhyming words work together to write a short
poem using those words. When they have finished, have them share their
poems with the class. Collect the word cards and save them for the next
activity. Note: If you have an odd number of students, write a third rhyming
word on a piece of scrap paper. When the three students have found each other,
they can choose two of the words to write their poem and discard the other
word.
12. Have the students look at Activity 3. Tell them that they will write one 'Roses
are red' poem and one free choice poem. Reshuffle the word cards from the
handout and redistribute them, one per student. Have them use this word to
write their first 'Roses are red' poem.
13. Next, distribute the graphic organizer template to students. Tell students to use
the graphic organizer to help them gather the ideas by writing the last word of
each line in the box.
14. When they have finished, have them read their poems for the class. Collect
shuffle, and redistribute the cutups again, and repeat the activity for their
second poem.
15. Reward the group that made most creative poem.
CONCLUSION
Poetry helps students know each other and build their critical thinking. Poetry
can allow kids to paint sketches of their lives, using metaphor, imagery and symbolic
language to describe painful experiences, or parts of themselves that they're not ready
to share. Poetry allows kids to put language to use-to make it serve a deep internal
purpose, to break rules along the way (grammar, punctuation, capitalization -- think of
e.e. cummings) and to find voice, representation, community perhaps.
When read aloud, poetry is rhythm and music and sounds and beats. Young
children -- babies and preschoolers included -- may not understand all the words or
meaning, but they'll feel the rhythms, get curious about what the sounds mean and
perhaps want to create their own. Contrary to popular belief amongst kids, boys get
really into poetry when brought in through rhythm and rhyme. It's the most kinesthetic
of all literature, it's physical and full-bodied which activates your heart and soul and
sometimes bypasses the traps of our minds and the outcome is that poetry moves us.
Poetry has space for English Language Learners. Because poems defy rules,
poetry can be made accessible for ELLs -- poems can be easily scaffolded and students
can find ways of expressing their voices while being limited in their vocabulary.
Furthermore, poetry is universal. ELLs can learn about or read poetry in their primary
language, helping them bridge their worlds.
REFERENCES