The use of poetry for developing the productive skills in EFL/ESL students

Abstract

The productive language skills of writing and speaking are considered to be difficult to develop; especially for EFL/ESL students who learn in classroom environments that have been regarded as dehumanized because of their inattention to the emotional dimension of students and their overemphasis on the development of observable skills. Nonetheless, poetry can be used as a tool to retaliate this dehumanization and help students improve their learning experience; unfortunately, language teachers are still unaware of the benefits that working with poetry can bring to students. Therefore, this exploratory research synthesis intends to describe the effects of poetry as a tool to develop the productive skills in EFL/ESL students. In addition, the synthesis also presents information related to the perceptions that students have towards the use of poetry. Fifteen empirical studies, conducted majorly in university level, and that employed different instruments to gather data, were revised. The findings drawn from the analysis demonstrate that poetry mostly has beneficial effects on the development of the writing and speaking skills. Additionally, the results show that students perceive poetry as a positive tool for their learning and feel comfortable while working with poetry during their classes. The information drawn in this research synthesis can serve as reference for future research and implementation of poetry in the EFL/ESL classroom