techniques adopted among the teachers teaching poetry in the upper secondary schools in Tawau town area. The researcher would like to find out the types of techniques that are preferred most as well as least in the teaching of poetry to the upper secondary school students and examine the factors that affect the selection of these techniques. The techniques put forward In this study that the teachers should have been exposed to are Language Based Approach, Personal Response Based Approach, Stylistic Approach, Information Based Approach and Moral Philosophical approach. This project is a survey research and the targeted sample of this project consists of 45 English language teachers teaching literature component to secondary four and five students from seven secondary schools from Tawau town area. Three research instruments which have been utilized in this study are questionnaire, classroom observation and interview. Questionnaire is administered to the targeted sample. Then it is tri...

Poetry has, for a long time, been regarded as difficult; and there has been evidence of teacher and student efforts in appreciation to support the belief. As a genre of literature, it has been side-tracked and little effort has been made for its reconsideration as a genre that can be enjoyed. While students blame teachers for not giving them enough support to understand the genre fully, teachers have also blamed students for not putting in enough efforts to study and understand the genre. African poetry has been the more critical case because it communicates the identity of the learner. This study examines the extent to which both teachers and students appreciate poetry and the efforts both parties make to enjoy and understand the genre. It uses as a case study, the selected African poetry at the Senior High School level which is the students’ first real encounter with elective literature and poetry. The study made use of the pragmatic approach to data collection. With the qualitative approach, a number of students and teachers from four selected schools were interviewed about their efforts towards the appreciation of poetry. There was also group discussions with the students. Answered scripts from Mock Exams were also collected and analyzed to establish the issues that the students face in answering questions on poetry. The findings from these analyses formed the basis of the study, aimed at assessing whether the students and teachers willingly chose literature or whether they were forced into choosing it, whether their expectations from poetry had been met, and the specific difficulties they faced with the genre. At the end of the study, the findings revealed that most students liked literature but disliked poetry. On the other hand, 1 out of 4 teachers did not enjoy teaching poetry. The findings of the research point to an important trend about how the selected African poems in the WASSCE syllabus have been appreciated by teachers and pupils at the Senior High School level. It is clear that the level of appreciation has not been up to standard. While teachers have blamed their pupils for not making poetry lessons interesting and effective, pupils have also blamed their teachers for the same reasons. We also find that the thematic and stylistic nature of the poems have contributed significantly to the low level of appreciation. Another contribution to the problem is the lack of a standard for the judgment of students as weak or strong in the subject.

Abstract The study focused on the effective teaching of poetry: impediments and sustainability option in the Senior Secondary Schools. The study employed a descriptive survey design and was carried out in the Onueke Education Zone of Ebonyi State. The population of the study constituted of 9,300 students and all the 182 English language and literature teachers. 320 students were sampled from the 15 secondary schools using simple balloting and a simple random sampling technique. Two sets of questionnaire were used to collect the data – teachers’ questionnaire and students’ questionnaire. The students’ questionnaire contains gender information of the students. Subheadings were ascribed to the two sets of the questionnaire based on items of each research question. Students’ questionnaire was based on the first two research questions and a null hypothesis while the teachers’ questionnaire was based on the last two research questions. The two questionnaires were first validated by experts and a trial test was carried out. Then, the instrument was subjected to reliability test using cronbach alpha method and values of 0.82 and 0.84 were obtained from students’ and teachers’ questionnaire respectively. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypothesis at p value of .05 value. The findings showed that poetry possesses inherent problems itself because of its abstract nature and the present day methods teachers adopt in teaching poetry which are teacher oriented makes it difficult for students to learn poetry. Students show poor attitudes to learning poetry and skewing teaching to students would enhance students’ comprehension of poetry. The null hypothesis showed no significant difference in the mean ratings of male and female students in the challenges of teaching poetry. Some of the recommendations were that: (1) students should be provided with poetry textbooks and that

It is a known fact that English Language is Nigeria’s official language. As such, it is the language of administration, banking, commerce, education, inter-cultural interaction and a host of other sectors. It is strong in education in that it is the language of teaching and learning at all levels of education, including the secondary school (level) where we have the bulk of teenagers. In most schools in the country, their ability to express themselves in poetic form has developed poetry writing in Nigeria to a level that is fast becoming comparable to that of experienced adult poets. Adopting the conventional literary analysis method, the paper examines several poems in Beyond Limits and discovers that the teen poets in Nigeria have developed appreciably contemporary themes of poverty, environmental degradation, man’s inhumanity to man, patriotism, hopelessness as well as myriad of others which they handle with cheering dexterity. The poems are rich in commendable musicality, impres...

This paper addresses the common diffidence with which students respond to poetry; a diffidence that, in the opinion of the writer, is the result of the inappropriate teaching methods of the subject at the secondary school level. The paper proceeds to offer innovative, interactive approaches that should make poetry lessons as interesting as they should be, consequently improving the attitude to Poetry at the tertiary level also.

Many literary artists and critics in time past have affirmed the significance of tradition as a source of inspiration in creative works. Though the driving force in molding a creative work such as a poem is innate, a true artist must have knowledge of a given tradition or traditions to excel in the enterprise. In quite recent times however, much of the poetry by budding poets tends to imitate Western forms in lieu of the traditional. This paper is therefore an attempt to address the effects of foreign traditions on the creative abilities of the Ghanaian youth. It traces the antecedents that are most likely to have caused the negative outlook towards most indigenous traditions in Ghana to the embrace of Western traditions. It also examines some pertinent issues in the educational system in Ghana and the impact of the English language as the language of instruction and its effects on the culture of the creative arts.

We observe that students in tertiary institutions, especially in Nigeria have a phobia for poetry, a genre they regard as esoteric and eccentric. Their apprehension is further heightened when they are faced with a course in Stylistics which utilizes available linguistic tools, methods and principles to elucidate language in use, with special focus on the specialized language of literary artists, particularly that of the poet. Stemming from the belief that Stylistics is a stimulating and enjoyable enterprise as well as a very reliable option to unraveling the perceived mystery of poetry, this paper attempts to discuss some basic principles and methods of Stylistics as a means of demystifying the genre while applying such principles and methods to the analysis of chosen texts. Two poems: Christopher Okigbo's Love Apart and Niyi Osundare's The Nigerian Railway have been purposefully chosen for this task. From the analysis, meanings were inferred and conclusions were drawn. The paper concludes that a careful study and applications of stylistic principles and methods to poetic analysis will dispel the myth that poetry is difficult, stimulate learners' interest in the genre, help them generate meaning from texts on their own and develop their confidence to tackle any poetic piece.

The field of Poetry teaching involves the investment of a considerable amount of time and efforts. There is a common questioning of whether the actual methodologies involving the multiple models, approaches, and activities are meeting the students" needs if we consider that they are satisfying for the teachers. Therefore, the main objective of this work is to give an idea about the poetry teaching situation and practices within the Foreign Languages department at Abou Bakr Belkaid University in Tlemcen. The main results of this study unveiled that poetry teaching suffered from some weaknesses, such as the method and techniques used that did not increase students" interest in this subject, and frustrated teachers as they could not achieve their objectives. Other reasons such as time constraints, students" linguistic weaknesses and lack of knowledge about poetry were also found to contribute to the poetry teaching difficulty. As a consequence, communication and learner centeredness were found to help improve the teaching situation and enhance students" attitudes.