Poetry can help check poor English
Feb 15, 2011
POETRY is no longer viewed as an opportunity to teach reading and better expression. It has been relegated to the dark corner of content curriculum. In the past, poem recitation made up the morning dose of English and grammar.
By Racheal Ninsiima
POETRY is no longer viewed as an opportunity to teach reading and better expression. It has been relegated to the dark corner of content curriculum. In the past, poem recitation made up the morning dose of English and grammar.
Maximillah Cherotich, a literature teacher at Mehta Secondary School in Lugazi, blames the neglect of poetry in schools on teachers and students who do not understand poetry.
Some say it is the students’ reluctance to participate in the exploration of text that has caused this problem. However, some teachers feel poetry is less useful to children than prose.
Cherotich adds that the students in high school fail Literature Paper One (prose and poetry) because some teachers do not have knowledge of the subject matter. Therefore, they end up misguiding students.
Teachers sometimes instill fear in the students that poetry is difficult. As a result, the students start hating it, so it gradually falls into oblivion.
“Poetry should be yearned for like a commercial break. Whichever free time students get should be used to read poetry,’’ Cherotich advises.
I remember my primary school days where we used to write poems as our sample handwritings. An English teacher would write a poem on the blackboard and it would stay on for a week. When he or she came to class, you would recite it and then she would cane those whose handwriting was substandard.
However, when I went back recently (after 10 years), the blackboards were blank. I inquired from the headmistress as to why poems were no longer written on the blackboard and she said they are a burden.
“The Internet has made things cheap. Poems can be downloaded and pupils can recite them at their own free will,†she says.
Reading and performing poetry provides numerous opportunities for children to practice, with pleasure, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and fluency.
Oyet Okwera, a former teacher of Stella Maris College, Nsuube in Mukono district, notes that the usage of poetry is becoming extinct today because it is not looked at as an aspect to encourage learning.
“Teachers are being trained on the subject matter rather than methodology. The teaching method is standing in front of the class and saying what you know rather than having a unique teaching method like use of poetry,†he says.
Okwera advises that poetry should be part of the examinable comprehension, especially in primary. This is because compression has been left to mean interpretation of passages only.
William Shakespeare’s poems like A Lover’s Complaint, Bridal Song and Fear No More should no longer be looked at as ones that cannot easily be interpreted. It takes a logical mind refined through extensive reading and exposure to poetry to understand them.
POETRY is no longer viewed as an opportunity to teach reading and better expression. It has been relegated to the dark corner of content curriculum. In the past, poem recitation made up the morning dose of English and grammar.
Maximillah Cherotich, a literature teacher at Mehta Secondary School in Lugazi, blames the neglect of poetry in schools on teachers and students who do not understand poetry.
Some say it is the students’ reluctance to participate in the exploration of text that has caused this problem. However, some teachers feel poetry is less useful to children than prose.
Cherotich adds that the students in high school fail Literature Paper One (prose and poetry) because some teachers do not have knowledge of the subject matter. Therefore, they end up misguiding students.
Teachers sometimes instill fear in the students that poetry is difficult. As a result, the students start hating it, so it gradually falls into oblivion.
“Poetry should be yearned for like a commercial break. Whichever free time students get should be used to read poetry,’’ Cherotich advises.
I remember my primary school days where we used to write poems as our sample handwritings. An English teacher would write a poem on the blackboard and it would stay on for a week. When he or she came to class, you would recite it and then she would cane those whose handwriting was substandard.
However, when I went back recently (after 10 years), the blackboards were blank. I inquired from the headmistress as to why poems were no longer written on the blackboard and she said they are a burden.
“The Internet has made things cheap. Poems can be downloaded and pupils can recite them at their own free will,†she says.
Reading and performing poetry provides numerous opportunities for children to practice, with pleasure, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and fluency.
Oyet Okwera, a former teacher of Stella Maris College, Nsuube in Mukono district, notes that the usage of poetry is becoming extinct today because it is not looked at as an aspect to encourage learning.
“Teachers are being trained on the subject matter rather than methodology. The teaching method is standing in front of the class and saying what you know rather than having a unique teaching method like use of poetry,†he says.
Okwera advises that poetry should be part of the examinable comprehension, especially in primary. This is because compression has been left to mean interpretation of passages only.
William Shakespeare’s poems like A Lover’s Complaint, Bridal Song and Fear No More should no longer be looked at as ones that cannot easily be interpreted. It takes a logical mind refined through extensive reading and exposure to poetry to understand them.