Symposia & Conferences
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Item Using Poetry in Teaching English as a Second Language as a Means of Improving Language Production(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Gunarathne, N.M.A.D.W.C.With the intention of meeting the needs of English Language learners, Language teachers and instructors are trying to use different methods to improve the language skills of the students. It has been observed that the majority of the students are weak in speaking and writing in English Language. Therefore this paper aims to explore how poetry can be used as a teaching tool in improving speaking and writing among English Language learners. A survey was done using 35 students at the Sri Lanka Institute of Advanced Technology, Tangalle. Several instruments were used in this research. They were some speaking activities, writing activities, questionnaires, interviews. As for the materials, six English poems were selected by different poets. More than 90% students were engaged in all the activities given to them. A significant progress could be seen in both speaking and writing activities with compared to their previous performance in these activities. With respect to the vocabulary they tried to use new words which were learnt through the poems in writing and speaking. Further from the data that were collected through questionnaire, it was learnt 100% of the students agreed with the view that these activities were really helpful and encouraged them to speak and considerably the students were highly motivated, active and enthusiastic since they were free to express their views on the poems unlike on other days. Consequently, the students were less hesitant and became creative in the process. This process was carried out for four weeks and the last two weeks were very important because the students showed considerable improvements. Therefore the results of the research show that the use of poetry in classrooms is very effective and productive indicating fact that poetry can be used as a strategy for improving the language production of the students.Item Teaching Adjectives through Poetry in the ESL Context(English Language Teaching Unit, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Kulathunga, D.English poetry is an integral part of ESL teaching in Sri Lanka. The mode of teaching poetry can be done in various ways, especially when spoken and performance aspect of poetry is considered. However not all English teachers use poetry as supplementary material to teach grammar. This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of using poetry for language learning purposes in the ESL classroom. The investigation was conducted involving 40 students from grade 6 who are learning English as a second language at Alawwa Central College. An experimental group of 20 students were taught adjectives using poems. The other 20 students in the control group were taught adjectives without using poems. A pretest was conducted to ensure that both the experimental and control group students were homogenous. Two short tests were administered after the teaching session for both groups. The overall findings of the study signify that poetry can be effectively used for language learning purposes in the ESL context. In conclusion, it can be said that students seem to respond to the lesson better when the teaching tools are creative. Further research into different approaches towards using poetry is recommended in order to have a more holistic idea about this filed.