Page 17 - FINAL RESEARCH PAPER THESIS 2020

According to the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture, the newly revised junior secondary

phase grade 8-9 syllabus for English second language (2015) stipulates that by the end of each
planned poetry lesson learners have to be competent when they are able to read, enjoy and

understand poems. They should demonstrate an understanding of and respond to aspects of poems
such as: content, personification, metaphor, simile, rhyme, narrator/voice, feelings/ emotions

expressed in poems and aroused in the reader, language/diction, and attitude of the poet, repetition
and alliteration. Hence languages has four main skills, listening, speaking, reading including

literature in which poetry is a component, and lastly writing skills. These skills are automatically

incorporated because when reading of poems is a main skill, writing, listening and speaking
become sub-skills. This means that student teachers should possess the knowledge that learners

whom they teach poetry to should show or demonstrate the understanding of the poems through

the four skills.

In addition, The Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture in the English second language syllabus

(2015) continues to state that learners should be taught to appreciate and enjoy poetry. To actualise
this, the learners should understand the content of the poem. Poems should not be memorised.

Learners should rather be guided towards the ability to read with expression and interpretation of
the emotions involved. “Sing-song” chorusing must never be encouraged or permitted. The love

of poetry should be encouraged.

Minimum prescribed reading per grade: Grade 8: 8 Poems and 2 short stories and a novel (all
compulsory) Grade 9: 9 Poems and a novel and a drama (all compulsory). According to the new

revised syllabus, poetry is assessed formally and recorded on a Continuous Assessment form, also
in the question paper for any exams poetry falls under Part 4 of Literature. The study which we

are conducting will indicate what kind of problems student teachers face when teaching poetry to
the learners hence the syllabus stipulates competencies which should be mastered by learners by

the help of teachers. Poetry learning begin from as early as primary level which is grade 5-7 and

build on in junior secondary phase 8-9.

2.3.1 Student teachers applying effective teaching strategies and methods for poetry

According to a study conducted by AL-Bakri in Palestine (2019) it is said that poetry can be

approached through three phases: the warming up, while listening or reading a poem and the follow

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