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The majority of the respondents (58.8%) revealed that learners did not believe that poetry was

vital. In other words, this was an indication that student teachers observed that learners showed
poor interest in the learning of poetry. However, 41.2% of the respondents indicated that they felt

that learners had a belief that learning poetry is important. It can be said that learners need to be
taught the importance of poetry. In addition, the content and teaching materials should be improved

to make learners more interested in learning poetry.

In light of the above response given by student teachers that were in support of the importance of
poetry, Husnaini (2015) stated that poetry has many benefits like it is considered a key element of

many literature curricula around the world. It is believed to be a tool to promote cross-cultural
understanding. It is also considered as the potential source to explore the aspect of history, society,

and culture of a foreign language. Given the vast benefits of poetry on language improvement,
knowledge expansion, intelligence sharpening, and general inspiration to humankind, it deserves

being instituted into the school curriculum as an autonomous and compulsory academic discipline

states Josephine (2013).

4.3.17 Some of the difficulties/ challenges student teachers face in poetry teaching
Student teachers were asked to express the challenges they faced in teaching poetry. The purpose

of this question was to determine the difficulties and challenges they faced in poetry teaching.
The results are presented in Figure 17.

Figure 17 Some of the difficulties / challenges student teachers face in poetry teaching

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