The Language Teacher
02 - 2001
Expressive Writing Skills Enhanced Through the Use of Poetry
Prisca Molotsi
Nanzan University
The Foreign Language Literacy SIG was founded by David Dycus and Charles Jannuzi. Through its international publication, Literacy Across Cultures (LAC), it focuses its scholarly activities on reading, writing and literacy in the teaching and learning of EFL and other foreign languages. It also puts out a newsletter three times a year. For more information about the SIG and LAC, contact David Dycus at <dcdycus@asu.aasa.ac.jp>. To join a free electronic mailing list which distributes LAC articles and other information, contact Charles Jannuzi <jannuzi@mint.ocn.ne.jp>.
A problem that I have often encountered while teaching both oral communication and writing classes here in Japan is what I see as a lack of expression on the part of the students. Students seem to be inhibited, either for cultural or social reasons, from expressing their thoughts and feelings. Conversation and written exercises, therefore, tend to be dull and void of the colorings that add life to language. Using poetry, I have found, greatly helps enhance the students' writing and speaking skills. In this paper I will describe a series of activities I have found useful for using poetry to bring out students' expressiveness and creativity.
There are many reasons why poetry is beneficial in helping students develop both their writing and speaking skills: (a) poetry is an expression of our personal feelings which are important in any language, (b) the rhythms of a language are easier to assimilate through poetry, (c) ideas and personal ideas can be brought into play more so than in other types of writing, and (d) poetry enables us to experience the information relayed to us (Perrine, 1977, p.4). There are two ways in which to approach the utilization of poetry in language: the technical approach, involving the formal analysis of poetry and techniques for writing it, and the emotional approach, which focuses on self-expression. While I believe that concentrating on the technical approach is beneficial for those aspiring to be great poets, in the series of exercises described below I concentrate on the emotional approach, for the aim of this exercise is to enable students to express themselves freely and in ways in which their language will be enriched. Expressing oneself freely is something that can be quite alien to Japanese students. It is often said that Japanese have an inner and an outer self, the former being symbolized by the heart and the latter by the face, in particular the mouth (Lebra, 1976, p. 159). Encouraged not to reveal too much by the outer self and not to believe too much in it, Japanese tend to think that the inner self is thus the truer self. It is, therefore, very difficult to extract comments and opinions from Japanese students, unlike classes in America or in South Africa where students are encouraged to be as intellectually vocal as possible. In Japan, an old saying holds that "mouths are to eat with, not to speak with" (Kuchi wa motte kuubeshi, motte iu bekarazu).
Aware of the difficulties in getting students to be more expressive, I use poetry in a series of loosening exercises, incorporated into lessons over several weeks, which target the inner self, or the truer self, of the students. Regardless of whether the class is an oral communication class or a writing class, the first step in targeting the inner self is through writing because, as Lebra (1976) states, Japanese find their individuality in self-reflection, and proof of one's introspection is usually in some written form, for example, a diary (p.159).
Preparing to Write
As I mentioned above, little emphasis is placed on the technical aspects of poetry. It is important, however, for students to be aware of certain important features such as rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, metaphor, onomatopoeia, similes, and personification. These aspects of language are used more frequently in poetry (of which musical lyrics are a part) than in any other written genre, and they add a rich dimension to the written word. Existing poems can be used to illustrate these resources to the students. Therefore, in the first class where poetry is used, students are asked to bring in poems that they enjoy. I encourage them to bring in poems that they enjoyed in their childhood because I find that this type of enjoyment is innocent and pure, unbiased by what they learn as they grow older (for example, "correct" stanzas, "proper" rhyme). Students write reasons why they enjoy the poems, this being done to reopen the students' appreciation of poetry. Poems need not necessarily be in English, and you will find that the great majority of poems enjoyed by people in their childhood will be in their native language. The purpose of this exercise is to rekindle those feelings of enjoyment in the students. The purpose of the second exercise is to work on the students' senses, the sense of touch, smell, sound, sight and taste. To do this, I begin with the sense of sight. I bring a red apple into the classroom and ask the students to write down the color of the apple without stating that it is red. Students are encouraged to use their other senses to help them. Here are two examples of such sentences:
It is the color of blood.
It is the color I feel after drinking too much.
(In the second sentence, the student has used both the senses of touch and taste.) The same is done with the sense of taste. Students are given, for example, a pickled plum to taste and once again they are requested to write down what it tastes like without actually saying it tastes salty or sour. Here are two examples:
Tastes of the sea.
It tastes like my tears when my boyfriend said good-bye.
This is done with all of the five senses. The purpose is to encourage students to start to think poetically and thus to think expressively, to communicate their ideas not in a static and practical way, but in a deeper, more intense way, thus giving both the writer and the reader a greater awareness of the information being communicated.
The third exercise concentrates on feelings. For this, music is played and students write down what they feel. Initially, responses are often short or limited to adjectives: I feel sad; I feel happy. However, as this exercise progresses I have noticed that students, once comfortable with what they are doing, will write longer phrases. For example, "I'm in a dark room, and it's raining outside" was written by one student to describe the melancholic feelings that a piece of gospel music invoked in her.
Writing the Poem
The final step is for students to write a poem. The aim, once again, is not to develop a classroom of Wordsworths and Shakespeares, but to get students to communicate in a sensuous, emotional, and imaginative way (Perrine, 1977, p.10), thus enriching their language. In an idea borrowed from Poem into Poem (Maley and Moulding, 1992), students are asked to write down memories of their first school, paying particular attention to color, sound, taste, smell, and feelings. Because the students are now used to exploring and expressing the sensory parts of language, this proves to be an easy exercise to do. Depending on the types of students one has, this exercise can be done individually or in very small groups. I find the latter works for students who are still shy about expressing themselves openly. The next step is for the students to write sentences about each area of feeling, and finally to collaborate these sentences into a poem. The following is a result of this exercise. It is an excerpt taken from a poem written by a group of second-year Japanese students majoring in English:
I remember making a journey
Around the elephant mountain
Surrounded with blooming sunflowers
Under the clear blue sky.
Little flying friends chirping
Calling for us to play.
I remember smashing our hands together
Dancing to the tune, singing a melody
Sounds made by our clever teacher's fingers.
Conclusion
I have found that by doing these exercises, students become more aware of the different ways in which they can communicate a range of feelings. Because there is no correct or incorrect way of expressing these feelings, it becomes very personal and allows inhibited students to open up, if not verbally, then through the written language. This exercise can also be taken one step further, where the written poems become the objects of discussion, therefore adding an oral dimension to the exercises. Furthermore, students can be requested to keep a journal in which they record their experiences on a daily or weekly basis. They should be encouraged to use what they have learned from these exercises to be as expressive as possible without inhibition.
I have observed that not only do students enjoy working with poetry, but also, because they are being so expressive, their vocabulary base broadens immensely. Most important of all, their writing ceases to be dull and non-captivating and becomes rich and interesting. As Keith Waterhouse states, writing can either drone or it can sing: "Aim for the singing kind -- writing that has life, rhythm, harmony, style -- and you will never lose your reader" (1994, p.143). Through these exercises, I believe that students are taking one step to achieving this goal.
Prisca Molotsi teaches at Nanzan University and enjoys both creative writing and poetry.
References
Lebra, T.K. (1976). Japanese patterns of behavior. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Maley, A. & Moulding, S. (1992). Poem into poem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Perrine, L. (1977). Sound and sense. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
Waterhouse, K. (1994). English Our English (And how to sing it). London: Penguin Books.
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