Targeting communicative competence through poetry as a tool

Abstract

Communication is the process of establishing a connection between two points of information exchange. It is essential to everyone for giving and receiving information when they communicate their ideas. Communication skills are necessary for the development of self-advocacy and self-determination. It is one of the essential components of the foundation of the personality. The role of literature and the source of authentic texts of the language curriculum have been gaining in recent years. There has been a hot debate among language learners as to how, when, where, and why literature should be incorporated in the ESL curriculum. Reasons for using literary texts in second language classroom and main criteria for selecting suitable literary texts in second language classes are stressed so as to make the reader familiar with the underlying reasons and criteria for language teachers’ using and selecting literary texts. Learning poetry is extremely helpful for a learner to grasp the rhythmic aspect of the language. Poetry serves not only a model of literature but also a model for teaching skills of language such as reading and writing. Poetry is an effective way of language teaching. The student can easily relate structures and themes with the help of poetry. Moreover, it promotes the students to learn new words and different literary terms. This paper focuses on how communication skills can be improved through listening to poetry. Learning literature provides a platform to improve student’s communication skills. When the students read poetry, it improves their vocabulary, sentence, syntax, fluency and the creative skills. Teaching poetry is also interesting as far as teacher’s point of view is concerned. Learning poetry helps the students to enhance their fluency.