On The Appreciation And Interactive Teaching Of English Poetry

As the essence and one important form of English literature, English poetry transmits time and space, material and spirit, sense and sensibility of one country in the most concisely way. It is a world rich in social life and art's connotation, the readers are frequently enthralled by the beauty and harmony of the poetic language. Consequently, when someone wants to study English literature, he is bound to pay special attention to English poetry with great enthusiasm. A good appreciation on it will not only enhance students language ability and gain authentic enjoyment but also improve their overall qualities. Thus, English poetry appreciation and teaching is of great value.This thesis explores the application of interactive approach in English poetry appreciation and teaching. There have been a lot of researches on poetry appreciation and teaching, but the former researches mainly focus on "teacher- centered" rather than "student -centered". The interest and active participation of students are not given enough attention to. The study aims to, on one hand, change the traditional poetry teaching pattern which is insufficient in improving students" appreciative and communicative competence; on the other hand, provoke an intense interest of students in poetry learning.This thesis is composed of four chapters apart from introduction and conclusion. Structurally, it can be equally divided into two parts as follows: English poetry appreciation and interactive teaching of English poetry.Chapter one briefly defines English poetry as "...literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound and rhyme." (The New Encyclopedia Britannica. Vol. 9). English poetry functions as information communication, understanding and participating in life together with spiritual impoverishment and pleasure. English poetry can also be characterized generally by its musicality, condensation and multi-dimension, etc.Chapter two discusses the way to appreciate English poetry on its three aspects—language, form and theme aspect. Regarding language aspect, the great poets often pick important words with care and employ much figurative language such as imagery, metaphor and symbol, etc. to create powerful effects when creating poetry. On form aspect, because one of the characteristics of poetry is musicality, therefore, the students must familiarize themselves with the pattern of sound like alliteration, assonance, consonance, as well as the rhythmical movement and stanzas of the language to appreciate the rhythmical beauty together with the musical effect of thepoetry. About theme aspect, the theme of a great poem is by no means isolated from others, but derived from the social background and personal experience. Generally speaking, there are two basic elements affecting the theme of the great poems greatly: personal experience and social background. Love and friendship is an everlasting constant subject theme which involves the attitude toward life and the evaluation of human life experience: political-oriented intention is another common theme by reflecting such as social background, social environment, and social influence and so on.Chapter three fully summarizes seven significance of English poetry teaching in classroom as follows: contribution to language understanding; cultural enrichment: its understanding history and society of target culture; fostering students imaginative ability; cultivating optimistic life attitude, improving writing skill and promoting moral education, etc. Chapter four explores the application of interactive approach in English poetry appreciation and teaching. Firstly, besides class observation and interview, the author designs two questionnaires concerning students' interest in poetry learning to analyze the current situation of poetry teaching. Secondly, the author proposes interactive approach based on interactive theory in poetry teaching, emphasizing the students' active participation with the hope to arouse students' interest along with foster their communicative competence. Thirdly, by combing skillfully some effective interactive techniques like information gap, brainstorming, simulation, role-play and interview with four classroom teaching process (i.e. lead-in, first encounter, further exploitation and follow-up), the teacher can conduct teaching in a scientific and smooth way. Finally, questionnaire on verifying the validity of interactive approach in poetry teaching, class observation and interviews show that most students, after one-semester poetry learning by interactive teaching approach, become more and more interested in poetry, what's more, they show great enthusiasm for further poetry learning. The teaching effect proves to be quite satisfactory and acceptable.In conclusion, the author summarizes the whole thesis and intends to explore English poetry appreciation and interactive teaching in a new perspective, aims to fill such a gap in our knowledge of poetry teaching by focusing on students' interest and actively participating in poetry teaching. As a result, it can inevitably offer some hints to language teachers and their teaching. At the same time, the author points out that this research is only a tentative one and some limitations are inevitable. The author hopes to bring more attention from learners and teachers to this topic.