Poetry practices in the ELT classroom

This paper addresses the role of literature in language education by asking two research questions: What purposes does poetry serve in the ELT (English language teaching) classroom in Norway today? And what are the implications of current teaching practices for ELT teacher education?

Our study presents data collected from 150 teachers attending in-service courses in English. They reported on whether they use poetry in their classrooms, and why (or why not). They also responded to questions about how they find and choose poems, and to what purposes they put them in the ELT classroom. All the teachers have recent experience of teaching English in classes ranging from Year 1 to Year 10 in the Norwegian state school system. This allows the researchers to make tentative generalisations about the extent to which poetry is used in the ELT classroom, and the functions which it is required to serve, as well as the affordances and limitations that teachers encounter in working with poetry. The paper includes a discussion of the implications of these findings for teacher education.