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Part of
Scientific Approaches to Literature in Learning Environments
Edited by Michael Burke, Olivia Fialho and Sonia Zyngier
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 24] 2016
► pp. 151–168

Chapter 8. Of learning and poetics

Exploring strategies used by L2 Japanese English learners

| Prefectural University of Hiroshima

This chapter examines the reading strategies of Japanese university-level learners of English with limited experience of reading poetry in English. The aim is to corroborate teaching procedures from the viewpoint of their textual interpretation procedures. To this purpose, data were collected while they were reading Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1923) by asking them to report on the textual features they noticed when trying to construct textual meanings. Results revealed ten reading strategies, classified into three groups: (1) application of strategies acquired through reading expository texts, (2) examination of repetitive expressions, and (3) reference to semantic intuition and explicit knowledge of English. The main features of poetry reading processes performed by the participants of the study are summarized. The chapter concludes by offering suggestions for effective poetry teaching.

Keywords: genrespecific reading, literary language, poetry instruction for EFL, poetry reading processes in L2
Published online: 22 July 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.24.08nis
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McIlroy, Tara
2019. EFL Learners Reading and Discussing Poems in English. In Literature, Spoken Language and Speaking Skills in Second Language Learning, ► pp. 151 ff. DOI logo
Nishihara, Takayuki
2022. EFL learners’ reading traits for lexically easy short poetry. Cogent Education 9:1 DOI logo

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