| This dissertation deals basically with experiments done with a new method of teaching English poetry in an EFL situation, specifically in a Lebanese high-school. The purpose is to assess whether different teaching methods yield significantly better results, both on the educational and the attitudinal levels.;The dissertation includes a literature review of: Linguistics and literature; linguistics and poetry; Prague School Poetics and other theories of analyzing literary structures; poetry; poetry versus prose, standard and ordinary language; the conventional components and the constituting elements of poetry such as meter, rhyme, alliteration, enjambement, caesura, the sound element, choice, order, and senses of lexical items, and poetic syntax; and finally, linguistics and the teaching of poetry.;The review provided the basis for the analysis of four poems: Shakespeare's sonnets "18" and "116", Wordsworth's sonnet "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge", and Ben Jonson's lyric "To Celia". Each analysis has six sections: An analysis of the sounds employed; the lexical items; the adjectival phrase constructions; the sentence structures; the figures of speech; and finally, the poem as cohesive discourse.;The analysis provided the basis for planning teaching exercises of the corresponding poems, which prepared seventy one students for the reading of the poems by delaying the confrontation between the students and the original texts until the students have dealt with the linguistic nuances of each poem gradually and progressively. The students were organized into two groups, and the new method was applied in "rotation" with the method normally applied. Each lesson is divided into four sections: The vocabulary; the adjectival phrase constructions; the sentence structures; and a simplified, normalized version of the text.;The teaching of poetry, particularly to EFL students, has always been quite a difficult task. The research done in TEFL barely touches on literature.;Along with the exercises, four questionnaires were distributed to the teachers and the students to assess attitude toward: Format and content of the syllabus; school subjects; classes of poetry; teaching methods; etc.;The results showed an improvement in the scores of the students, and a positive change in their attitude toward poetry. |
