Using poetry in EFL speaking classes-A classroom-based study= Yabancı dil olarak ingiizcenin konuşma sınıflarında şiirin kullanılması-Sınıf içi çalışması

Abstract

This thesis explores the language production, interaction, and involvement of students while working on poem-based tasks in a speaking course. The study was conducted at Anadolu University School of Foreign Languages in the spring semester of 2006. The data was collected through students’ audiotaped task completion. The participants in the study were 22 upper-intermediate students and their speaking class teacher. Three different tasks based on four different poems were implemented in the class, and the implementation lasted three weeks. The audiotaped interactions of students were then transcribed by the researcher and analyzed with reference to discourse analysis techniques. The transcripts were analyzed in terms of five aspects, including target language use of students, student interaction, negotiation of meaning, discussion of form and function, and involvement of students. The study demonstrated that students mostly used the target language and that they interacted with each other to complete the tasks, that they mutually negotiated the meaning of their utterances, and talked about the form and function of the language represented in the poems. Finally and overall, it was found that they engaged themselves cognitively as well as affectively in the poems and the tasks.