Abstract:

The study concerns using poetry recitation as an interrogative and creative means for developing linguistic and cognitive skills in second language learners.
Every year foreign language learners (FLL) at South Urals State University (SUSU) have a chance to participate in Poetry Recitation Contest organized by the Department of Foreign languages. The aim of this competition is to encourage FLL to use foreign languages through meaning, music and the linguistic styles of poetry.

The educational value of the poetry recitation contest for FLL falls within the scope of cognitive, linguistic, cross-cultural and social aspects of foreign language teaching (FLT). Firstly, poetry recitation greatly influences the way of learners’ thinking and their cognitive skills, in general. Cognitive skills affected by the creative attitude to learning process stimulate mental processing in a new way. To be more exact, creative thinking is characterized by flexibility, inventiveness, ingenuity, logic, and independence which result in suggesting new decision-making approaches.

Poetry also offers wonderful opportunities for developing productive and receptive language skills through reading, writing, speaking, and listening practice for FLL. Then it gives the chance to expand vocabulary knowledge, to practice pronunciation and fluency. Playing with the different rhythm and rhyme patterns, getting familiar with expressive means of the language such as tropes and figures of speech makes learners feel more confident and competent. All this stirs student’s internal motivation to foreign languages learning.

Moreover, working with poetry from different countries and languages is an excellent opportunity to encourage students to share cultural heritage, therefore may be useful in developing learners’ cultural competency.

Poetry recitation is helpful for students to practice natural language and raise their social ability. As any other public speaking activity, it demands nurturing plenty of personal qualities such as self-control, concentration, mental alertness, self-confidence, imagination, good memory, deliberateness and many others.

The article discusses poetry recitation role in developing FLL skills, describes the procedure of contest organization at SUSU and the primary results achieved.

Keywords:

Poetry recitation, foreign language teaching, cognitive skills, linguistic skills.