ИСТИНА

When the poem has been introduced to the students and the necessary commentary on its cultural context and semantic peculiarities has been provided, the task is to offer the learners such exercises that stimulate their thinking on the ideas, images, and, the overall message of the text. My experience of teaching English to young adults with the levels of proficiency in English of upper-intermediate and higher shows that the traditional approach of asking the students to comment on the content, structure, language, and imagery of the poem, used for native speakers at literature courses, rarely works. For foreign language students such exercises are preferable that gradually lead them to the same goals, exploring the vocabulary and stylistic peculiarities of the text in greater detail. Examples include time-lines for narrative poems and imagery mind maps for elegiac ones. Follow-up activities should be devised to facilitate the appreciation of the poem and utilise its features in improving the students’ language proficiency. For instance, it proves quite effective to ask the students to compare two poems, which makes them go back to previous texts, stimulating revision. Moreover, such tasks develop the skills of interpretation of the texts, required in a variety of tests. In the evaluation of student’s work, they should be rewarded for perceptive thought, individual appreciation, and varying interpretations. Peer evaluation proves helpful as well. Such after-text exercises and follow-up activities help students to enjoy the poems more, which by itself opens up their creativity and insight.