Question

It is of great importance for students to be able to get a feel for the rhythm and sounds of a poem---more so than for most pieces of prose (散文). This isn’t always easy in a second language, and so listening to their teacher read the poem, or to a professional recording, perhaps by the poet or by an actor, is, I feel, necessary.

As with any listening activity, students will need some kind of preparation and task so that they can be actively engaged. They might be asked to check predictions that arose from a warm-up discussion, to compare their suggested rhyming couplets with the poet’s, or to identify stressed words and syllables.

You might also want to get your students to listen to recorded or live discussions about poems. This can, for example, take the form of a couple of teachers or a group of students giving their views on a poem, or even an interview with the poet.

I’m a big fan of jigsaw listening because of the natural information gap. If your school has the facilities, you might like to:

divide your students into two, or even three groups

give each group a different cassette or CD and tasks to work on

then they come back together to share what they have learned.

Remember that your own enthusiasm is a key factor in any activity relating to literature in the classroom.

Finally, don’t forget to encourage art for art’s sake. Listening for pleasure, to poetry (or to anything else, for that matter), is to be fostered at every opportunity, because of the obvious benefits which include motivation, vocabulary acquisition and learner independence. Many good song lyrics (歌詞) could be termed poetry and treated accordingly in the classroom, copyright rules permitting.

1. Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A. An English student will have difficulty understanding Li Bai’s poems.

B. an English student will have some difficulty understanding Walt Whitman.

C. A Chinese student will have some difficulty understanding Du Fu’s works.

D. An American student will have some difficulty understanding William Shakespeare.

2.What kind of preparations should the students do in the listening activity？

a. They’d better predict what the poem is about.

b. They’d better have a warm-up discussion.

c. They will share their own works with their classmates

d. They should know the stressed words.

e. They should make clear the stressed syllables.

f. They should first go to an actor.

A. abcf B. abde C. cdef D. bcdf

3.Who do you think is this passage written for?

A. The students. B. The poets.

C. The teachers. D. The readers.

4.What’s the main idea of the passage?

A. How to use poems to develop the students’ skills.

B. Listening to poem is more difficult than reading prose.

C. The schools should encourage the students to study poems.

D. Preparations should be done before teaching.

Answer 1