The Use of Poetry to Raise Intercultural Awareness of EFL Students

Abstract

Learning a new language does not involve learning only the four skills - reading, writing, speaking and listening - grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation of the target language. It is not possible to consider a target language without understanding and appreciation of its culture. CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) highlights the importance of raising intercultural awareness among language learners in order to appreciate and respect the differences between home and target cultures. Literary works are invaluable resources to convey the culture of the target language to students. In this study, poetry was used in language classrooms to foster students’ intercultural awareness. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the use of poetry in EFL classrooms can raise intercultural awareness of the students or not. In this quantitative research, an intercultural awareness instrument was formed and it was applied to the experimental and control groups as pre- and post- test. The results showed teaching poetry in language classrooms improved the intercultural awareness of the students.