Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language Through Poetry: From Words to Worlds

Abstract

Communicating effectively in all social contexts requires intercultural communicative competence. Therefore, literature should be integrated in foreign language teaching to develop not only linguistic skills but also critical thinking and the ability to understand other cultures and imagine other ways of life. Poetry provides the pragmatic and creative ways of language use constructed with images and sound. The evaluation of the coursebooks reveals that poetry is not used efficiently and effectively in Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language. After a documentary research, Hess's nine-step formula, a form-based model including both stylistic analysis and reader-response activities suggested by other scientists in the field, has been taken as a model for preparing in-class activities on the poem "Fish and Bread" by Oktay Rifat. The content and language analysis of the poem has firstly been made in order to generate activities to help learners understand figurative language reflecting the world from the viewpoint of another culture.