(PDF) Bridging Perceptions and Performan

(PDF) Bridging Perceptions and Performance: EFL Teacher-trainees' Metaphor Recognition and Vocabulary Recall Through Poetry
Academia.edu uses cookies to personalize content, tailor ads and improve the user experience.
By using our site, you agree to our collection of information through the use of cookies.
To learn more, view our
Privacy Policy.
About
Press
Papers
We're Hiring!
Outline
Title
Abstract
Introduction
Research Method and Tools
Research Questions
Study Results
Results of the Questionnaire
Discourse Analysis of the Metaphors
Results of the Test
Discussion of the Findings and Conclusion
References
Bridging Perceptions and Performance: EFL Teacher-trainees' Metaphor Recognition and Vocabulary Recall Through Poetry
Hamada Hacene
2025, Bridging Perceptions and Performance: EFL Teacher-trainees' Metaphor Recognition and Vocabulary Recall Through Poetry
visibility
description
18 pages
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
check
Get notified about relevant papers
check
Save papers to use in your research
check
Join the discussion with peers
check
Track your impact
Abstract
This study focuses on examining the alignment between EFL teacher trainees perceived and actual competence in metaphor recognition and vocabulary recall through poetry within British and American Literature subject matter at Ecole Normale Supérieure of Constantine (ENSC), Algeria. It seeks to understand how 73 third year EFL teacher-trainees at ENSC perceive the pedagogical role of poetry, how they evaluate their own metaphorical and lexical abilities, explore their capacity in creating and explaining metaphors, and test whether their perceptions mirror their real performance. The research follows a convergent mixed method approach in which both qualitative and quantitative data have been collected through a semi structured questionnaire and a performance based test. The questionnaire results revealed that the majority of participants showed a positive attitude towards poetry and they reported that studying it has improved their vocabulary recall. Besides, they claimed that their metaphorical competence is average to good. Furthermore, the findings of the test implied that the most participants are good at recognizing, creating, and explaining metaphors; however, their vocabulary retention emerged as a relative area of a challenge unlike their self-reported perceptions. The significance of this study lies in bridging perceptions based and performance based assessment as it provides insights into the link between the students' beliefs and their actual performance. The findings suggest reflective practices and pedagogical implementation that support poetry education in order to enhance teacher-trainees' confidence and competence in teaching literature and poetry.
Related papers
Metaphor in Students’ English Poems: A Psycholinguistic Analysis
Adriansyah A Katili
Jambura Journal of English Teaching and Literature, 2021
This research is aimed at finding how the students of English Department of State University of Gorontalo perceive the thing as revealed in the metaphor they used in their English Poem and, as well, interpreting the metaphor. This research was designed in qualitative research methodology. The subject of research was the poems written by the students in 2010. It is found that the students used metaphor to express their feeling. The metaphor reflects the students’ perception of the reality categorized in semantic fields. In terms of the intended meaning of the metaphor, the researcher inferred the meaning by finding the metaphor predications based on the researcher knowledge of the predication.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
EFL Teachers' Perception about Metaphor-Based Teaching
Youness Boussaid
nternational Journal of English Language Teaching, 2023
Despite the myriad of research in the advantages of utilizing conceptual metaphor in teaching and learning languages, no research was conducted to survey the perception of teachers about metaphor-based teaching. This study attempts to fill this gap by examining how this innovative pedagogic application has been perceived and the extent to which it has been applied and received in the teachers' community worldwide. A questionnaire was administered and collected date from 255 EFL teachers worldwide. The results show that conceptual fluency is perceived as the least important language aspect by teachers despite the very multitude of research that demonstrate its essentialness in attaining fluency. The correlation between the teachers' years of experience and perception about teaching conceptual metaphor is statistically insignificant (r= 0.02, p= 0.72). The findings support the need to rethink teacher education, redirecting teachers' further teaching efforts to integrating the overlooked role of metaphor-based teaching which is not wholly recognized in language classrooms.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Measuring Metaphors : A Factor Analysis of Students ’ Conceptions of Language Teachers
Larisa Nikitina
2008
Research studies in the fields of general education and language pedagogy recognize the importance of metaphor as a research tool. Metaphors can help teachers articulate and construct their professional experiences (Kramsch, 2003) and ameliorate the classroom practice (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999). The majority of the previous studies that employed metaphors focused on the teacher-produced images and adopted a qualitative approach to metaphor analysis. The present study departs from this format. It focuses on the studentgenerated metaphors about language teachers and employs a quantitative analysis to examine the dimensions around which these metaphors align. A questionnaire containing metaphors about language teachers was distributed to 98 students at Universiti Malaysia Sabah. Factor analysis was employed as a research technique to identify the dimensions along which the students’ perceptions aligned. The findings of the present paper lend support to the previous attempts at metaphor tax...
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Hope is the thing with metaphors: de-situating literacies and learning in English Language Arts classrooms, Language and Education, Vol. 26, No. 1, January 2012, 35–51
Daniela Torres Torretti
orlando carreon
In this article, we examine the relationship between classroom talk, teacher–student roles and paradigms for literacy and learning in two ninth-grade English Language Arts classes. Our goal was to understand how these roles and practices socialized students into norms for academic language and literacy as they read and wrote poetry in preparation for a high-stakes standardized essay. Drawing from social and critical approaches to literacy, we describe how a policy-driven narrowing of the curriculum also narrowed conceptions of literacy and knowledge. Differences in the treatment of students’ poems versus the Dickinson poem positioned students as unable to co- construct knowledge. The high-stakes essay, not yet assigned, drove almost all discourse about text, meaning and legitimate knowledge, essentially ‘de-situating’ literacy from the tasks and immediate context and prioritizing technical skills over communicative purposes. Implications for research, teaching and students’ development of academic language and literacy address the tension between meaningful literacy instruction and accountability demands of contemporary classrooms.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
A Study of the Learners Metaphorical Perceptions of Literary Genres
Aynur Kesen
Mediterranean Journal of Humanities, 2016
The perception of language has been studied from various aspects to date, whereas how students perceive literature remains today a less researched area. The quantity of qualitative research concerning the perception of literature needs to be increased. The present study aims to fill this gap by exploring students' perception in respect to the concept of literary genres through the use of metaphor as they reflect the way we perceive the world and shape our professional ideas and attitudes. In addition, the study investigates whether there is a difference in perceptions between junior and senior learners in regard to their perception of literary genres. The study participants were 58 first and 43 fourth grade ELL students enrolled in İstanbul University, Turkey. The data were collected through the use of semi structured interviews, multiple-choice questionnaire and metaphor elicitation papers. The metaphors of literary genres exhibited both the positive and negative perceptions of the learners. The Ring, Narnia, detergent concentrate, veritaserum ('iksir' in Turkish) and pomegranate were some of the unique positive metaphors of the learners. Some metaphors seem to be negative such as Pandora's Box, dark hole, ivy and labyrinth.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Metaphorical Perceptions of High School Students about the Literature Course
Vafa SAVAŞKAN
Shanlax International Journal of Education, 2022
We aimed to determine high school student perceptions about the literature course based on metaphors. We conducted the study with the phenomenology model, a qualitative research method. The study group included 137 students (57 female and 80 male students) attending ninth to twelfth grades at four public high schools in Sinop province in Turkey. Fourty-six students were 9th graders, 40 were 10th graders, 32 were 11th graders, and 19 were 12th graders. The study data were collected with the phrase “Literature course…. Is like…, because,…” completed by the participants. Descriptive analysis was conducted on the study data. Data analysis included elimination and selection, naming, category development, validity and reliability phases. The study findings demonstrated that 137 high school students came up with 126 metaphors. Fifty-four metaphors were produced by female students and 72 by male students. These metaphors included life (f12), poetry (f4), death (f2), art (f3), book (f7), dictionary (f4), sun (f3). Twenty-four metaphors were produced by the 9th graders, 30 by the 10th graders, 27 by the 11th graders, and 15 by the 12th graders. In conclusion, although certain metaphors were negative, the majority of the metaphors were positive.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Teaching Idiom and Metaphor via Poetry in the Chinese EFL Classroom
Kevin Kilroy
2015
The use of poetry is discussed as a vehicle for teaching concepts of idiom and metaphor to EFL students. It is difficult for any learning non-native speaker to understand idiom and metaphor, and the specific difficulties inherent in translating from Chinese to English, and vice-versa, make it such that many students rely on searching for one-to-one correspondences between unfamiliar English words and the familiar Chinese. Students often resort to working through new texts via literal translation, leaving them with an incomplete understanding of words in context. Poetic diction by nature pushes the boundaries of linguistic capability. Therefore, we argue that close reading of poetry in the EFL classroom helps students gain a more nuanced understanding of the English language. It is our belief that doing so is the best way for students to hone these skills, and thus move from a surface, rudimentary proficiency in English to a more fluent, nuanced, pragmatic understanding of the linguistic subtleties necessary to understand all varieties of academic texts, literary or otherwise.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
The difficulties hindering EFL teachers from using metaphor-based teaching
Youness Boussaid
Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2024
This paper aims to assess the knowledge of metaphor-based teaching among teachers by investigate the obstacles that hinder them from incorporating metaphor-based teaching into their instructional strategies. This study makes use of a questionnaire to collect data from EFL teachers worldwide. The results show that the difficulties most faced by teachers when using metaphor-based teaching include the unsuitability of the topic, the difficulty of the topic, the unavailability of materials, time constraints, extra workload, and metaphor-based teaching not fitting students' expectations and needs. The research also touches on some countermeasures to deal with the difficulties teachers face when using metaphor-based approach. The results indicate the importance of reevaluating teacher training programs and refocusing teachers' instructional efforts on incorporating metaphor-based teaching, which is often overlooked and not fully acknowledged in language classrooms.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Teaching Writing Literary Prose through Metaphor Analysis
Abdul Baseer
2012
When we look at a literary text, we expect it to be deviant in various ways: phonological, lexical, syntactic and semantic. Semantic deviation is the most prominent feature of a mature literary text. Study of metaphors can be very helpful in understanding semantic deviation of a text. This research article is a study of how metaphor-analysis can be employed in the teaching of a literary text to facilitate the learners to know how a text says more than it seems to say. To transform the teaching of literature from a dull one way traffic from teacher to student, approaching literature through language is of utmost importance as it provides an occasion for active involvement on the part of both the teacher and the student. Especially, teaching or reading literary prose demands doing something more than summarization of the themes. This paper develops a strategy to work on a text of literary prose through metaphor analysis in group work in a class room activity. Metaphor analysis helps t...
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
The metaphors in picture and language: the integration of poetry and visual arts for the development of creativity to students of primary education
Anastasia Fakidou
Proceedings OMEP-EUROPEAN REGIONAL CONFERENCE 2011 “Perspectives of Creativity and Learning in Early Childhood", 2011
The aim of the study is the development of student's creativity through the integrated study of image metaphors in poetry and visual metaphors in painting. The creativity's characteristics are innovative ideas, divergent thought, the ability to investigate new relations and combinations, to compose elements apparently unrelated in coherent unities. Metaphor as thought -not as linguistic decorative expression- is based on reality's conceptualizations, constitutes cross-domain mappings, concretizes abstract and unknown concepts by conjunction to concrete and well-known. Inducts to abstract thought and exploits analogical reasoning. Creativity in arts emerges at the intersection of analogical and logical thinking and is connected to the metaphor. In Arts Education the teaching of metaphors is fundamental since the metaphors are inherent components of imagination which is associated to the artistic creativity. The research question is if the integrated study of the structure of image-metaphors in poetry and visual metaphors in painting effects positively the students' creativity as it can manifests to their own visual artwork and to the literary text that refers to their visual artwork. The theoretical context is based on theories of metaphor according to Lakoff, Johnson & Turner, constructivism, cognitive flexibility, Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reading and the suggestions for arts integration according to literature review. The paper presents the teaching practices and the results from the action research to a sample of 14 students in Grade 4 of primary education. The educational resources were J. Ritsos' poetry collections, R. Magritte's paintings (digital reproductions), H. Michaux's poetry related to particular Magritte's artworks. The intervention involved 4 units and lasted 9 hours. The collected data were field notes and students portfolios. The students visual artwork and the related literary texts have been assessed by the "Torrance Test of Creative Thinking-Thinking Creatively with Picture" criteria. The results were positive. The students (a) understood in depth the metaphor's function in poetry and imagery, (b) utilized visual and/or verbal metaphors in their artworks, and created innovative correlations avoiding the conventional representations, (c) exploited and transformed metaphors (poetic and visuals) from the artists they had studied in their artwork, according to their interests and dispositions, (d) created multimodal artworks which the image and the text interacted to communicate the meaning.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
FORUM DE L’ENSEIGNANT

THE TEACHER’S FORUM

‫منتدى األستاذ‬

Volume: 21, N°: 01, December 2025, Page: 931 -948
‫ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬

Bridging Perceptions and Performance: EFL Teacher-trainees'
Metaphor Recognition and Vocabulary Recall Through Poetry

Abir MOUAT1,  Hacene HAMADA2
Ecole Normal Supérieure El Katiba Assia Djebbar Constantine (Algeria),
[email protected]
Research in English Language Teacher Education Laboratory
Ecole Normal Supérieure El Katiba Assia Djebbar Constantine (Algeria),
[email protected]
Research in English Language Teacher Education Laboratory

Received: 31/08/ 2025
Keywords:
EFL,
poetry, metaphors,
vocabulary,
Perception.

Accepted: 27/12/2025

ABSTRACT:
This study focuses on examining the alignment between EFL teacher trainees
perceived and actual competence in metaphor recognition and vocabulary recall
through poetry within British and American Literature subject matter at Ecole
Normale Supérieure of Constantine (ENSC), Algeria. It seeks to understand how 73
third year EFL teacher-trainees at ENSC perceive the pedagogical role of poetry, how
they evaluate their own metaphorical and lexical abilities, explore their capacity in
creating and explaining metaphors, and test whether their perceptions mirror their real
performance. The research follows a convergent mixed method approach in which
both qualitative and quantitative data have been collected through a semi structured
questionnaire and a performance based test. The questionnaire results revealed that
the majority of participants showed a positive attitude towards poetry and they
reported that studying it has improved their vocabulary recall. Besides, they claimed
that their metaphorical competence is average to good. Furthermore, the findings of
the test implied that the most participants are good at recognizing, creating, and
explaining metaphors; however, their vocabulary retention emerged as a relative area
of a challenge unlike their self-reported perceptions. The significance of this study
lies in bridging perceptions based and performance based assessment as it provides
insights into the link between the students’ beliefs and their actual performance. The
findings suggest reflective practices and pedagogical implementation that support
poetry education in order to enhance teacher-trainees’ confidence and competence in
teaching literature and poetry.

Abir MOUAT

Higher Education College For Teachers Assia Djebbar - Constantine - 2025

Abir MOUAT / Hacene HAMADA

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Introduction
Nowadays, teaching literature in language classrooms is of a paramount
importance; however, in the past few decades, literature was excluded in such
classes for a variety of reasons (Carter & Long, 1991; Hossain, 2024; Sävmark,
2025). Some linguists like Topping argue that literature does not follow
grammatical rules and has a complex structure; therefore, it is better not to
include it within foreign language teaching curricula (Topping, 1968). Since
literary texts follow a complicated structure and break many grammatical rules
especially in poems, many scholars believe that it should not be taught to all
grades. According to Turker, intermediate students can be frustrated when
dealing with literary texts because they might be able to comprehend, yet
providing responses may be challenging for them (Turker, 1991). Moreover,
according to Peskin (et al., 2010), poetry should be neglected from foreign
language teaching because it is most likely to be difficult for both teachers and
students. In the Algerian context, similar challenges have been uncovered by
research such as the one conducted by Kheladi (2021). According to this
scholar, literature teachers tend to rely on traditional lecturing practices due to
limited training, lack of preparation, and uncertainty about how to implement
learner centered approach.
Despite the beliefs of these scholars, many researchers have acknowledged
the importance of teaching literature especially poetry in EFL settings. For
example, Pike (2000) conducted a research that tested the effectiveness of
reading a huge number of poems on foreign language students’ performance.
As a result, students were motivated as they wanted to read more poetry works.
The results of this study indicate that reading poetry is interesting to such kind
of learners. According to Finch (2003), language learners find dealing with such
genre very enjoyable. Since poetry is considered to be one of the authentic
materials utilized in foreign language classrooms, it carries within its lines not
only the beliefs of the poet, but also the culture of his/her entire nation.
Therefore, diving in themes and background information related to various
poems significantly enhances EFL learners’ cultural awareness (Gönen, 2018).
In the same research perspective, Naylor (2013, p-34) revealed that studying
poetry in the target language enables EFL learners to deeply comprehend the
language used by poets especially figurative language. Last but not least, even
though some teachers prefer not to include literary texts, especially poems, in
the EFL curriculum, several researches indicate that this particular genre can be

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

932

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Bridging Perceptions and Performance: EFL Teacher-trainees' Metaphor Recognition
and Vocabulary Recall Through Poetry
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

very beneficial in English language classrooms (Pike, 2000; Finch, 2003;
Gönen, 2018; Naylor, 2013).
Since introducing literature including poetry to EFL learners can significantly
enhance their language proficiency, normally, teacher-trainees are able to teach
this genre to their future students who are supposed to comprehend figurative
language embedded in poems especially metaphors as well as enrich their
vocabulary repertoire through acquiring new words from the studied poems.
However, in contextual teaching and learning situations both EFL teachers and
students face a lot of challenges when dealing with literature, poetry and new
vocabulary items. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate the teacher-trainees’
perceptions of teaching and learning literary, to test their ability to determine
and explain metaphorical expressions and their vocabulary retention. Therefore,
the current study aims at achieving the following points:
 Highlighting ENSC teacher-trainees’ perceptions towards studying
literature;
 Highlighting their attitudes towards teaching and learning poetry;
 Shedding light on their self-reported ability to understand metaphors;
 Exploring their ability to create and explain metaphors
 Uncovering whether teacher-trainees believe they have acquired new
vocabulary from poems studied in class;
 Comparing their beliefs about their metaphorical and lexical competence
with their actual performance.
1. Theoretical framework
Poetry is one of the most beneficial literary genres that can be utilized as an
authentic material to teach foreign languages. However, given its impact on
language learning perception and emotion, poetry has been defined by a variety
of scholars and poets such as Nemerov who believes that poems are a type of
“literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a
specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its
meaning, sound, and rhythm” (Nemerov, 2019, p. 1); and Wordsworth who
described it as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings (Wordsworth,
1802, 2004). Thus, poetry is a text that promotes the emotional expressions and
imaginative thoughts written in a certain pattern using a specific language.
Pierce (2003) summarized the characteristics of poetry through advocating that
the typical poem should include meter, imagery, rhyme and figurative language.
Besides, figurative language expressions are widely used in poetry including

The Teacher’s Forum

933

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Abir MOUAT / Hacene HAMADA

metaphors. Metaphorical expressions are considered as one of the key elements
that give poems their artistic touch as they enable the poet to convey abstract
ideas and feelings through concrete and imaginative comparisons (Gibbs,
2017).
According to Ketaren and Pakpahan, “metaphor is a figurative language that
transfers meaning to analogize a concept with another concept that has the same
content or value” (Ketaren & Pakpahan, 2021, p. 470). The definition implies
that metaphors can be formed through comparing two items that share a mutual
feature. A famous example of this figure of speech in English literature is when
Romeo describes Juliet saying; “Juliet is the sun”. Shakespeare used this
comparison to show how beautiful Juliet was. Besides being a figure of speech,
metaphors can likewise be utilized as a research tool to identify the perceptions
of the case under research. According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980) as cited by
Ekiz and Kesen Mutlu, “metaphors not only make our thoughts more vivid and
interesting but they actually structure our perceptions and understanding” (Ekiz
& Kesen Mutlu, 2016, p. 156). Even though there are a lot of scholars in the
field of foreign language education who used metaphorical perceptions as a
reflective tool of their research, limited studies were conducted with this tool to
investigate the perceptions of foreign language students on learning and
teaching poetry in Algeria.
Ekiz and Kesen Mutlu (2016) conducted a research in turkey where they used
metaphors to highlight EFL learners’ attitudes towards different literary genres
including poetry. The majority of students showed positive views as they
answered; “Poetry is like art” or “Poetry is like an illumination”. However,
some students perceived it as a headache or a puzzle, etc. Moreover, when these
scholars conducted a survey, they figured out that poetry was selected by the
majority of participants as the most challenging genre to be read or analyzed.
Another related study was conducted in the same country by Kayman and
Elkatmiş in 2023. The poetry perceptions of middle school pupils were
investigated using metaphors. The results revealed that all of the investigated
case had a positive attitude towards this literary genre. Moreover, a similar
investigation was conducted in Sweden on the attitudes of both EFL teachers
and students (Mellgren, 2022) where data collection consisted of semi
structured interviews. This study outcomes indicated that both teachers and
students understand how valuable and beneficial poetry is in an EFL setting.
Teaching poetry effectively in foreign language education is a very
interesting way to motivate students and make them go beyond what is written

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

934

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

to understand between the lines. Therefore, they will gain a lot of new lexicons
to add to their vocabulary repertoire. According to Sarıçoban (2004), poems
follow a rhythmic and repetitive pattern which allow EFL students to remember
new lexicons. Furthermore, some other studies propose that when students
engage emotionally with poems, there will be a higher chance of them acquiring
new words successfully (Tseng & Schmitt, 2008; Lazar, 1996). Based on what
has been suggested, Ali (2019) conducted an experiment in which he compared
students who learn vocabulary though poetry based instructions and learners
studying English vocabulary through drills. The results of his investigation
reveal that the experimental group shows better results than the control group.
Since poetry plays with words and shows various contexts to lexical items, it
enhances the comprehension of EFL learners to synonymy and polysemy
(McCarthy, 1990). In sum, we can say that the integration of literature,
especially poetry, is an effective way to boost EFL learners’ vocabulary
competence in the EFL context.
Furthermore, metaphorical perceptions can be classified into various kinds
such as cognitive stimulation, emotional engagement and expression, and
artistic appreciation. Various studies conducted using this research instrument
on both teachers and students revealed that many participants consider poetry
to be a mental activity such as, “poetry is like chess” (Ekiz & Kessen Mutlu,
2016; Martinez et al.,2001). According to the same studies, this kind of
metaphors implies that the focus of participants might be on analysis,
interpretation, and problem solving. Furthermore, other studies confirmed that
a lot of pupils and pre-service teachers created metaphors such as “poetry is like
pleasure”, or “poetry is like deep emotions” as a reflection on how it made them
feel (Kayman & Elkatmiş, 2023; Mellgren, 2022). Additionally, poetry
metaphorical perceptions can likewise be viewed as an art through the lens of
metaphorical perception. An investigation conducted by Martinez, Sauleda, and
Huber in 2001indicates that EFL learners created metaphors that emphasize the
aesthetic value of the poetic language such as comparing poetry to “art” or
“song”. Moreover, the three categories vary depending on many factors such as
age, context and experience. For example, both teachers and pre-service
teachers are more likely to create cognitive metaphors; whereas, pupils tend to
produce emotional and artistic metaphors (Kayman & Elkatmiş, 2023). Last but
not least, the significance of this kind of classification lies in its contribution in
revealing perceptions of learners and shaping an effective metaphorical lesson
that covers all three categories.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

935

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Abir MOUAT / Hacene HAMADA

2. Research method and tools
Although various investigations have been conducted in the field of EFL
teaching and learning, studies related to literature and poetry are still relatively
scarce. Therefore, the current exploratory research employed a convergent
mixed-method design in an attempt to shed light on some aspects related to this
discipline. It aims at understanding how teacher-trainees at ENSC perceive the
pedagogical role of literature and poetry, how they evaluate their own
metaphorical and lexical abilities, exploring their ability to create and explain
metaphors, and testing whether their perceptions reflect their real performance.
In an attempt to achieve these aims, two various research tools were
administered to 73 third year EFL teacher-trainees at ENSC. The tools were a
questionnaire and a survey. Moreover, the study revealed significant outcomes
related to literature and poetry education which are all discussed in the
following sections.
2.1. Research Questions
Based on what has been mentioned above, the following research questions
have been raised:
 How do third year EFL teacher trainees at ENS Constantine perceive and
engage with literature, particularly poetry, in relation to their understanding and
use of metaphors and vocabulary?
2.2. Sample Population and Research Tools
In an attempt to answer the previously asked research questions, seventythree third year EFL teacher-trainees at ENSC (of the academic year 20242025) have been put under a qualitative and quantitative study. The data in this
exploratory investigation have been collected through a variety of research
instruments. i.e., mixed method. A carefully designed online questionnaire was
distributed to the sample in order to collect their attitude, views and perceptions
concerning literature, poetry and vocabulary acquisition, and explore their
ability to create and explain metaphors (see Appendix 1). However, depending
on only questionnaire to collect data may not show the real competence of the
sample. Therefore, participants were given a test in order to shed light on the
similarities as well as differences between their perceptions and their
performance (see Appendix 2). The test was drafted based on a corpus analysis
of various lesson plans of the third year British and American Literature
syllabus. The test was designed after conducting the corpus analysis study and
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

936

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

extracting metaphorical expressions and lexical items included in the studied
poetry texts. It includes two different tasks; in the first one, EFL teacher-trainees
were asked to extract metaphors from ten lines of different poems; in the second
exercise, they were assigned with linking between twenty lexicons and their
corresponding meaning. The test is meant to mirror their real level concerning
metaphorical identification and vocabulary retention.
3. Study Results
After collecting the necessary data, from both the questionnaire and the test,
they were carefully analyzed and synthesized both quantitatively and
qualitatively. The following section covers details of the obtained results.
3.1. Results of the Questionnaire
At first, students were asked to describe their experience with studying
British and American module at the Teachers training school of Constantine,
Algeria using only a single word. The analysis procedure of this question
followed the content analysis method because according to Yıldırım and Şimşek
(2005), content analysis may shed light on different aspects that cannot be
visible when following the descriptive approach. The responses were divided
into 4 different categories; positive responses, negative responses, neutral
responses and reflective responses. 45.2% of the sample show positive
responses as some of them replied with positive words such as “fun”,
“interesting”, and “amazing”. The second category covers 39.72% of the
responses as some of the participants described studying literature as “boring”
or “nightmare”. Furthermore, 10.95% of the sample show neutral answers as
they gave responses such as “not bad and not good” and “I don’t mind”. Besides,
4.1% of EFL teacher- trainees have reflective perceptions as they initially
struggled with this subject matter, but later they seemed to change their minds.
For instance, one student belonging to this category stated; “at first I used to
hate literature but with time it becomes my favorite”.
Moreover, on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 is strongly agree and 5 strongly disagree),
students were inquired to rate their enjoyment in poetry classes as explained in
the following figure.

The Teacher’s Forum

937

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Abir MOUAT / Hacene HAMADA

Figure n° 01: EFL Teacher-trainees Enjoyment Level during Poetry Classes

Besides, when asking the seventy-three participants whether they were
excited to teach poetry in their future classrooms, their responses revealed a
wide range of perspectives. 23.29% of participants strongly agreed and 10.96%
agreed to the statement; “I am excited to teach poetry in my future classes”. this
suggests that more than a third expressed their enthusiasm for teaching this
literary genre. However, almost half of cases conveyed hesitation. Specifically,
31.51% strongly disagreed and 16.44% disagreed. Moreover, some students
preferred to remain neutral (17.81%).
In addition to what has been stated above, when students were asked to rate
their capacity to identify metaphorical expressions in poetry, the majority
(46.6%) described their skills as average. Meanwhile, 32.9% of the sample rated
themselves as good, and only 6.8% claimed that their skills are excellent.
Furthermore, 13.7% admitted to have poor metaphor recognition skills.
As stated in the theoretical framework, integrating poetry in EFL classrooms
has been proven to be an effective way to boost vocabulary competence within
EFL learners. Therefore, students were asked if studying poetry texts has
enhanced their vocabulary repertoire. The vast majority of learners responded
positively. 26% of them strongly agreed and 35.6% agreed to the statement;
“exposure to poetry helped me acquire new vocabulary items”. However, 21.9%
were not certain of their answers as they selected the neutral option. On the end
of the scale, only 9.6% strongly disagreed and 6.8% disagreed. The latter
indicates that a very small minority of participants did not find studying poems
helpful in this regard. These results are visualized in the following figure.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

938

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Figure n° 02: Students' Perceptions of Vocabulary Acquired from Poetry
Classes

Afterwards, students were asked to fill in some gaps. the first gap was filled
with only one word which was explained in the second blank using an
unrestricted number of words. These sentences are as follows; “studying poetry
is like…….because……..” and “teaching poetry is like……because…….”.
The qualitative data were analyzed and synthesized following content
analysis method in order to extract how third year teacher-trainees perceives
learning and teaching poetry, their ability to create and explain metaphors and
their insights to teach poetry as they are teachers to be. The 146 metaphors
created by the 73 learners were divided into three different categories and
classified in Table 1 below. The classification was based on the explanation of
metaphors.
Cognitive Stimulation
The majority of third year Teacher-trainees frequently created metaphors
related to cognitive stimulation when it comes to both learning and teaching
poetry. The overall number of metaphors belonging to such category is 82
metaphors. 42 of the participants associated studying poetry to various mental
activities such as, “solving a cube”, “learning maths”, “encoding”, and “solving
a riddle”. The other 40 metaphors were tied to teaching poetry including,
“solving a crossword”, “a challenge”, “watering minds”, and “chess”.
Emotional Engagement and Expression
“Honey”, “soul feeding” and “dream” are some of the 25 learning metaphors
related to emotional expressions mentioned within third year teacher-trainees’
papers. Whereas “entertainment”, “pleasure”, and “moon” are examples of 12
teaching metaphors describing feelings and emotions.

The Teacher’s Forum

939

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Abir MOUAT / Hacene HAMADA

Artistic Appreciation
27 of the created metaphors fell under the theme of art. Moreover, the word
“art” appeared 17 times among the 146 metaphors making it the most frequent
metaphor as it was repeated twice in metaphors related to learning poetry and
15 times in those associated with teaching poetry. Other students utilized the
terms “drawing”, “painting”, “beauty”, and “decoration” to express and show
that teaching and learning poetry have something in common with art.
The following table below summarize the frequency of metaphors in the three
different categories
Table n° 01. 3rd Year Teacher-trainees’ Metaphorical Perceptions Categories

Metaphor
category
Cognitive
Stimulation
Emotional
Engagement and
Expression
Artistic
Appreciation

Learning poetry
metaphors
42

Teaching poetry
metaphors
40

3.1.1. Discourse Analysis of the Metaphors
When analyzing the 146 conceptual metaphors, a lot of results have been
revealed. First of all, 26 students preferred focusing on delivering the
information rather than following the instructions. They used more than one
word to answer the first gap. More specifically, 11 teaching metaphors and 29
learning metaphors such as, “teaching poetry is like opening a door to emotions
because it encourages students to appreciate the beauty of language” and
“learning poetry is like being opened to the old world because many poetry
writers talked about crucial events and fights”
When having a closer look at the created metaphors, some of the explanations
provided are not clearly relevant. Five metaphors were not directly linked to
the first gap including; “learning poetry is like watching clouds because you see
shapes and stories of people” and “teaching poetry is like a challenge because
the teacher will be teaching students that are studying poetry for the first time”.
In addition to what has been stated above, through examining each and every
single metaphor, it has been revealed that some students view teaching and

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

940

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

learning metaphors interesting, yet others perceive it as a challenge. Thirteen
different learners said that learning poetry is like “riddle”, “maths”, “crossing a
desert”, and “climbing rocks”. Their explanations show that studying poetry is
a struggle for them. Furthermore, ten cases share the same opinion when it
comes to teaching this literary genre as they believe that it is like “chaos”,
“battle”, “nightmare”, and “puzzle”.
Even though the word “puzzle” appeared eight times, four of the metaphors
peruse the learning and the teaching of poetry as a struggle. The other ones did
not reveal any negative attitudes. For instance, a participant stated that:
“learning poetry is like a puzzle because it hides so many secrets that learners
discover each time”. The explanation reveals that this learner views studying
poems more like an adventure rather than a challenge. Therefore, using the same
word may show totally different perspectives. It all depends on the intended
meaning embedded within the explanation of the metaphor.
3.2. Results of the Test
The test includes two different activities. The first one focuses on identifying
ten metaphors from 10 poetic lines. This task was out of ten, thus, students got
one point for each correct answer. The second task aims at testing students’
ability to understand twenty lexical items studied in poetry lessons. In this task,
they were supposed to link between the terms and their meaning. The task is
likewise scored out of 10, each correct answer is out of half a point. Therefore,
the overall score of the test is twenty. The statistical analysis was conducted
using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences IBM version 21), and
percentages of the results were computed for overall scores as well as the
individual scores of both tasks.
The test scores revealed a relatively balanced distribution of the seventy-three
students’ performance. Analysis of the obtained results showed that 50.7% of
the participants have got above 10 and the other half did not manage to get
enough correct responses to reach the average. However, did the students get
similar results in the two tasks of the test? The answer is going to be discussed
in the following paragraphs.
In the first task, which evaluates teacher-trainees’ metaphorical recognition
skills, 56.2% have got above five out of ten. This indicates that more than half
of the sample managed to extract at least five correct metaphors. The frequency
analysis of this task showed that 23.3% scored in the lowest range (between 0
and 2), 17.8% got grades between 3 and 4, the same percentage of the sample
scored between 5 and 6, 26% scored either 7 or 8, and only 15.1% achieved the
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

941

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Abir MOUAT / Hacene HAMADA

highest range, i.e., 9 or 10. furthermore, the peak performance cluster in this
activity is the 7-8 score range. The overall results are explained in figure 3.
Figure n° 03: Distribution of Scores in Metaphorical Identification Task

Unlike the first task, the results of the second one revealed completely
different scores. The majority of participants (58.9%) have got scores below 5
while only 41.1% have got above the average in this vocabulary task. The
frequency analysis of this task showed that 16.4% scored in the lowest range
(between 0 and 2), 20.5% got grades between 2.5 and 4, 21.9% of the sample
scored between 4.5 and 6, 19.2% scored between 6.5 and 8, and 21.9% got
marks between 8.5 and 10.
4. Discussion of the Findings and Conclusion
The outcomes of the investigation can uncover many mysteries in research
and answer various unsolved questions. The findings of the questionnaire
revealed a variety of valuable results. When describing studying literature using
only one word, 45.2% of students provided positive responses, and 4.1% had
reflective answers. This indicated that the majority of EFL teacher-trainees at
ENS Constantine show a positive attitude towards this subject matter. However,
a considerable number of students (39.72%) held a negative opinion towards
literature. This may be resulted to the complexity of the subject matter, or maybe
due to the lack of exposure to the culture of the target language. However, the
real causes behind such attitude need to be investigated in future research.
Furthermore, 58% of participants enjoy studying poetry; however, 34.25%
stated that they were ready to teach poetry in the future. These outcomes show
that despite the fact that the majority have a positive attitude towards studying
poetry, only few of them are believed to be ready to teach this literary genre.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

942

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

This could be resulted to a variety of reasons such as anxiety or fear of not being
able to explain poems.
Besides, the results of the metaphorical perceptions revealed that the majority
of third year students are good at creating and explaining metaphors. Moreover,
they show a more positive attitude towards both teaching and learning poetry.
These outcomes might be due to a variety of reasons such as having a longer
experience with the subject matter, studying metaphors before, or being more
competent in the English language. Additionally, the majority of the created
metaphors belong to the cognitive stimulation category, which matches with the
previously mentioned research results of Kayman and Elkatmiş (2023).
Therefore, it is recommended that the lesson of poetry should be taught in a way
that promotes the teacher-trainees’ cognitive stimulation with some focus on
emotional and artistic engagement. Furthermore, these findings imply that the
lack of enthusiasm to teach poetry in the future is not due to holding a negative
attitude towards this literary genre.
Vocabulary acquisition is a key component of foreign language learning, and
this study confirmed that poetry is viewed as beneficial in this regard. 61.6%
agreed that exposure to poetry contributed to vocabulary retention, while a
minority (16.4%) felt otherwise. Encouragingly, the majority of ENS
Constantine students recognize the benefits of poetry in enriching their lexical
repertoire. This suggests they have a positive attitude toward the inclusion of
poetry in EFL curricula.
Furthermore, one of the most important insights drawn by this study is
exploring the relation between the EFL teacher-trainees’ perceptions and their
actual performance in determining metaphorical expressions and acquiring
lexicons from previously studied poems. In attempt to make this comparison,
the results of the test need to be discussed.
In the first task, 56.2% of the participants scored above the average and 15.1%
of them scored either nine or ten. It means that more than half of them have
managed to extract at least five correct metaphors. These findings go hand in
hand with the students’ perceptions in the survey in which 79.5% of the sample
rated their capacity to determine metaphors as “average”, “good”, or
“excellent”. Besides, these findings show that more than half of the participants
were well equipped with the necessary skills to recognize metaphorical
expressions.
Nevertheless, the scores of the second task revealed different results. Even
though the majority of cases (61.6%) claimed that studying poetry had improved
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

943

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Abir MOUAT / Hacene HAMADA

their lexical knowledge, more than forty-three students failed to get more than
five points and only 41.1% succeeded in getting more than ten answers right.
The findings reveal an under performance in vocabulary comprehension.
Therefore, the teacher-trainees’ beliefs and their performance in the vocabulary
related task did not match. These results go hand in hand with other
investigations related to meta-cognitive awareness in language learning.
According to Tseng and Schmitt (2008), students often misalign between their
self-assessment and their actual capacities especially in receptive skills
including reading, listening and vocabulary acquisition. This phenomenon may
occur due to various reasons including their lack of active recognition of
lexicons or their unfamiliarity with terms. Besides, the gap in vocabulary
performance might mirror the shortcomings of teaching approaches. Therefore,
it is recommended to do a further study to investigate the real causes behind this
gap.
Last but not least, the study reveals valuable insights and sheds light on a less
investigated research area. It shows that the majority of EFL teacher-trainees
hold a positive attitude towards studying literature and poetry; however, the vast
majority show lack of enthusiasm to teach poetry in the future despite holding
a positive attitude towards teaching poems. Moreover, metaphorical recognition
seems to be a relatively well- developed skill among the sample with
perceptions highly supported by the findings of the test. Nonetheless, the results
of the vocabulary activity do not reflect their overestimated perceptions of
vocabulary acquisition. Therefore, when designing a course, perceptions alone
can never be relied upon as indicators of competence. Prospectively, diagnostic
assessments and reflective tools should be integrated in an attempt to align
students’ perceptions with their actual performance which fosters the
effectiveness of teaching and learning literary texts.
References
Ali, M. A. (2019). The impact of poetry-based instruction on vocabulary acquisition of EFL
learners.
International Journal of English Linguistics, 9(4), 64–72.
Carter, R., & Long, M. N. (1991). Teaching literature. Longman.
EKİZ, M., & KESEN MUTLU, A. (2016). A Study of the Learners’ Metaphorical Perceptions
of
Literary Genres Öğrencilerin Edebi Türler ile İlgili Metaforik Algıları Üzerine Bir Çalışma.
Mediterranean Journal of Humanities, 1, 155–168. https://doi.org/10.13114/MJH.2016119296
Finch.
(2014).
Using
poems
to
teach
English.
Knu.
Gibbs, R. W. (2017). Metaphor wars: Conceptual metaphors in human life. Cambridge University
Press.
Hussein, B. A. E. (2025). Incorporating literature into the EFL/ESL classroom. Arab World
Journal, 16(1), 145–161. https://doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol16no1.9 AWEJ

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

944

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Kayman, F., & Elkatmis, V. (2023). Middle school students’ metaphorical perceptions of the concept
of
poetry. International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, 11(3), 126–135.
Ketaren, S. V., & Pakpahan, E. M. B. (2021). METAPHORICAL EXPRESSION USED IN POETRY
IN
ENGLISH TEXTBOOK ENTITLED “PATHWAY TO ENGLISH.” PROJECT (Professional
Journal of English Education), 4(3), 469. https://doi.org/10.22460/project.v4i3.p469-479
Kheladi, M. (2021). Teachers’ perceptions and concerns about implementing active learning in
teaching
EFL literature: A case study at Tlemcen University, Algeria. Global Journal of Foreign
Language
Teaching, 11(3), 150–159. https://doi.org/10.18844/gjflt.v11i3.5815
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980, September 6). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.
Lazar, G. (1996). Exploring literary texts with the language learner. TESOL Quarterly, 30(4), 773–
776.
Martínez, M., Sauleda, N., & Huber, G. L. (2001). Metaphors as blueprints of thinking about
teaching and learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(8), 965–977.
McCarthy, M. (1990). Vocabulary. Oxford University Press.
Mellgren, S. (2022). Attitudes Towards Poetry in the EFL Classroom A Teacher and Student
Perspective. https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/handle/2077/73174/SPLL%C3%84R%202022017%20Mellgren%20Sanna%20Examensarbete%20LGEN2A.pdf?sequence=1
Naylor, A. (2013). ‘Old Poems Have Heart’: Teenage Students Reading Early Modern Poetry. English
Teaching, 12(1175–8708).
Nemerov, H. (2024, July 29). Poetry | Definition, Types, Terms, Examples, & Facts. Encyclopedia
Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/poetry
Peskin, J., Allen, G., & Wells-Jopling, R. (2010). “The Educated Imagination”: Applying instructional
research to the teaching of symbolic interpretation of poetry. Journal of Adolescent & Adult
Literacy, 53(6), 498–507. https://doi.org/10.1598/jaal.53.6.6
Pierce, R. B. (2023). Symposium: Wittgenstein and Literary Aesthetics. Philosophy and Literature (1st
ed.,
Vol. 27). https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/symposium-wittgenstein-literaryaestheti
cs/docview/220504244/se-2?accountid=11162
Pike, M. (2000). Keen Readers: Adolescents and pre-twentieth century poetry. Educational Review,
52(1), 13–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131910097379
Sävmark, W. (2025). The use of literature to benefit young learners’ vocabulary: a synthesis of
empirical
studies (thesis / research synthesis).
Sarıçoban, A. (2004). Using literature in the EFL classroom. The Internet TESL Journal, 10(12).
Topping. (1968). Linguistics or Literature: An Approach to Language on JSTOR. www.jstor.org.
Tseng, W.-T., & Schmitt, N. (2008). Toward a model of motivated vocabulary learning: A
structural
equation modeling approach. Language Learning, 58(2), 357–400.
Turker, F. (1991). Using “literature” in language teaching. Hacettepe Universitesi
EAltimFakültesiDergisi,
6.
Wordsworth, W. (2004). Preface to Lyrical Ballads. Oxford University Press.
(Original work published 1802)
Yıldırım A. & Şimşek H. (2005). Sosyal Bilimlerde Nitel Araştırma Yöntemleri. Ankara 2005

The Teacher’s Forum

945

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Abir MOUAT / Hacene HAMADA

Appendix 1
Questionnaire

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

946

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Appendix 2

Test
Activity 1: Circle the metaphors included in the following extracts.
1. The hands that held electric charges now lie inert as four moored barges
2. O Rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm has found out thy bed of crimson joy
3. And all that mighty heart is lying still
4. Whose crumbs the crows inspect and with ironic caw flap past it to the farmer’s corn
5. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls
6. And his dark secret live does thy life destroy
7. He was a gentleman from sole to crown
8. The winds stood up and gave a shout
9. The mother smiled to know her child was in the sacred place
10. How frugal is Chariot that bears the human soul?
Activity 2: match the following words with their correct meaning

The Teacher’s Forum

947

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)

Abir MOUAT / Hacene HAMADA

1. Soul
2. Crown
3. Fickle
4. Sole
5. Crows
6. Crimson
7. Sacred
8. Garment
9. Deferred
10. Inert
11. Barges
12. Congealing
13. Explode
14. Wrinkled
15. Chariot
16. Frigate
17. Frugal
18. Garden
19. Thunderbolt
20. Worm

A. simple or economical
B. holy or dedicated to a religious purpose
C. lacking the capacity to move
D. birds that scare
E. the bottom of the foot
F. a sudden flash of lightning
G. deep red color
H. a small fast vehicle in ancient times
I. a place where plants grow
J. a piece of clothing
K. becoming thick or solid
L. the spiritual part of a human
M. delayed or postponed
N. having folds or creases
O. large flat-bottomed boat
P. a fast worship
Q. to burst violently
R. a symbol of royalty or the top of the head
S. unreliable or changing frequently
T. a creature which destroys from within

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Teacher’s Forum

948

Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)
References (24)
Ali, M. A. (2019). The impact of poetry-based instruction on vocabulary acquisition of EFL learners. International Journal of English Linguistics, 9(4), 64-72.
Carter, R., & Long, M. N. (1991). Teaching literature. Longman. EKİZ, M., & KESEN MUTLU, A. (2016). A Study of the Learners' Metaphorical Perceptions of Literary Genres Öğrencilerin Edebi Türler ile İlgili Metaforik Algıları Üzerine Bir Çalışma. Mediterranean Journal of Humanities, 1, 155-168. https://doi.org/10.13114/MJH.2016119296
Finch. (2014). Using poems to teach English. Knu. https://www.academia.edu/6022980/Using_poems_to_teach_English
Gibbs, R. W. (2017). Metaphor wars: Conceptual metaphors in human life. Cambridge University Press. Hussein, B. A. E. (2025). Incorporating literature into the EFL/ESL classroom. Arab World English Journal, 16(1), 145-161. https://doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol16no1.9 AWEJ Bridging Perceptions and Performance: EFL Teacher-trainees' Metaphor Recognition and Vocabulary Recall Through Poetry ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vol 21. N° 01 (December 2025)
945 The Teacher's Forum Kayman, F., & Elkatmis, V. (2023). Middle school students' metaphorical perceptions of the concept of poetry. International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, 11(3), 126-135. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.11n.3p.126
Ketaren, S. V., & Pakpahan, E. M. B. (2021). METAPHORICAL EXPRESSION USED IN POETRY IN ENGLISH TEXTBOOK ENTITLED "PATHWAY TO ENGLISH." PROJECT (Professional Journal of English Education), 4(3), 469. https://doi.org/10.22460/project.v4i3.p469-479
Kheladi, M. (2021). Teachers' perceptions and concerns about implementing active learning in teaching EFL literature: A case study at Tlemcen University, Algeria. Global Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 11(3), 150-159. https://doi.org/10.18844/gjflt.v11i3.5815
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980, September 6). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html
Lazar, G. (1996). Exploring literary texts with the language learner. TESOL Quarterly, 30(4), 773- 776. Martínez, M., Sauleda, N., & Huber, G. L. (2001). Metaphors as blueprints of thinking about teaching and learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(8), 965-977. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-051X(01)00043-9
McCarthy, M. (1990). Vocabulary. Oxford University Press.
Mellgren, S. (2022). Attitudes Towards Poetry in the EFL Classroom A Teacher and Student Perspective. https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/handle/2077/73174/SPLL%C3%84R%202022- 017%20Mellgren%20Sanna%20Examensarbete%20LGEN2A.pdf?sequence=1
Naylor, A. (2013). 'Old Poems Have Heart': Teenage Students Reading Early Modern Poetry. English Teaching, 12(1175-8708).
Nemerov, H. (2024, July 29). Poetry | Definition, Types, Terms, Examples, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/poetry
Peskin, J., Allen, G., & Wells-Jopling, R. (2010). "The Educated Imagination": Applying instructional research to the teaching of symbolic interpretation of poetry. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(6), 498-507. https://doi.org/10.1598/jaal.53.6.6
Pierce, R. B. (2023). Symposium: Wittgenstein and Literary Aesthetics. Philosophy and Literature (1st ed., Vol. 27). https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/symposium-wittgenstein-literary- aestheti cs/docview/220504244/se-2?accountid=11162
Pike, M. (2000). Keen Readers: Adolescents and pre-twentieth century poetry. Educational Review, 52(1), 13-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131910097379
Sävmark, W. (2025). The use of literature to benefit young learners' vocabulary: a synthesis of empirical studies (thesis / research synthesis).
Sarıçoban, A. (2004). Using literature in the EFL classroom. The Internet TESL Journal, 10(12). Topping. (1968). Linguistics or Literature: An Approach to Language on JSTOR. www.jstor.org. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3586085
Tseng, W.-T., & Schmitt, N. (2008). Toward a model of motivated vocabulary learning: A structural equation modeling approach. Language Learning, 58(2), 357-400.
Turker, F. (1991). Using "literature" in language teaching. Hacettepe Universitesi EAltimFakültesiDergisi, 6. Wordsworth, W. (2004). Preface to Lyrical Ballads. Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1802)
Yıldırım A. & Şimşek H. (2005). Sosyal Bilimlerde Nitel Araştırma Yöntemleri. Ankara 2005
Soul A. simple or economical
Crown B. holy or dedicated to a religious purpose
Garment H. a small fast vehicle in ancient times
Hamada Hacene
Ecole Normale Supérieure Constantine Algeria, Post-Doc
Lecturer in applied linguistics and foreign language teaching (Doctorate in 2007) at the teacher training school and University of Constantine, Algeria for the last 30 years. Teacher and programme course designer of Oral Expression in EFL, Applied Linguistics, Processes of Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Learning, Language Teaching Materials Design and Evaluation. Supervisor of research projects for Master and Doctorate degrees since 2007.
Papers
44
Followers
392
View all papers from
Hamada Hacene
arrow_forward
Related papers
Educating by Poetry: In a Too-Literal World, Metaphor Makes Magical Connections
Adrian Blevins
Colby Magazine, 2015
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Middle School Students’ Metaphorical Perceptions of the Concept of Poetry
IJELS AIAC
2023
According to the Turkish Language Teaching Program prepared by the Ministry of National Education in Turkey, poetry texts should be included in Turkish textbooks taught in primary and secondary schools. Students encounter poetry texts in reading and writing activities in Turkish textbooks. It is thought that determining how students perceive the type of poetry they encounter in Turkish textbooks is important for Turkish education. The aim of this study is to determine the perceptions of secondary school students about the concept of poetry through metaphors. Since the study aims to determine the perceptions of secondary school students towards the concept of “poetry” and the meanings they attribute to these perceptions, phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research designs, was preferred. The study group consisted of 148 secondary school students studying in a public school. In order to determine the metaphorical perceptions of the participants about the concept of “poetry”, they completed the sentence, “Poetry is like … because …”. The data obtained were analyzed by content analysis method. At this stage, firstly, the invalid ones were eliminated from the data obtained and then these data were coded and divided into eight different categories. Afterwards, the information was presented descriptively in tables. As a result, it was determined that secondary school students’ metaphors related to the concept of “poetry” did not change and differentiate according to the grade level, and it was determined that all of the students attributed positive meanings to poetry. In addition, it was observed that the majority of the students tried to explain the concept of “poetry” with concrete metaphors and attributed very different meanings to “poetry” based on reasoned metaphors. In addition, it has been determined that most of the students see poetry as the interpreter of emotions and the source of life.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Metaphors We Teach By: Examining Teacher Conceptualizations of Literacy in the English Language Arts Classroom
Connie Kendall Theado
Language and Literacy, 2013
This case study used metaphor analysis to gain insight on the conceptualizations of literacy informing six English Language Arts educators' understanding of the meaning and goals of U.S. literacy education today. While findings indicated literacy's functional aspect as the most prominent metaphoric conceptualization employed, the teachers' use of alternate metaphors to highlight the value of literacy learning beyond its pragmatic outcomes suggests that U.S. literacy education reform may be out of step with the pedagogical goals teachers have for their students. The article concludes with a discussion of the pedagogical implications suggested by the study findings. It is important to see that we don't just talk about arguments in terms of war. We can actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack his positions and we defend our own. … Though there is no physical battle, there is a verbal battle, and the structure of an argument reflects this. It is in this sense that the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor is one that we live by in this culture: it structures the actions we perform in arguing. Lakoff & Johnson (1980, Metaphors We Live By, p. 4)
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Classroom Teacher Candidates' Metaphoric Perceptions Regarding the Concepts of Reading and Writing: A Comparative Analysis
Mehmet Özenç
International Education Studies, 2018
The purpose of this study is to determine and compare candidate classroom teachers' metaphoric perceptions about reading and writing. The study was conducted with teacher candidates who were studying at Ömer Halisdemir University's Department of Elementary Education in Niğde/Turkey during 2016-2017 academic year. A total of 266 1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th grade candidate classroom teachers participated in the study. The study design was organized according to phenomenological design. According to the study findings, teacher candidates created 23 metaphoric categories in reading, 17 in writing and 15 in both reading and writing. The most categories developed by classroom candidate teachers on the concept of reading is necessity. As to writing; the most categories developed by classroom candidate teachers on the concept of writing is on expressing feelings. The category with the least metaphor about writing concept is the negativity and watching. The common metaphors used by the classroom teacher candidates regarding the concepts of reading and writing are mostly gathered in the categories of water and its derivatives and life. Whereas the category with the least common metaphors about is infinity. Another result of the research is that the teacher candidates produce a more negative number of metaphorical concepts in the writing concept. Metaphors on the concept of writing are outpouring, effusion and the man himself. As a result, metaphors can be used as a research tool to determine teacher candidates' perceptions and opinions about reading and writing.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Myth, Metaphor and Metacognition: Shaping Voice and Identity through Poetry in Teacher Education
Amanda Gulla
This article discusses the importance of teacher candidates writing poetry in their education methods classes in order to reflect upon and examine their beliefs about teaching and learning. Writing poetry in a teacher education context is also important because it prepares teachers to use these techniques with their own students. By writing poetry in the context of academic study, learners can see metaphorical connections between events and ideas. This stands in contrast to the idea put forth in the Common Core Standards that college and career readiness is best developed through reading and writing informational and argumentative texts.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Explore
Papers
Topics
Features
Mentions
Analytics
PDF Packages
Advanced Search
Search Alerts
Journals
Academia.edu Journals
My submissions
Reviewer Hub
Why publish with us
Testimonials
Company
About
Careers
Press
Content Policy
580 California St., Suite 400
San Francisco, CA, 94104