POETRY IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING : ASPECTS OF A MAJOR CHALLENGE

Debating the role of literature, and poetry in particular, in foreign language teaching (FLT), many scholars underscore the enormous potential represented by literature when it comes to developing the students' critical thinking, analytical skills, ability to understand other cultures and emphatic attitude. Nevertheless, poetry represents a challenge within foreign language teaching. Focusing on my personal experience of teaching Italian at Lund University, Sweden, where XXth century poetry is included in the literature course at the undergraduate level (7,5 ECTS credits), I will first discuss what difficulties students encounter when faced with the task of reading poetry. I'll then provide an example of a lecture in early XXth century Italian poetry from D'Annunzio to Hermeticism to show some methods that can be used to facilitate the students' comprehension and how their motivation can be increased.