AN IMAGINATIVE JOURNEY IN ESL CLASSROOM
Dr. Shuchita Chandhok
Amity Institute of English Studies & Research
Amity Institute of Corporate Communication
Amity University, Noida.
&
Dr. Vinita Soni
Department of Applied Sciences & Humanities
IIMT GROUP OF COLLEGES, Greater Noida
India
Abstract
Literature can be used in teaching English as Second Language. These classes can be very
evocative. Interactive teaching not only helps the students to participate keenly but also raises
some interest in literature. In the paper firstly we discuss the evolution of literature in
language classroom accounting for its use in the classes and the ways in which poetry can
help in sustaining interest in language learning through learner’s participation. Coleridge’s
Kubla Khan has been selected to generate interest through myriad imaginative exercises
along with basic language treatment and developing communicative competence as well. The
paper ends with a didactic proposal in teaching language in ESL classroom.
Key words: ESL, Kubla Khan, Imagination, Literature, Language Teaching
Introduction
Over the ages it has been understood that language teaching serves three purposes:
language for communication, language for aesthetic and cultural appreciation and language
for linguistic analysis.
Literature as a source of language teaching has an immense scope in ESL classrooms.
Literature gives the facility of learning linguistics in different ways to the learner of the
language and also aids the teacher to design certain activities which can stimulate the students
and thus lead to his/her involvement with the text. This involvement can arise out of activities
www.ijellh.com
727
which focus on form and content of the text being studied. Thereafter it leads to an
interaction between students and teacher as well as among their peer group.
According to Alexander Baird, “Literature is the use of Language effectively in
suitable conditions”(Baird, 203). He feels that literary texts can be used in language teaching
because the language used in literary text is suitable for the contexts of the events. Language
is necessary to interact. Linguistic competence can be developed by learning/teaching the
expression of meanings in English and it motivates the learner to communicate with others.
The hesitation in speaking on a particular context can be nullified when the learner is able to
enhance his/her vocabulary. The sociolinguistic competence, which develops gradually, can
help in overcoming fluency problems.
Kubla Khan is chosen to be the flag bearer because of two noteworthy reasons.
Firstly, it is a significant piece of work of the Romanticism. Secondly, it is purely an
imaginative piece of work. It is felt that the form and content of the poem are of great
pedagogical value.
Language Teaching & Literature
Literature and language go hand in hand. Literature constitutes language. Literature
reading has been identified as a communicative activity. Literary texts are authentic examples
of language use. Gillian Lazar rejects the idea of the existence of a specific literary language
and claim that “the language used in literary texts is common language with high
concentration of linguistic features like metaphors, similes, lexis, unusual syntactic patterns,
etc.”(Lazar, 1993). These features are not specific to any one kind of literature but are
universally used in various varieties. Therefore, it can be said that a literary use of language
materializes out of literature.
Literature encourages interaction because the text is rich in multiple layers of meaning
and can be effectively mined for discussion and sharing of feelings and opinions. It is also
useful in expanding awareness among the students of second language by looking into the
norms of language in both creative and not-so-creative examples. Ultimately literature should
evoke interest and pleasure from the language which is being taught.
Verbal response is intellectual and text related whereas in creative response learners
need to predict what comes next and to create a scenario for a text or a creative writing.
Literature is by definition authentic text and both verbal response and creative response are
genuine language activities. It is not contrived around fabricated texts. Moreover, current
methodology for ‘communicative’ language teaching favours group activities and learner-
www.ijellh.com
728
learner interaction. Prediction, creating a scenario, debating topics on and around a text all
seems to develop naturally out of literary texts while it is not possible with texts favored by
‘English for Specific Purposes’.
According to Duff and Maley, the grammatical approach focused on understanding
the form, grammar rules and lexical items as they appeared in the literary text. The focus was
not on content. However, this method was gradually replaced and the ESL teachers also
switched to different other ways of teaching the language. Michael N Long in his paper “A
Feeling for Language: The Multiple Values of Teaching Literature” suggests that the
structural approach did not encourage the use of literature. This methodology is based on the
premise that to learn a foreign language it is important to learn the structures of sentences
rather than focus on vocabulary learning. This approach does not encourage reading and
writing.
Thus, Duff and Maley are inclined towards three criteria which can justify the use of
literature in ESL classrooms. The Linguistic criterion supports that literature should be used
in teaching language, because the learner gets authentic examples in the form of different
genres with a wide range of approaches, text types and registers. These help the learners to be
aware of their presence and function. The second refers to analysis and evaluation. This can
be carried out by interaction. Interactive classrooms are vibrant and the learner is propelled to
communicate. A learner can derive multiple meanings from the text as per his/her
understanding of the genre being discussed. The classroom becomes a hub of activities. The
third norm is motivation.
Teaching in ESL classroom can be difficult if looked at from the perspective of
teaching only grammar or focusing only on cultural backgrounds. However, this can be
proved void if literary texts are selected with care, interest and keeping in mind the level of
the students.
Poetry and ESL
Poetry is a way of sharing experiences, of telling a story or expressing feelings or
ideas. The form, rhythm and word choice for imagery, the creation of pictures with words all
are important where poetry is concerned. It consists of wealth of literary allusions, historical
and cultural references. Poetry presents the essence of human experience common to people
of widely varied backgrounds. Poetry provides readers with a different viewpoint towards
language use by going beyond the known usages and rules of grammar, syntax and
www.ijellh.com
729
vocabulary. Poetry makes students familiar with figures of speech (i.e. simile, metaphor,
irony, personification, imagery, etc.) due to their being a part of daily language use.
Moreover, poetry employs language to suggest and applaud special qualities of life, and
gives adequate feelings to the readers to respond. Poetry is one of the most effective and
powerful transmitters of culture. Poems comprise so many cultural elements – allusions,
vocabulary, idioms, tone that is not easy to translate into another language (Sage, 12).
Coleridge and Kubla Khan
The era of Romanticism saw a shift from faith in reason to faith in the senses,
feelings, and imagination. There was a move from curiosity in urban society to awareness in
the rural and natural. The poet moved from public, impersonal poetry to subjective poetry;
and from concern with the scientific and mundane to interest in the mysterious and infinite.
According to the renowned poets of this period imagination and emotion were more
important than reason and formal rules. Romantics put on a pedestal the country life.
Romantic literature tends to emphasize a love of nature, a respect for primitivism, and
importance of the common man. If Wordsworth believed that nature was a means of divine
revelation; for Coleridge it was a metaphor for the creative process. The artist was an
extremely individualistic designer whose artistic spirit was more important than strict
adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the creator of poems The Ancient Mariner, Christabel, and
Kubla Khan, was also a creator of dream worlds both beautiful and sinister. He was a
multitude of things: poet, critic, political journalist, philosopher, metaphysical poet and a
theologist. He separated fantasy from fancy. For him imagination was a “living power” that
transformed the elements with which it deals, shaping them into a new unity. Fancy
contrasted with the aesthetic and creative power attributed to the imagination whereas fantasy
is a way of exploring imagination. Through fantasy we can express deep thoughts in an
acceptable way.
The power of creating poetic symbols was connected with imagination. Coleridge had
a fixation of rivers. The image of inexhaustible river a fountain of life and light, a force to be
reckoned with, submerges and surfaces again at different points in Coleridge’s life. It has
been a metaphor for the sense of surface and depth, movement and transparency. Similarly
the sun and the moon represent two sides of Christian God in his poetry. Coleridge’s Kubla
Khan is a masterpiece in terms of imagination.
www.ijellh.com
730
Some years after The Ancient Mariner was published, Coleridge added as a preface a
Latin quotation from the seventeenth century theologian, Thomas Burnett. In English it runs:
I can easily believe that there are more invisible than visible beings in
the universe. But of their families, degrees, connections, distinctions,
and functions, who shall tell us? How do they act? Where are they to
be found? About such matters the human need has always circled
without attaining knowledge. Yet do not doubt that sometimes it is
well for the soul to contemplate as in a picture the image of a larger
and better world, les the mind, habituated to the small concerns of
daily life, limit itself too much and sink entirely into trivial thinking.
(Prickett, 3)
The Preface and the poem of Kubla Khan remind its readers that the story is
constructed in the form of a narrative. The coming into being of the preface suggests that it is
itself a symbolic device that foregrounds the poem's performance context. The reading
focuses on the interaction between printed text and reader without sufficiently exploring the
poem's power in evoking actions. Many storytelling performances are initiated by the teller
disclaiming his or her tale, attributing the source to some other storyteller or discrediting his
or her storytelling ability. Such a strategy conditions, listeners to the storytelling act and
implies that what they are about to hear an interesting and well-told story.
Some activities which can make Kubla Khan as a language teaching resource have been
attended to here. They are addressed to intermediate-advanced learners of English at
Undergraduate University level. Learners have to continuously participate while predicting
what their expectations are and what they are going to read. It is of importance not only in
language learning but also in improving communication.
1. The Title: It gives a hint. The speaker should be identified by the students and the
poem’s point of view needs to be worked on. A first person speaker talks from the inside
because he is directly inside the action. Other speakers talk from the outside, like the
third person point of view. In Kubla Khan the sub-title ‘A vision in dream, A Fragment’
can be discussed. The learner can be asked to describe the title or sub-title from their
point of view.
www.ijellh.com
731
2. Forms: Some poems are narratives and others are personal statements and some others
are speeches to another person. This is a narration. The line 5 is very short compared to
other lines. Does this suggest something? In a poem where all the lines have a carefully
planned length, short lines stand out and make us take notice. It makes this image just a
little lonelier. It also makes this line into more of a dead end, a stopping place, just like
the sea is for the River Alph.
3. Lexical Semantics: Polysemy, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, idioms are part of
lexical semantics. There are many words in the poem which highlight the poetic beauty
by the use of antonyms. For example gardens bright versus waning moon; holy versus
savage, enchanted versus dread; a cedarn cover versus a savage place; sunny dome
versus caves of ice. On the other hand synonymy also exists in poem dramatically such
as Sunless seas and lifeless oceans; sinuous and mazy; forest and wood; caverns and
caves of ice; vaulted, flung up and rebounding; turmoil and tumult. Damsel and maid are
examples of Hyponymy.
4. Annotations: Smoothen the text with questions, underline the keywords or that which
does not make sense, and draw circles around the sound patterns and so on. This is a
technique which is good for individual contemplation as it helps the student formulate his
own thoughts. This helps in stating what is not obvious in the lines of the poem.
5. Word mapping: Symbolic language is the language that conveys beyond the literal or
ordinary meanings of words. Learners need to capture the mental images in their minds
by drawing them in the order they are presented. The thoughts can also be a structure in
the form of a map. It is a brainstorming activity. Thus, the ideas, thoughts and feelings
associated with such traits will be generated by extending the map further from its centre.
This exercise will not only help in analysing or facilitating comprehension and
enjoyment of the poem but make the learner deliberate as well as think a little critically.
The student must learn to think independently.
6. Verbs: The reader should round all regular verbs that s/he finds and underline irregular
ones. Establish the tense they are in (simple past, present perfect, conditional, etc.) and
try to determine their function. The same should be done for the modal verbs
encountered during reading.
7. Syntax of poetry: Appreciation of poetry might stem from the usual words order,
ellipsis, an extension between subject and verb, or the oddity in punctuation and
capitalization. In Kubla Khan reordering of words implies that a poem is converted into
www.ijellh.com
732
prose by rearranging the order of words into that of normal discourse: “A damsel with a
dulcimer/In a vision once I saw”. These two lines can be arranged in their normal order:
“Once I saw a damsel with a dulcimer in a vision”.
8. Capitalisation: All proper nouns are in capital letter. Paradise though the last word is
also in capitals thereby receiving stress and importance.
9. Punctuation: Exclamation marks and full stops conclude stanzas in poems and separate
logical subsections from each other. Thus, the descriptive and evaluative part is isolated
from each other. The use of exclamation marks enhances the beauty of the poem. One
way Coleridge tips us off to his excitement is with all of those exclamation points. Look
at these examples: "a cedarn cover!", "a savage place!", “A sunny pleasure-dome with
caves of ice!”. In the last line exclamation is used to highlight/pair the opposites.
Exclamation marks emphasise expressions of emotional involvement or situations
implying emotional reactions such as fear, suspense, warning, premonition, amazement
etc.
10. Figures of Speech:
Assonance: The repetition of the same vowel sounds is also a common device of
sound used in “Kubla Khan.” Examples include “twice five miles”, “fast thick
pants”, “swift half-intermitted”, “Five miles”, and numerous other instances.
Consonance: The repetition of the same consonant sounds in places other than the
beginnings of words, also appears frequently in “Kubla Khan.” Examples include
“romantic chasm”, “waning moon was haunted”, “Amid whose swift halfintermitted”, etc.
Alliteration: The repetition of the same consonant sounds at the very beginnings
of words appears in numerous lines. Examples include “measureless to man”,
“five miles of fertile ground”, “woman wailing”, “mingled measure”, “sunless
sea”.
Simile: This is a device where two unlike things are compared using linking
words such as “as”, “like”, “as if” etc. Examples from Kubla Khan are “forest
ancient as hills”, “fragments vaulted like rebounding hail”, etc.
Personification: The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to
something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.
Examples from the poem can be such as “earth in fast thick pants were breathing”,
“mid these dancing rocks” etc.
www.ijellh.com
733
11. Connotations: It is the secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its
explicit or primary meaning. For example, chaff in its primary meaning denotes husk,
the other meaning could be friendly, playful or joking.
12. Morphological asymmetry creates other types of gap in the lexicon. It is a feature of
many words that they exist only in their root forms, resisting morphological
development. Thus, where ‘girdled’ and ‘holy’ may be prefixed by ‘un-’, the roots
‘circle’ and ‘sacred’ cannot.
13. Creative Process: The history of cultures can also become the source of consultation.
‘Kubla Khan’ is himself a historical figure; ‘Alph’ can be associated with Alpha which is
the first letter of Greek alphabet and according to mythological speculations it refers to
the beginning of life and language; ‘damsel with dulcimer – an Abyssinian maid’ , it is
an old way of referring to Ethiopians; ‘Mount Abora’ can be associated with “Mount
Amara” a place mentioned in Milton’s Paradise Lost, some people associate it to a real
place in Ethiopia, while other think it's a biblical reference. Here the teacher should
provide the learners with some kind of background information about the general epoch
of the poem and the events that took place in the history/mythology.
14. The subject and theme should be clear. Subject could either be general or specific and
theme indicates the idea or ideas that the person explores. The poem Kubla Khan is
divided into many different thematical and structural fragments. With a partner those
different fragments can be identified and think of an adjective or expression that best
defines that particular fragment. Using that expression/word the learners should write
about their some personal experience.
15. The settings and situation: Some poets established the settings and circumstances of
their poems vividly. The students can be asked to depict these in their own words. The
poem can be discussed in sections. Step by step interpretation of different settings and
situations in the poem can be done. What is the poem about? Where is it set? What is the
central theme of each of the four parts of the poem? The description of the landscape can
be done.
16. The Musical Beat: The rhythmic words of poetry possess a different beat. These musical
and rhythmic qualities which are the core of the poem are communicative through
sensitive oral interpretations. It implies auditory imagination. In Kubla Khan the words
or phrases such as “wailing”, “thick pants were breathing”, “Ancestral voices
www.ijellh.com
734
prophesying war!”, “all should cry, Beware! Beware!” are used to create atmosphere of
awe and terror.
17. Visual Images: There are also multitude of visual images in this poem like “the sacred
river, ran/Through caverns measureless to man/Down to sunless sea.”, “walls and towers
were girdled round/And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills”, “Huge fragments
vaulted like rebounding hail/Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail”, “His flashing
eyes, his floating hair!”. Discussing these expressions enhances the descriptive power of
the learner and propels him/her towards vocabulary building. Images are retained in
memory for a longer time. The word “tumult” in two successive lines also holds a lot of
visual power.
18. Enrich Vocabulary: Students need to study the meanings of all words, the familiar and
the unfamiliar. They can be asked to mark these words (familiar and unfamiliar) from the
poem and then they can be asked to guess the meaning of the unfamiliar/new words. This
activity will also enrich their vocabulary and memory.
19. Paraphrase the poem: Restatement of poem in their own words which would help them
in crystallizing their understanding, whereas an explanation, which means both the
explanation and the interpretation of the poem, “goes beyond paraphrase to consider
significance- either of brief passages or of the entire poem”.
20. History: Check out any other narrative poem on a history, imagination, dreams or on
nature by a poet other than Coleridge and compare the theme, form, cultural history etc.
Eg. “Ozymandias” by Shelley.
21. Ingenuity: The learners can be asked to compose a poem or a short story about a dream
they have had.
22. Creating a Poem: The students can pick the title or any word which states the theme and
build a poem called the ‘alphabet poem’. KUBLA
K-King of
U-Universe wanted to
B-Build a paradise;
L- Laughed
A- Aloud
23. The Speaking Task: Group Discussion conducted can involve the entire class. Coleridge
describes many natural scenes in this short poem, and gives limited details about the
human objects. Since he gives us only a sketchy picture of the man-made pleasure dome,
www.ijellh.com
735
he focuses our attention on the power and importance of the natural world. Class can be
involved in topics related to nature/ destruction to nature etc.
Conclusion
In today’s world there is no dearth of good literature which can be used to develop
language competency. This literature is full of figurative language as well as the words used
in our daily language. The genres in target language are abundant. At undergraduate levels
students can be given poems which can stir in them some passion to appreciate the language
of the poetry in its original form. Poems let imagination flow. When a person is not restricted
in defining his/her thought process as evidently understood from the target language,
competency is bound to develop. The teacher is there to make students to “learn to learn”.
The students are free to discern by their language competency standard the literary quality of
a work. This paper is intended to be an outline of suggestions to use the poem Kubla Khan as
a resource for the teaching of English within the principles of the communicative approach.
.
www.ijellh.com
736
References
Baird, Alexander. "Literature Overseas: The Question of Linguistics Competence", ELT Vol. 23,
No. 3. 1969.
Carter, R. and M. Long. Eds. Teaching Literature. London: Longman. 1991.
Collie, J. and S. Slater. Literature in the Language Classroom: A Resource Book of Ideas and
Activities. Cambridge: OUP. 1990.
Hişmanoğlu, Murat. “Teaching English Through Literature”. Journal of Language and
Linguistic Studies. Vol.1, No.1, April 2005. Web. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
Lazar, G. Literature and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1993.
Maley, A. “That’s for your poetry book!”Language, Literature and the Learner. Ed. R.
Carter, and J. McRae. London: Longman. 1996.
Povey, J. "Literature in TESL Programs: The Language and the Culture”. Ed. H. Aııen and R.
Campbel. Teaching English as a Second Language. New York: McGraw Hill. 1912.
Prickett,Stephen. Victorian Fantasy. Baylor University Press, Texas. 2005. Web. Retrieved 5
May, 2015.
Ramsaran, S. “Poetry in the Language Classroom”. ELT Journal 37, 1: 36-43. 1983. Web.
Retrieved 5 May, 2015.
Sage, H. Incorporating Literature in ESL Instruction. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1987.
Simon, Shibu. Teaching Literature in ELT/TESOL Classes. Swarup & Sons: New Delhi.
2006.
Simpson, Paul. Language Through Literature: An Introduction. Routledge: New York. 1997.
Widdowson, H.G. “H.G. Widdowson on Literature and ELT”. Talking Shop, ELT Journal 37, 1:
30-35. 1983.
www.ijellh.com
737