I recently sent a questionnaire to my audience asking them what their struggles were in Spanish and what they wanted or needed more of to improve and progress in their Spanish journey.
One of the questions I asked was how interested they were in a poetry course in Spanish to improve their Spanish skills. The options for courses were: grammar course, conversation course, journaling course and poetry course. The answers floored me. The poetry course was, by far, the course that people were less interested in and conversation being the one with more interest.
Now, there is nothing wrong with those results and I even expected them since I have been in the language learning industry for almost 20 years. However, what saddened me and made me wanted to pull my hairs out was that the number one struggle with my Spanish learning audience had was… accuracy! Being accurate in their expression. Being able to find the words to express what they want to say, express how they feel, express themselves in their own and unique way.
Emphasis in “unique”.
So, basically, the conundrum I find myself now as a businesswoman wanting to provide a service to my audience that fixes their problems is how to convince my audience that what they need to improve on their accuracy is, apparently, not what they want, which is poetry.
But that’s the beauty of our paradoxical lives, isn’t it? Very often what we need is not what we want, or the way to get where we want to get is not the path we want to go through because is oftentimes uncomfortable.
We want the easy path. We want the direct path. We sometimes accept the scenic route and slow path as long as it doesn’t make us uncomfortable, even if the views are amazing and worth all the bumps in the road to get there.
So, the way I see it, if you want to achieve accuracy in Spanish you need to take the scenic route with a bumpy and windy road, because the direct road won’t get you there, not really, and on top of that, you won’t even enjoy the views.
Why Poetry for Accuracy in Spanish?
Let me separate the two angles of working with poetry here. On the one hand, we have reading poetry in Spanish, on the other hand, we have writing our own poetry in Spanish. And both are two different things that contribute massively to the improvement of the language.
Reading poetry in the target language, in this case, Spanish helps with pronunciation and prosody. What is prosody? Prosody is just the patterns of stress and intonation of the language. So, if you want to sound like a native Spanish speaker, you might want to give reading poetry a go.
There are, in fact, a lot of studies that prove the benefits of poetry in language learning. Look at the “Further Reading” section at the end of this blogpost.
But, reading poetry is only the first part of the equation. Language has a passive component and an active component, so reading poetry is passive, the other side of the coin is writing poetry.
And I understand that when what you want is to speak accurately and thinking on your feet about the words you need, you might think that practising speaking all the time is what’s gonna get you there. Well, you’d be wrong.
Have you ever had conversations in your target language with native speakers and felt frustrated because they wouldn’t correct you? Or felt frustrated when your teacher was overcorrecting you, that is, correcting every single mistake in detriment of you conveying your message and having a resemblance of communication?
The truth is that relying only on the fakeness of conversation classes with a teacher who will correct you to some extent (understanding or not that correcting every single mistake is not good) so you learn but don’t communicate. Or the real situation where you communicate but don’t learn from corrections, because people don’t correct you. None of those situations won’t help you reach accuracy. Fluency may be, but not accuracy.
Accuracy is achieved when we do the active work of searching the words we really need. But first, we need to understand what stories we have inside of us that need to be told.
How to Write Poetry to Reach Accuracy in Spanish?
And this is where writing poetry for language learning purposes differs a bit from writing poetry for personal reasons (that is, every other reason that is not learning Spanish).
Regardless if you have written poetry before or this is the first time , when you want to write a poem for language purposes the focus goes on the words and not on the emotion so much.
So, what steps do you need to take to make the most of this activity?
>>> Decide on what you want to write about. For example, start with something that brings you joy or gratitude, something that inspires awe or something that makes you feel sad… Basically, anything that brings emotion.
>>> Brainstorm or free write a bit about it. This can be in the target language or in your native language if you are not yet comfortable expressing in Spanish. It won’t make any difference in the outcome. And trying to write this stage in Spanish when you don’t have the words and fluidity will block you, so, please, be nice to yourself and don’t make things more difficult than need to be.
In this brainstorming phase you are looking for sensations to express the topic: go for colours, smells, emotions…
Show, don’t tell. How would you describe the topic with your senses only?
How do you feel about it? How would you describe that feeling/emotion?
>>> Once you have a “picture” in your mind, start writing.
>>> Have your monolingual dictionary, a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary at hand.
For example, my go-to poem topic is always how my first sip of coffee in the morning makes me feel because it’s something I know very well.
In the brainstorming phase, I would place colours (browns, blacks…) and smells (coffee smell) and textures (the touch of the hot coffee cup in my hands)… I would think about how I feel before, during and after that first sip, what it means to me having that coffee (safety, comfort, self-care, love, home, cosiness…) and along with those emotions, I bring more sensations to my picture, like a blanket, fireplace, the warmth inside opposed to miserable weather outside, a hug….
And then I start.
I start simply with the title: “The first sip of coffee”
First draft verse:
Sleepy eyes, out of focus
Here, I go check “sleepy” and “out of focus” in my thesaurus. Is there a synonym that expresses my idea better?
For sleepy I find “somnolent”, that I like because it is similar to a Spanish word) and then when I google “somnolent eyes” I find this result: “slumberous (or slumbrous) eyes”. Mmm, interesting, I did not know about this combination, I am going to go with it for now.
For “out of focus” I find “unfocused”. I find “blurred”, “hazy”, “misty”, “fuzzy”… So I go now to the monolingual dictionary and search for their meaning and also try and see any constructions with those words. I discover then that “hazy” is used for vision. Voilá!
My first verse has now become something like:
Slumberous, hazy eyes
I don’t know if I will keep this version (I write with pencil and have noted some other synonyms on the margin of the page to explore later).
I continue:
Slumberous, hazy eyes
as I go down the stairs,
stumbling.
Stop again. Is there any other way to express this idea of me going down the stairs in an unstable manner?
I look for synonyms of “stumbling”. I find “stagger”, “bumble” (which I love the sound of but don’t know yet if it will work out), “blunder”, “wobble” ….
Note here that there are many more synonyms but I am just making a note of those that I like because of how they sound. We all prefer some words over others for personal subjective reasons, nothing wrong with that.
And then I go exploring the meanings of some of the synonyms that caught my eye. I am in love with “bumble” and “wobble”. The sounds of them and the images they create in my mind: bumble like a cute bumblebee or wobble like a flan!
I keep exploring and I find the use of “wobble down” to describe a kid going down the stairs. Perfect!
Slumberous, hazy eyes
as I wobble down the stairs
and enter the kitchen.
See? I start with my idea and the image I want to convey. Then, I go search for synonyms and explore their meanings and uses until I find the exact word for that image.
I will stop here with my poem. You get the idea of how this process can really help you to not only increase your vocabulary but also find accuracy.
What are your own, unique images?
Also, the other element that makes poetry so interesting is that it invites you to reflect on your own personal “imagery”. As I said, for me coffee is like a cosy blanket. It makes me feel cosy, warm and safe and I have clear images of how these feelings appear in my mind. Now, what does this first sip of coffee mean to you? Is it the beginning of a new day, gratitude, potential? And what images do these feelings evoke?
These images are super important when we want to talk to someone. Because it helps the listener paint a picture in their heads of our message. It makes it clearer. And it helps the listener to connect with us better and deeper.
If you talked with me, you will soon notice how I tend to bring colour to my speech by bringing images and comparisons. I tend to speak in English all the time because I live in an English speaking country and all my friends speak English, so what helps me make myself understood is bringing these images when I don’t find the right words.
So, let’s say I want to explain to my friend that the other day I woke up super disoriented and I wanted to tell her that I was “wobbling down the stairs” but I didn’t have that word in my vocabulary yet.
I then would say that I was going down the stairs like a toddler which would immediately paint a picture in her mind. We “share” that image and she would connect with my emotion of how I felt going down the stairs. Now, this is a common image as an example, but the point is that being “fluent” in your own imagery is more important and useful than having a long list of decontextualised words.
Three realities about reaching accuracy in the target language
ONE
You can memorise a list of synonyms, or words, but you won’t be able to use them in conversation unless you have them in a context in your brain’s catalogue. And, you won’t remember them easily unless you attach some “meaning” or “emotion” to them.
TWO
In the absence of the “exact” word, be fluent on your images, so you can either use the exact word, or the image, or both to help the listener understand and relate with you. Connect with you.
THREE
Connect the exact word with the image to gain accuracy and colour in your speech. How, poetry!!!
And, yes, I get it, writing poetry is scary, we have to actually delve into our emotions instead of ignoring them, but that is actually the point of communication.
The point of communication is to actually express the reality of what’s going on inside of us, and in order to do that, we have to allow ourselves to feel it, to paint a picture and write poetry.
Further Reading
- “The effectiveness of using poetry in developping English vocabulary, Language proficiency and motivation of EFL Palestinian students” by Ruba Jamal “Mohammed Hilmi” AL-Bakri.
- “The Use of poetry in teaching pronunciation; an experimental study”
- “Poetry is Language as its most Distilled and Powerful: Bringing Poetry in Language Classes Can Make Language Understanding and Communication Skills Better” by Reena Mittal.
- “Scaffolding oral language development through poetry for students learning English” by Nancy L. Hadaway, Sylvia M. Vardell and Terrel A. Young.
- “Using poems to teach English” by Andrew Finch.
- “Poetry: A powerful reading intervention for accuracy and fluency” by Kimberly Penny Thompson
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