Teaching Linguistic, Communicative and Literary skills through Nissim Ezekiel’s ‘The Patriot’

Abstract

We often talk about communicative ability with reference to LSRW skills. These skills can be best integrated while teaching poetry. It enables students to get absorbed in the teaching learning process rather than getting monotonous if taught in isolation. Language skills can be best taught through poetry with proper implementation by the teacher in the class. This paper makes an attempt to explain how “The Patriot”- Poem by Nissim Ezekiel can be used to create meaningful classroom interaction if dealt appropriately. It enables a teacher to integrate linguistic skills such as tenses, articles, gerund, redundancy, mother tongue influence on English to communicative activities. This poem also enables a teacher to have smooth transition from knowledge to ability and amply justifies the theory of learning and acquisition. Moreover, it generates a lot to interaction of learning tasks, rather than an index of language features, leaving the actual language to emerge from classroom interaction. This also enables the teacher to productively use the pre-existing knowledge of language of a student while dealing with the poem. It also shifts the paradigm from language learning to learning language.