April is National Poetry month. Poetry is a great way to help language learners dive deeper into the language. Language learners have to analyze metaphors, similes, and other figurative language. They have to also learn structure, adjectives, and focus on word choice. They don’t form sentences and grammar rules don’t necessarily apply, which can be difficult for language learners. You can also motivate your language learners to be creative with the language by getting them to create poetry. Writing poetry can be difficult; therefore, you might want to get your language learners to start writing haikus, limericks, or shape poems. Below, are resources and ideas for helping your students learn with poetry and write poetry. For more teaching ideas and activities, check out our webinar slides, Teaching Poetry: 10 Ideas and Resources.
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Lesson Ideas and Activities
- Lesson Stream has several video lessons for language learners focused on poetry. Download lesson pdfs and search for lesson plans by language level and objective.
- Boggles World has an activity to teach language learners about metaphors.
- The Poetry Machine is a website that will help students create poems by getting them to answer questions. No registration is required.
- Scholastic has several resources and lesson plans for National Poetry Month. Find lessons for children to teenagers.
- The Poetry Idea Machine teaches students about various types of poems and walks students through the basics of creating poems.
- Learn English Kids has worksheets, videos, and podcasts for young language learners with poems.
- Students can create poetry with virtual magnetic poetry sets. Choose from 5 different themes.
- Starfall has animated poems for children that help them with phonics.
- Students can animate their poems with these free web tools – Powtoon, Adobe Slate, EduBuncee, and Canva.
