Abstract
In this chapter we discuss the use of poetry in a bilingual language classroom. The analysis draws on video recordings of an English lesson in third grade taking place in an English-medium school in Bangladesh. During the session, dedicated to the poem “Waters” by E.H. Newlin, the teacher performs a structured reciting of a poem, while at the same time engaging the students in joint explorative discussions of the meaning of individual words, as well as the holistic sense of the poem. Through sequential and multimodal analysis of the interaction, we explore the methods by which the two instructional orientations are pursued throughout the session, highlighting in particular the role of multimodal action design and language alternation. The chapter offers a participant-oriented account of literary aesthetics in bilingual instruction.
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Huq, Ru., Barajas, K.E., Cromdal, J. (2017). Sparkling, Wrinkling, Softly Tinkling: On Poetry and Word Meaning in a Bilingual Primary Classroom. In: Bateman, A., Church, A. (eds) Children’s Knowledge-in-Interaction. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1703-2_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1703-2_11
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