Prospective ESL/EFL Teachers’ Perceptions towards Writing Poetry in a Second Language: Difficulty, Value, Emotion, and Attitude

The study aims to explore how 18 M.A. TESOL students, who are prospective or experienced ESL/EFL teachers, perceive poetry writing in a second language. A qualitative interview-based design was utilized. Following Iida’s (2012a) analytical framework in examining EFL students’ perceptions toward writing haiku in English, this current study investigates 18 prospective ESL/EFL teachers’ perspectives through the lens of difficulty, value, emotion, and attitude. In order to validate the coding of the interviews, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) test was computed among three interview coders including the primary researcher, which yields a great agreement rate at .86. The results indicate that while these prospective ESL/EFL teachers understand writing poetry in a second language involves various difficulties, they acknowledge the values of utilizing poetry writing in second language classrooms. The results also show that writing poetry in a second language contains both positive and negative emotions, but positive ones are more frequently addressed. Most importantly, the data suggests that writing poetry in a second language is considered as an applicable practice in ESL/EFL language classrooms.