Speaking through poetry- Using spoken word poetry to lower speaking anxiety among Swedish EFL learners

Abstract: This paper presents a qualitative study investigating whether exercises inspired by spoken word poetry can be used as anxiety-lowering speaking exercises for Grade 9 students in Swedish secondary school and increase their motivation for speaking English in class. My initial hypothesis was that the students would feel less anxious to speak English in class when performing spoken word than when doing oral presentations. I also thought that the students would feel less anxious performing found poems, where the words in poems are taken from a model poem. To test my hypothesis, I conducted a lesson study consisting of three research lessons and interviews with an in-service teacher and three case students. The findings show that while some students did feel less anxious speaking English when performing spoken word poetry, most of the students’ motivation to perform was unaffected by the exercises used in the research lessons. Instead, the research showed that giving the students the opportunity to choose between writing and performing in groups or alone had the most impact on their motivation to perform. Understanding the poems was another factor with great impact on the students’ motivation to perform. These findings are discussed, and it is proposed that teachers who want to use spoken word poetry in their classroom practice should focus on accommodating their teaching practice to the students’ needs, and that more lesson time should be spent on analyzing the poems than on writing them.