Second language poetry writing as reflective practice A poetic inquiry into a pre service teacher s experience of English language learning
This qualitative, case study research investigated a Japanese pre service teacher's English language learning experiences. Following Hanauer's (2010) methodological guidelines for second language (L2) poetry writing, the current study involved the analysis of five poems on the pre service teacher's L2 learning experiences and the investigation of an analysis paper through which she analyzed each poem, found some common issues among the poems, and described her findings. The collection of her poems illustrated her history of L2 learning starting from the days when she studied English in junior high school to the moment when she was learning the language in an English speaking country. Also, the overall analysis of her written texts shows that poetry writing helped her to reflect on how she had studied English, discover problems of her L2 learning, and explore more effective ways to learn and teach English. Introduction Poetry writing is seen as an effective literacy practice in L2 contexts (Chamcharatsri, 2013; Hanauer, 2004, 2010, 2012; Iida, 2010, 2012, 2016, in press) This approach is supported with a theoretical framework for poetry writing as a form of meaningful literacy learning which Hanauer (2012) has developed to conceptualize L2 literacy instruction. This literacy learning is based on "a particular way of understanding and positioning the language learner and the language learning process" and involves the recognition of "the symbolic transformations in relation to self and world that learning a language entails" (Hanauer, 2012, p. 108) In other words, unlike traditional L2 pedagogy, this approach has great potential to make the language classroom dynamic and individual language learning more humanistic and meaningful (Hanauer, 2012; Iida, 2012) From an empirical viewpoint, however, it remains controversial how poetry writing helps L2 learners to reflect on their personal life experiences and to better understand themselves. The aim of this article is to explore poetry writing as a form of reflective practice. This article begins by reviewing previous research on poetry writing and L2 writers. After clarifying the relationship between poetry writing and reflective practice from theoretical