Communication is an amalgamation of skills that works differently in diverse contexts and mastering it is an uphill task for many. The problem lies with the fact that many students find it difficult to communicate their thoughts lucidly and get intimidated while expressing themselves in English. To provide a working solution to this problem, this study proposes to integrate creativity and confidence for a selected target group. The aim of this book is to develop communication skills of secondary school students through the teaching of poetry.

Literature refines one’s senses and poetry makes one feel like a sentient being by giving a perspective to think and express with the medium of language. The problem is that methods adopted for teaching of literature do nothing to develop the linguistic ability of students. Poetry is a condition and Communicative Language Teaching is an approach to do poetry. The approach aims to enrich the learners’ experience of language in all its modes. Developing Communication Skills of Secondary School Students through the Teaching of Poetry is a course which treats ‘doing poetry’ as a basis for language learning with an appropriate methodology and keeps in view, the general principles of creative language teaching and language specific needs that provide better input for acquiring communicative competence in the target language.

Teaching language or literature is not like solving a mathematical formula or scientific equation where one always gets the desired result with the same set of rules and principles. It is a domain of expertise where one has to constantly experiment with the changing variables, keep updating oneself with the newly discovered methods and apply trial and error on various techniques available. In the context of teaching poetry to teenagers, the classes cannot fall flat due to the lack of verve and vitality. Therefore, the theory of Multiple Intelligences has been used as a philosophy in poetry classes to allow free flow of communication amongst students and also between the teacher and the adolescents.