A guest post by Frances Asti

In the week of National Poetry Day or indeed on any day, who better as a poet to look to for inspiration than Dom Conlon?

Yesterday I used one of the poems from his recent book This Rock, That Rock for a lesson with two “International New Arrivals” from year 6 who came to this country last year and who need lots of support with speaking, listening and understanding. The girl speaks Urdu and Spanish and the boy speaks Urdu. This is in addition to their developing English.

We shared the poem “How to reach the moon” and I told them about seeing the moon from my window through the trees. Of course, this was a bit too “abstract” and they were more interested in what kind of house I lived in. But nevertheless, the talk and interest had started. So we looked at some moon pictures on YouTube and talked about them.

The first video I put on elicited the response “mentiras, mentiras!” – “lies, lies” from the girl as they were very romantic images of the moon and the children wanted the real thing. The boy even hazarded a peep through the window!

After a little talk between us about the moon, I read Dom’s poem to them. They chose to follow the written words of the copy in front of them at this point, even though I was clarifying words with actions, this came later. I always have to be flexible with a poetry lesson of course. The boy quickly asked if he could read the whole poem out loud to us.     I gave them highlighters to show me words they were unsure of in terms of meaning. This was interesting as they both highlighted “tiptoes” and “pile of books”, which I showed visually. The boy was hesitant to highlight but once he knew it was ok, was very empowered by this and highlighted everyday words like “fall” as well as figurative language which gave me further insight into his comprehension. The girl only highlighted a couple of words and when I questioned her on lines towards the end of the poem could explain in Spanish, not English. But she had understood the words and images to quite a high level. For example, she told me what teamwork meant and through her Spanish explanation, I was able to translate and explain to the other child.

I realise I sometimes look to the child’s way of expressing herself to me in Spanish to enable me to use good language strategies with others. You never stop learning about teaching any language  The children’s ability to “work” bilingually or in more than two languages is astounding and in our school we are lucky enough to have lots of staff who speak different languages too.

We then acted out the poem together now the meaning had been clarified, although the repetition and pattern of the lines had already acted as a scaffold to their understanding, as had Viviane Schwarz’s amazing Illustrations. 

They were moving from a partial understanding of the poem to a deeper understanding of the imagery.

Of course when I said we were going to write our own poem one of the children groaned. He is a very reluctant writer. Yet the offer to write the poem in different gel pens and the interest and accessibility of the poem established, he wrote and wrote and I couldn’t stop him! Very formulaic sentences but really expressing himself in English – so some of his sentences were – “Learn how to play with friends. Learn how to read books. Learn how to watch YouTube.” We ended the poem with Dom’s words. “Learn that no moon is impossible to reach.”

His syntax and word choices were great. He also felt confident enough to read his poem to another teacher as did the girl who is usually very reluctant about speaking to others in English.

The girl’s poem was amazing too. Some syntax points which we can pick up tomorrow but as it’s a poem we had more freedom. In any case, we use our poetry to clarify points about syntax in a memorable way. It was just splitting the infinitive with verbs presenting in the negative. This child would probably understand more easily if I explained as this is her third language after all!

I loved the beginning and end of her poem. Also, she rehearsed her lines to me orally. The first two lines were –
Learn how to not give up. Learn how to dance flamingo….”

I know she meant flamenco but it was such a great line and she was proud of it. It’s a great image and makes a good talking point. Would it be poetic licence?  Knowingly or not she has created a great image of dancing like a flamingo in the style of flamenco.

Of course, I looked up the origins of the words and there is a link between the two. Something to do with pink flamingos who live in the Camargue in the South of France and some flamenco music which comes from that region. I went there as a child the same age as her and saw the flamingos and years later I lived in Madrid where I knew people who performed flamenco so maybe this is just my personal response. There is more to my story …… The child told me later that flamingo is a dance performed in different countries and she once saw it when she went to the sea-side.  Or was that the flamingos?

The poetry is ongoing – I mean always not just for a poetry day. Yet again I found using poetry amazing with new arrivals because of the freedom to take risks with language and draw on your own languages and experience. Also to have fun and entertain each other with words in order to help us to survive in the world.

Having a real poet who has visited us as inspiration too! Also, one who can see the world through our eyes, both as children and adults.

Although sorry Dom, I think it was the gel pens that did it!

Frances Asti, International New Arrivals Teacher, Stanley Grove Primary Academy, Longsight, Manchester.