Dialogic and multimodal approaches to teaching poetry: Theoretical and experimental insights
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study explores how multimodal approaches to poetry teaching can be integrated into a dialogic pedagogical framework in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) education under wartime conditions. Conducted as a qualitative explanatory case study in a Ukrainian upper-secondary school, the research examines how students’ interpretations of poetry evolve across a two-lesson dialogic sequence involving auditory, visual, bilingual, and contextual multimodal variation. The study argues that multimodality becomes pedagogically significant not as an illustrative supplement to poetry, but as a dialogic provocation that destabilizes fixed interpretations and generates interpretive plurality. Special attention is given to the proposed typology of ‘antitheses’, which is conceptualized not as a classificatory mechanism but as a dialogic heuristic framework supporting comparison, mediation, and reinterpretation of meanings. The findings indicate that students shifted from searching for a single authoritative interpretation toward engaging in dialogically mediated meaning-making. The study further demonstrates that uncertainty, hesitation, and disagreement function as productive dialogic resources rather than pedagogical limitations. The article contributes to research on dialogic pedagogy, multimodality, and poetry interpretation in contexts of educational disruption.
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