REEP

I speak in Two Voices

One of my favorite lessons for ESL students is The Two-Voice Poetry. It is a form of poetry written to be performed by two people. The poem is made up of two columns and is read from top to bottom. One takes the left hand part, and the other reader takes the right. The poem is to be read by the two readers at once. Speakers take turns going back and forth between the voices however; some lines are composed to be said out loud together by both speakers.

This is just an innovative way to use the poem with students who can speak more than one language. It is exciting to see and hear the combination of different languages read out-loud. They can sound like a dialogue or even a song. The poem can be used with any language, from Chinese to Arabic. At a WITS Parent Literacy Workshop, I had the opportunity to see parents work with their children combining their mother tongue with English. There were parents who spoke Tamil, Arabic and some Spanish. In the world we live in today were schools have children from around the world, this is just one fun way to showcase both worlds blended into one.

How does this work? How does one set it up?

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