Poetic Pedagogies in Multilingual Education

Poetic pedagogies embrace the creative and affective dimensions of poetry to support language learning across diverse linguistic contexts. By integrating verse, performance and arts-based activities, educators foster environments in which learners negotiate meaning through aesthetic experience, narrative construction and embodied practice. Multilingual settings—from indigenous language classrooms to migrant education programmes—have demonstrated that poetry can serve as a vehicle for identity affirmation, intercultural dialogue and community building. Through approaches such as spoken-word choreography, digital storytelling and collaborative composition, learners are encouraged to draw on their full repertoire of languages, cultural repertoires and semiotic resources. This broadens the scope of communicative competence beyond grammatical accuracy to include rhetorical creativity, critical reflexivity and emotional engagement. At a global level, poetic pedagogies offer practical tools for revitalising endangered languages, reducing exclusion in migrant and refugee education, and promoting plurilingual citizenship in increasingly diverse societies.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Poetic Pedagogies in Multilingual Education publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in poetic pedagogies in multilingual education across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Poetic pedagogy: An approach to language teaching that employs poetry and related arts-based practices to facilitate linguistic, cognitive and affective learning processes.

Plurilingualism: The dynamic use of multiple languages by an individual, recognising the fluid interplay of linguistic resources rather than treating each language in isolation.

Multimodality: The integration of various semiotic modes—such as gesture, visual art, movement and digital media—to construct and communicate meaning.

Co-artistry: A collaborative creative process in which teachers and learners engage as equal partners to co-produce artistic and linguistic artefacts.

References

1. Digital Stories and Inclusive Cultures at School: A Research Study in an Italian Primary Multicultural Classroom. Education Sciences (2024).
2. Spoken word choreographies in additional language learning practices in upper secondary school: Entanglements between languaging‐and‐dancing. Modern Language Journal (2024).
3. Foregrounding co-artistry in an aesthetic and plurilingual/pluriliteracies approach to additional language teaching and learning. Frontiers in Education (2024).
4. Online poetry writing at school – comparing lower secondary students’ experiences between individual and collaborative poetry writing. Frontiers in Education (2024).