Iranian students' perceptions on poetry reading strategies

Abstract

Poetry for teaching English is widely adopted but understanding poetry is problematic. Reading strategies can address this problem. Therefore, in this research, the most common strategies that Iranian postgraduate students perceive that they use were studied. This study adopted the quantitative method design in data analysis. The instrument for data collection is a questionnaire (Survey of Poetry Reading Strategies or SPRS). The participants were selected based on convenience random sampling. Sixty participants took part in the quantitative data collection. Results from the questionnaire showed use of Problem Solving strategies such as re-reading was perceived to be used more often than Global strategies such as making judgment and opinion and Support strategies such as analysing and evaluating. This study contributes the useful reading strategies in reading poetry by Iranian students. These results can be useful for both students and teachers in reading poetry.