Facilitating Poetry Learning for Language Students at Eastern University, Sri Lanka through Decoding Poetic Syntax: A Techno-Stylistic Integrated Approach

Abstract

English poetry, with its intricate syntax, often presents significant challenges for language students, particularly in higher education contexts. Understanding poetic syntax is important for language students because it unlocks deeper layers of meaning. At Eastern University, Sri Lanka (EUSL), language students often encounter challenges in decoding poetic syntax through traditional methods that emphasize memorization, teacher-centred lectures, and limited classroom exercises. Such approaches, while foundational, frequently fail to foster analytical depth or sustained engagement. By contrast, technology-enhanced approaches provide interactive, adaptive, and learner-centred environments that simplify the decoding of poetic syntax. As today’s students are technophiles, providing them with innovative learning methods rather than traditional approaches is indispensable in order to significantly enhance their enthusiasm for poetry learning. Based on this, the researcher has developed a computational tool, “Poetic Syntax Decoder”, in order to easily understand the structures in English poems. The study, being descriptive and qualitative, involved twenty first-year language students from the Department of Languages at EUSL. The data for the study were collected from a variety of English poems. To measure the effectiveness of the tool, two tests were administered. First, a traditional pretest assessed the participants’ initial understanding of poetic structures, followed by a post-test utilizing the developed tool as a learning and testing platform for deciphering poetic structures. The results indicated a significant improvement in participants’ performance on the post-test compared to the pretest. Thus, the findings reveal that students exposed to technology-enhanced learning demonstrated improved proficiency in interpreting poetic syntax, alongside increased motivation and autonomy. Finally, the integration of computer-assisted tools into poetry education at EUSL demonstrates how modern computational tools can bridge gaps in traditional teaching, making the study of poetic syntax decoding both approachable and intellectually rewarding.