Research on the Competency of the Post Graduate Teachers in Appreciating English Poetry

The Post Graduate Teachers teaching English as a second language to Higher Secondary Classes
that is 11th and 12th grades need to cultivate a good sense of appreciation for poetry. They need to
inherit the thirst for reading poetry aloud and competence to elucidate the essential characteristics of
poetry. A study was launched to understand the level of appreciation of poetry of the Post Graduate
Teachers by giving a test with 25 items for testing their skills of understanding of alliteration,
metaphor, simile, personification, repetition, sound–patterning, stress-patterning, imagery,
unpatterned rhyme, connotative words and suggestive words. A sample of 90 post graduate teachers
of both sex working in State Government Higher Secondary Schools, Private Matriculation Schools
and Private CBSE schools in Chennai city answered the test in fifty minutes time. The ‘t’ test was
applied. The Post graduate teachers in CBSE schools in Chennai City had the highest mean scores in
their competency in appreciating the elements of English poetry. Those in Government Schools and
Matriculation Schools came next in the order. But there was no significant difference in their
competencies between any two types of schools. They have a high level of appreciation of poetry but
with slight difference in mean scores. There is no significant difference in competencies for
appreciating poetry between the post graduate teachers working in any two kinds of schools