Poetry in the Engineering Curriculum

In the past four or five decades, functional uses of language have gained importance. With the rise of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and communicative language teaching (CLT), English is taught for its functional and communicative value in various streams of education, including technical education. The syllabus for functional and technical English is designed and aimed at developing communication skills in students of engineering. However, the teaching and testing of different kinds of courses on English are usually directed towards passing students in English to achieve a target set by the college or university boards of studies. When students face placement interviews and/or attempt to get jobs through them, the recruiters generally complain about the poor communication skills of students as majority of them are visibly unable to communicate competently and confidently in English. There may be several reasons for the glaring mismatch between what is taught and what is learnt. One of the possible major reasons is the dissociation between the affective and cognitive dimension of students when they learn English. If students are able to pass the subject in the examination, what prevents them from passing the test of everyday communication in English? In order to address this issue, use of poetry is suggested for the learning of English in the context of technical education for students of engineering and technology. The functional and technical communicative syllabus can be explored through poetry as an effective resource for emotionally linking the subject, the skill, and students so that they will learn to communicate through English in real-life situations, including placement interviews.