El potencial de la poesía como herramienta para la adquisición de vocabulario en ELE

Abstract

Unlocking the potential of poetry as a pedagogical tool for vocabulary development in Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) remains a relevant question in language education. Despite concerns about its complexity, poetry continues to be recognized by scholars as a meaningful and authentic resource. This study explores the effectiveness of poetry-based instruction in promoting vocabulary acquisition among Swedish-speaking upper secondary students. Using a pretest-posttest design, students participated in a didactic intervention centered on the poem Versainograma a Santo Domingo by Pablo Neruda. The analysis focused on short-term receptive vocabulary learning, evaluated through translation tasks. Results indicate that the interventions made with poetry were just as or more effective than the traditional interventions applied. These findings contribute to the growing body of research supporting literature as a valuable tool in foreign language instruction and highlight poetry’s potential in enriching lexical competence within the SFL classroom.