Fear of poetry among preservice teachers in Nigeria

Literature-in-English is a prerequisite for admission into certain programmes in the university in Nigeria. Courses like English and Literary Studies, Linguistics, Law, Theatre and Media Studies require at least a Credit pass in Literature - in - English at the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE). Unfortunately, students' performance over the years has been consistently poor, especially in poetry. Therefore, many students' career aspirations have been delayed or truncated. This poor performance is often attributed to teachers' poor attitude to the subject and the consequent poor pedagogy. This study, therefore, examined pre-service teachers' attitude to the teaching of poetry. Participants were sixty-seven (67) pre-service teachers of English in a federal university in South-Eastern Nigeria. Data collection was through a semi-structured questionnaire and an in-depth interview. The result revealed that only four participants (6%) expressed a preference for teaching poetry, while 63 (94%) said they would rather not teach poetry. An in-depth interview revealed that participants’ developed the phobia for poetry (metrophobia) from their experiences of learning poetry at the secondary school level and beyond. The study suggests pathways to prevent metrophobia in pre-service teachers and students of Literature-in-English.