Bridging Perceptions and Performance: EFL Teacher-trainees' Metaphor Recognition and Vocabulary Recall Through Poetry

Abstract

This study focuses on examining the alignment between EFL teacher trainees perceived and actual competence in metaphor recognition and vocabulary recall through poetry within British and American Literature subject matter at Ecole Normale Supérieure of Constantine (ENSC), Algeria. It seeks to understand how 73 third year EFL teacher-trainees at ENSC perceive the pedagogical role of poetry, how they evaluate their own metaphorical and lexical abilities, explore their capacity in creating and explaining metaphors, and test whether their perceptions mirror their real performance. The research follows a convergent mixed method approach in which both qualitative and quantitative data have been collected through a semi structured questionnaire and a performance based test. The questionnaire results revealed that the majority of participants showed a positive attitude towards poetry and they reported that studying it has improved their vocabulary recall. Besides, they claimed that their metaphorical competence is average to good. Furthermore, the findings of the test implied that the most participants are good at recognizing, creating, and explaining metaphors; however, their vocabulary retention emerged as a relative area of a challenge unlike their self-reported perceptions. The significance of this study lies in bridging perceptions based and performance based assessment as it provides insights into the link between the students’ beliefs and their actual performance. The findings suggest reflective practices and pedagogical implementation that support poetry education in order to enhance teacher-trainees’ confidence and competence in teaching literature and poetry.