Shakespeare in Secondary Education

Abstract

Teaching Shakespeare to 12 to 18 year-olds often proves to be a struggle for teachers. This research has tested two teaching approaches of teaching the great literary classic at a Finnish Secondary School and an American High School. The two methods made use of an original Shakespeare sonnet and a translated version of that sonnet (into Finnish, and into modern day English for the American pupils). A survey measured the pupils' motivation and understanding of the two versions of the poem.

For the first approach the pupils studied an original Shakespeare sonnet first, after which they studied the same sonnet but this time in translation. The other group of pupils first studied the translated version, and then looked at the original poem.