A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or some other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards. The term is said to have been introduced by a poet (Henry Peacham), in 1638 but its history dates back to the 3rd century BC Greek or the 1st century Latin writings.
The importance of studying palindromes today, besides bringing a “wow element” to class, resides in their multiple uses:
- Palindromes can be short words or names: radar, level, refer, or Ana, Bob, Otto etc
- They can also incorporate dates: 11/11/11, 02/02/2020 etc
- Palindromes often consist of a sentence or phrase: “Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog!” (Jon Agee)
- They make up great literary devices: James Joyce’s “tattarrattat”, an onomatopoeia used to imitate a knock on the door.
- They inspire composers – such as Joseph Haydn’s Symphony no. 47, nicknamed “The Palindrome”
Besides introducing learners to James Joyce’s „Ulysses”, teaching palindromes can also help to get them familiar with both graphic novels and contemporary writers – such as Jon Agee, the author of the popular onomatopoeic “Otto: A Palindrama”. This book, published in 2021, is made of 200 palindromes that are presented in a very funny and graphically-appealing way. Some other books written using palindromes are: “Satire: Veritas” by David Stephens (published in 1980) and “Dr Awkward & Olson in Oslo” by Lawrence Levin (published in 1986).
This can lead, from a pedagogical point of view, to further discussions regarding the world’s longest palindromes (according to Guinness World Records, the Finnish 19-letter word saippuakivikauppias (a soapstone vendor), is the world’s longest palindromic word in everyday use) or even calligrams (words form the shape of the poem’s subject), but also visual storytelling (through typography poetry).
Thus, students can be presented some examples and then be requested to provide their own contexts, poems or posters which they can present their classmates or they can enrol in various school competitions.
They can also get familiar with the SATOR Square (or Rotas-Sator Square or Templar Magic Square) – “a two-dimensional acrostic class of word square containing a five-word Latin palindrome” (Wikipedia)
They can be asked to work in groups and provide their own rendition of such a “linguistic device” and then share with their classmates.
These types of activities can be used as warm-ups or ice-breaking tasks in order to practise learning Vocabulary in a fun and engaging way. Nevertheless, they can lead the way to teaching Pangrams (a sentence incorporating all the letters of the alphabet, such as The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog), Word Diagrams, Anagrams, Anadromes (A word which forms a different word when spelled backwards using the same letters) or even Reversible Poems (that can be read both forwards and backwards, with a different meaning in each direction).
The students can even create their own Word Diagrams or even SATOR Squares – which they can share with their classmates or provide, as an experiment, for other students from parallel classes to solve and share the results afterwards.
Notwithstanding that Literature and Writing are not generally the students’ cup of tea, the teacher can further introduce tasks that can make them less reluctant to using their English for Reading and Writing activities, like Mirror Writing (formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when reflected in a mirror). Many creative works can arise from this endeavour which can boost the students’ confidence and motivate them for future similar activities.
The English lessons are not the only ones that could benefit from the Palindromes. There is also an extensive list of palindromic places that are spread all over the world and can be of help during Geography lessons, eg. Adaven, Nevada; Adanac, Canada; Saxet, Texas etc.
A lot of effort teaching Vocabulary can be retrieved while using educational applications or websites as they provide ready-made exercises or they can only provide a template which can be personalized according to the students’ needs.
Such Vocabulary lessons can be very pleasant and interactive for SEN (Special Educational Needs) students as they can make their own contribution to the tasks either individually or by being part of a group. They are generally motivated by interactive activities as well as activities that require their creativity and writing skills. These can further lead to all the students’ easier group integration and improvement of their self-esteem on the way.
Bibliography
Agee, Jon – Otto: A Palindrama, Rocky Pond Books, 2021
COELHO, Elizabeth – Language and Learning in Multilingual Classrooms, Multilingual Matters Limited, 2012
PUGLIESE, Chaz – Creating Motivation. Activities to make Learning happen, Helbling, 2017
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/submission/25294/anadrome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_palindromic_places
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_writing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/pangram
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_poem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sator_Square