The Pleasure of Poetry Reading and Second Language Learning: A Response to David Hanauer

The aim of this article is to argue, in response to David Hanauer, that the approach of task‐based instruction, while a useful tool in the language learning classroom, is too narrow a theoretical framework to properly analyse the use of poetry in such a context. It is argued that Hanauer's study contains a methodological error, which is due, in part, to the fact that the definition of a language‐based task as an activity focusing on interpreting meaning and solving some sort of communication problem in unable to account for the aesthetic value of poetr