Using songs and poems in teaching English into motivate students at Van Noi High school= sử dụng bài thơ, bài hát trong dạy tiếng Anh nhằm gây hứng thú cho học

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ---* * * --- NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY HÀ USING SONGS AND POEMS IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS AT V

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

-* * * -

NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY HÀ

USING SONGS AND POEMS IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS AT VAN NOI HIGH SCHOOL

(SỬ DỤNG BÀI HÁT, BÀI THƠ TRONG DẠY TIẾNG ANH

NHẰM GÂY HỨNG THÚ CHO HỌC SINH TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT VÂN NỘI)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY

HANOI, SEPTEMBER, 2011

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

-* * * -

NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY HÀ

USING SONGS AND POEMS IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS AT VAN NOI HIGH SCHOOL

(SỬ DỤNG BÀI HÁT, BÀI THƠ TRONG DẠY TIẾNG ANH

NHẰM GÂY HỨNG THÚ CHO HỌC SINH TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT VÂN NỘI)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY

CO DE: 601410

HANOI, SEPTEMBER, 2011

1.2.1 Reasons for using songs in the language classroom 6

1.3.3 Choosing suitable poems and teaching procedure 12 1.4 Previous studies in ULIS and difficulties to apply the idea of teaching

English through songs and poems in high schools

3.1.1 Students’ Motivation and Attitudes to Learning English before the

treatment

21

3.1.2 Students’ Attitudes towards Learning English through Songs and Poems

before the treatment

23

3.3 Attitudes towards learning English through songs and poems after the

treatment

26

3.5 The Degree of suitability of songs- and poems-based activities as ranked

by the students

30

3.6 Students’ reflections on learning through songs and poems 31

3.6.2 Students’ sayings about learning through songs and poems: 31

Integration of poems in the teaching English in high schools 37 Choosing the poem for the topic of the unit or for the pronunciation or

grammar items in the unit that the poem is taught along with:

37

Procedure to teach a poem (These steps are quite like the ones to teach a

song)

38

Appendix 2: English through songs and poems schedule III

Appendix 5: Examples of poems in the English textbook at Lower Secondary

School

VIII

Appendix 6a-j: 10 worksheets of teaching English through songs and poems IX –

XXVIII Appendix 7: List of Internet links to learning English through songs and

poems in Vietnam

XXIX

Appendix 8: Students’ reflections: (extract from some of students’ song

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Students’ motivation and attitude to learning English before the treatment

Table 2: Attitude towards learning English through songs and poems before the treatment Table 3: Students’ motivation and attitude to learning English after the treatment compared with those before the treatment

Table 4: Attitude towards learning English through songs and poems after the treatment: Class 10B only

Table 5: Songs and poems that students preferred and their ranking

Table 6: Learning relevance towards the English through songs and poems activities

LIST OF ABBREAVIATIONS

ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies EFL : English as Foreign Language

TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages G1 : Experimental group

G2 : Control group

X : Treatment

T1 : Pretest

T2: Posttest

of proficiency, the type of the language teaching course, etc

Understanding how students are motivated can help teachers engage them in the classroom “Engagement is 99% of teaching If you get students‟ attention and keep it, the lessons themselves are so much easier!” (Nicole Foley, personal interview, September 16, 2006)

Knowing that importance of learning motivation, numerous studies have been carried out to investigate students‟ motivation and strategies to motivate students to learn Taking an example, among 740 M.A theses in the library of Faculty of Post – Graduate Studies in University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), there are about 24 theses on this topic It is clear that students‟ low motivation is common problem in schools, not only at Van Noi High School Various ways have been tried to motivate their students to learn English such

as using folktales, songs, language games, visual aids, examination taking strategy training, etc And they got the certain results

There are two things that make humans different from all other animals They are language and music (Tieng Anh 10,2006:124) Music, along with the other arts, invites the imagination

to work, and provides learners with opportunities to make choices, both collaboratively, and alone Music enhances our students' motivation to learn, and improves upon their engagement and retention In fact, teenagers and music are inseparable Therefore, songs have been widely used in language teaching Songs relax and get rid of negative emotion Many songs are poems

in themselves or the lyrics of the songs are very rich in poetry Both songs and poems are authentic materials which are written with the writers‟ real emotion and the words are chosen for their beauty and sounds are carefully arranged According to Murphey (1992:3) songs are highly memorable and motivating in language learning and “its motivational appeal is present

to many different types of learners.” Although poems are not as popular to students as songs,

poetry promotes language acquisition (Holmes, V L & Moulton, M R, 2001) For the above reasons, a quasi-experimental research was conducted in Van Noi High School to test the hypothesis of using songs and poems to motivate students to learn English

2 Aims of the research

The research aimed:

- To find out how the use of songs and poems in teaching English enhances the students‟ motivation in learning English

- To find out what kind of songs and poems can make high school students motivated

- To find out which class activities are suitable for using songs and poems

at a high school

3 Method of the study

With the aim to investigate the extent to which the use of songs and poems help to motivate the grade 10th students in learning English, a quasi – experimental method was employed with two instruments to gather data, questionnaires (the pre- and post-treatment questionnaire) and students‟ reflections The pre-questionnaire was used to measure students‟ motivation and attitude to learning English and leaning English through songs and poems at the beginning of the research Data obtained from the questionnaire were used as the criteria to determine the experimental group and the control group to make the research more comparable The post-questionnaire was administered at the end of the research to see if there was any increase in students learning motivation and what their favorite songs and poems as well as their preferred learning-English-through-songs-and-poems activities were

4 Significance of the study

The study provides information about whether the use of songs and poems in the classroom helps to increase the students‟ motivation in learning English, and if songs and poems are useful, how classroom activities can be designed with songs and poems This could be a contribution to the understanding of the value of songs and poems as a motivational strategy

5 Scope of the study

With the scope of a quasi-experimental using two 10th grade classes, extraneous variables could not be controlled Therefore, the research results do not have high generality and may only match the situation at Van Noi High School With the limited time of two months, no more than five songs and five poems have been taught to experimental group along with their English

curriculum The data collection instrument was only using questionnaires, which may lead to insufficient research results This research focused only on the aspect of motivating students by using songs and poems The other factors of using songs and poems to teach English will be not discussed here

6 Design of the study

The study is organized around three parts with three chapters:

Part A- Introduction- consists of the rationale of the study, aims of the study, scope of the

study, significance of the study, research methodology and design of the study

Part B- Development- is divided into three following chapters:

Chapter 1 – Literature Review - provides a review of related literature, in which the

definition of motivation, the role of motivation in language learning are discussed first It then deals with the reasons and the way to use songs and poems in EFL class

Chapter 2 – Methodology - presents the situation of learning English through songs and

poems in Vietnam, the research questions, the research methodology, the participants, the instruments and method of analyzing data

Chapter 3 – Findings and Discussions - provides the findings and discussions through an

analysis of all data collected by means of pre and post – questionnaires and students‟ reflections

Part C- Conclusion - summarizes the main findings in the study, and made some

recommendations on how to use songs and poems in class to motivate students It also discusses the limitations of the study and makes some suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents a review of related literature, in which the definition of motivation and motivation in language learning are discussed first It then deals with the reasons for and

the ways of using songs and poems in EFL class

1 1 Motivation

1.1.1 What is motivation?

There is always a drive or need for one to know what is happening around oneself What motivates someone‟s drive or intention to satisfy one‟s needs is a topic of interest in motivational psychology The evolution of motivation as a theoretical construct was established

in the early twentieth century Behaviorist psychology in the middle of the twentieth century stresses “reinforcement as the primary mechanism for establishing and maintaining behavior” (Brophy, 1998:3)

During the 1960‟s, cognitive psychologists emphasized the need to understand “how mental processes are transformed into action” (Dornyei, 2001:7) which focus on how attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, and interpretation of events influence individual behavior (Dornyei, 2001) Dornyei (1998:118) attempted to achieve a synthesis of the static and dynamic conceptions of motivation by defining it as a “process whereby a certain amount of instigation force arises, initiates action, and persists as long as no other force comes into play to weaken it and thereby terminate action or until the planned outcome has been reached”

1.1.2 Motivation and attitude

Many teachers in their experience of teaching “recognize that motivation is important for learning and therefore want to have motivated students” (McCombs & Pope, 1994:9) There

is always a question that teachers like to ask: “why is student A more active than student B in participating class activities? Student A raises questions during language lessons and no matter how inattentive the rest of the students are, he has his own way to learn Student B, on the other hand, is claimed to be cleverer, and without using much effort, he gets high marks in tests From teacher‟s point of view, student A is more motivated than student B despite the higher intellectual capacity and language aptitude of student B In the eyes of social psychologists, there is more involvement in second language learning The student‟s attitudes, his readiness to

identify and his orientation to the learning process are the keys to the success in mastering a foreign language (Gardner & Lambert, 1972)

1.1.3 Motivation in second language learning

According to Lightbown & Spada (2002), motivation in second language learning can

be defined in terms of two factors: learners‟ communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second language community If learners need to speak the second language in a wide range

of social situations or to fulfill professional ambitions, they will appreciate the communicative value of the second language and will therefore be motivated to acquire proficiency in it Likewise, if learners have favorable attitudes towards the speakers of the language, they will desire more contact with them That is motivation to learn a second language is seen as referring to the “extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the language because of

a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity” (Gardner, 1985:10-11)

Gardner & Lambert (1972:132) described two forms of student‟s orientation in detail Instrumental orientation reflects “the practical value and advantages of learning a new language” and integrative orientation reflects “a sincere and personal interest in the people and culture represented by the other group”

Instrumental orientation has always considered being the major force to determine success in L2 learning as students are motivated by the opening of educational and economic opportunities for them Integrative orientation describes L2 learners that are interested in the people and culture represented by the target-language group (Ellis 2003) It is more typical of immigrants into a language community attempting to integrate into that society According to Gardner & Lambert (1972:132), “It was our hunch that an integrative orientation would sustain better the long-term motivation needed for the very demanding task of second-language learning”

In the book “The practice of English language teaching”, Hammer (1994) defined motivation as some kind of internal drive that encourages students to pursue a course of action

He separated motivation into extrinsic and intrinsic motivation Extrinsic motivation is concerned with factors beyond the classroom and “is caused by any number of outside factors such as the need to pass an exam, the hope of financial reward or the possibility of future travel” (Hamer 2001: 51) On the other hand, intrinsic motivation, as Harmer pointed out, is concerned only with what takes place inside the classroom Especially, he gave detailed

analysis on factors affecting intrinsic motivation Those factors are physical condition, methods, teachers and success

In “Teaching by principles” (H Douglas Brown, 1994), the author emphasized that motivation is the extent to which students make choices about goals to pursue and the effort they will devote to that pursuit Although he discussed both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation,

he clearly expressed a particular interest in intrinsic motivation in the context of learning classes

language-According to Moore (1992: 173) “Intrinsic motivation is what learners bring to the learning environment, that is, their internal attributes: attitudes, values, needs and personality factors In contrast, extrinsic motivation originated outside the individual and is concerned with external environmental factors that help shape students‟ behavior”

This study especially focused on “intrinsic motivation” referring to “motivation to engage in activity for its own sake” by Pintrich and Strunk (2002:245) The pre and post questionnaires used to measure the students‟ motivation before and after the treatment were designed with statements that show students‟ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation based on the definitions above (See Appendix 3, 4)

1.2 Learning English through songs

1.2.1 Reasons for using songs in the language classroom

There are a number of reasons for using songs in the classroom Firstly, music brings enjoyment to the language classroom Many language teachers like to use music in their language classrooms as music brings enjoyment and fun to people‟s lives Music plays an important role in culture and communication (Murphey, 1990) as “cultures have musical traditions because of the enjoyment people receive from creating rhythms and expressing their feelings, ideas, thoughts, and cultural values through lyrics” (Abbott, 2002:10) Secondly, songs motivate language learning Murphey (1990) & Davanellos (1999) state that music and songs are highly motivating and relaxing The readily made music material with its conversation language and repetition patterns are what language teachers look for to motivate different types

of language learners It provides variety and fun Murphey (1990:5-8) claims that “songs can be immensely valuable for developing certain capacities, but they can be many times more valuable if we exploit them creatively to bridge the gap between the pleasurable experience of listening/singing and the communicative use of language” Thirdly, songs also sustain students‟

interest in learning Davanellos (1999:13) pointed out that “Songs are highly memorable” The length of a song is more manageable for the allocation of time for class instruction (Chan, 1997) when compared with some lengthy comprehensive articles It is easier to sustain students‟ interest when students‟ attention is more focused on the general meaning of the text (Chan, 1997) The repetitive patterning of the songs reinforces learning without loss of motivation (Murphey, 1990) and as Bechtold (1983:180) notes “songs can help reinforce specific teaching items.… Normally songs should not introduce language items; they should reinforce them” The pleasurable learning through songs experience enables students to practice pronunciation (Monreal, 1982), rhythm and stress, syntax and vocabulary as “a good teacher will take precautions to ensure that the language which the song reinforces is natural and useful” (Bechtold, 1983:181)

1.2.2 How can songs be used in language teaching?

Automatic usual and simple answer to this question could be: “A word-gap-fill.” However, the answer is not so single valued And hopefully, the selected list of Tim Murphey(1992: 9-10) (and references to other sources of activities) will be convincing enough

to prove that the answer can be much longer From the list, it can be seen that songs can be used

in various ways All the skills such as listening, reading, writing and speaking can be practiced, the same way as linguistic areas starting with vocabulary, grammatical structures, and ending with rhythm, stress, fluency and pronunciation

The rhythm of the verse helps the learner to put the stress in the right places, creating

a natural flow of language and building up fluency At the same time the presence of rhyming words and such poetic device as alliteration and onomatopoeia help to focus on certain sounds, thus giving valuable ear-training and help in pronunciation In the syntactical area a song gives

us the opportunity to repeat the same structural item many times, thereby aiding correctness and fluency of expression (Ward, S A, 1980: 7)

Songs are also “especially good at introducing vocabulary because they provide a meaningful context for the vocabulary” However, it depends on the choice of songs since there are also some songs without meaningful context From the grammatical point of view, they

“provide a natural context for the most common structures such as verb tenses and

prepositions” (Griffee, D T, (1995): 5, 6)

Abbott (2002:11) claimed that “the activity or content of the songs should be related to the theme, topic, or functions that are covered in class Simple, repetitive songs often contain recurrent grammatical patterns and can be used as grammar practice activities” A number of activities can therefore be integrated with the relevant grammar patterns when using songs to motivate students in language learning

The effectiveness of using songs to motivate language learners can be highlighted with the careful choice of vocabularies and grammar in response to the students‟ level of mastery (Jolly, 1975) In addition, students can reconstruct the form of the songs that they are familiar with, by changing the narrative point of view from one to another, student can be a lyric writer

in a composition activity (Chan, 1997)

Songs are especially useful to students whose language is syllable-timed for practicing the stress pattern of spoken English The regulated and stronger rhythm of songs as compared with speech can be used to practice the patterns formed by stressed and unstressed syllables Other activities include asking students to guess the title of a song after listening to it and lyrics

of the songs can be used as a tool for comprehension practice when students listen and dictate (Chan, 1997)

1.2.3 Choosing suitable songs and teaching procedure

For teenagers or adults in the intermediate or advanced level, it is better to use more

meaningful or popular songs, which not only review or introduce grammar points but also reflect cultural aspects (Horner, D, 1993).At the primary level of singing the song, the prosodic features of the language is emphasized At the higher levels, where the practice of grammar points is at the foreground, songs can be used with several techniques Some examples of these techniques are:

 Gap fills or close texts

 Focus questions

 True-false statements

 Put these lines into the correct sequence

 Dictation

 Add a final verse

 Circle the antonyms/synonyms of the given words

directing the students toward specific areas, problem vocabulary items can be picked up in advance Before listening to the song, it is also beneficial to let the students know which

grammar points should be studied At this stage, pictures may also be used to introduce the theme of the song In the listening stage, some of the techniques listed above can be used, but among them gap filling is the most widely used technique Through such gaps, the vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation is highlighted This stage can be developed by the teacher according

to the needs of the students and the grammar point to be studied In the follow-up, integrated skills can be used to complete the overall course structure Since many songs are on themes for which it is easy to find related reading texts, it may lead the learner to read a text about the singer or the theme Besides, many songs give a chance for a written reaction of some kind Opinion questions may lead the learner to write about his own thoughts or reflections Some songs deal with a theme that can be re-exploited through role plays Acting may add enthusiasm

to the learning process Finally, some songs deal with themes, which can lead to guided

discussion By leading the students into a discussion, the grammar point could be practiced orally and, in a way, naturally

As a consequence, the use of songs in language classrooms provides many advantages They entertain and relax the learners while they are learning or practicing a structure, and they often eliminate the students‟ negative attitude towards learning Through providing authenticity and context they make the grammar points more understandable and easy As language

teachers, we can benefit from using songs, since our concern is to motivate the students and draw their utmost attention on the subject during teaching

1.3 Learning English through poems

1.3.1 Reasons for using poems in language teaching

Poems are included in the English textbooks for lower secondary school students in Vietnam In many units, especially in Tieng Anh 7 (2006) ( See examples poems in Appendix 5) there are two poems in the part “Play with words”, which are written for the topic of the unit and with the rhyme words for students to practice pronunciation and to find out the interesting ideas in the poems and it is easy to remember the topic of the unit However, most of the English teachers I know skip this part They do not find reading it important compared with the other parts of the unit It is a great pity to underestimate the role of poetry in language teaching

In fact, poetry is terrific material for EFL class As we know, most of the materials written for EFL class are centered on some topics for grammar or for communicative competence Being exposed to the kind of material for a long period of time, students will inevitably become tired of them for lack of intellectual inspiration But poetry can turn the dullness into excitement, for it can offer “many pleasures -pleasures of sound and meaning, of image and symbol, of speech and feeling and thoughts.” (DiYanni, 1998) With the teaching of poetry, students can be motivated not only to learn English but also to appreciate the deeper dimension and exquisiteness of the language

In addition to the linguistic benefits poetry provides, it can foster the aesthetic sense of students Poems are usually composed of condensed words and vivid images Reading them can make us more receptive to imagination and improve our ability in appreciation of beauty (DiYanni, 1998) Moreover, our experience and feeling will be strongly evoked to look into ourselves and look around the outer world It is the kind of mental process that makes one a lifelong reader

V L Holmes and M R Moulton offer explanation of language acquisition through poetry, and they give reasons for using poetry in language teaching Children are often introduced to poetry early in their lives by parents, grandparents, and other caretakers who chant nursery rhymes or sing lullabies to soothe their children‟s anxiety – all before the youngsters have any consciousness of linguistic forms Many children learn their first words from poems because the sounds of poetic language, with its patterns of rhythm, rhyme, and cadence, intrigue them and make them listen carefully Linguists suggest that early knowledge

of syntax comes from children listening to language forms from their environments More often

than not, those forms are poetic Poetry teaches children to listen, develop vocabulary, learn to read and write, and think creatively For some of the same reasons that poetry is useful in acquisition of a first language, it is an effective way of learning and reinforcing the sounds and structures of a second, or even third, language Through listening to poetry, second language learners can reinforce target language learning in a natural way (V L Holmes and M R Moulton, 2001:3)

1.3.2 How can poems be used in language teaching?

Poems, like songs, contextualize a grammar lesson effectively Since poetry is often spoken, repeated, dealt with, and considered, it acts as an effective tool for practicing a specific grammatical structure Through repeating and considering the poem, the grammatical structures become more deeply internalized Thus, poetry not only provides a rewarding resource for structured practice of grammar, but also a proper basis for review If a poem that exemplifies a particular structure is also a good poem, it engages the eye, the ear and the tongue simultaneously while also stimulating and moving us; this polymorphic effect makes poetry easier to memorize than other things for many students (Celce-Murcia and Hills, 1988:123)

Like songs, poems exaggerate the rhythmic nature of the language Thus it is an important aspect to be taught, since English is a syllable timed language with stressed syllables being spoken at roughly equal time pauses, even in everyday speech Similar to songs, poems have an enormous linguistic value as they provide authenticity and cultural views A poem's capacity to comfort the reader or the listener also increases its effectiveness as a teaching resource Once a poem or song has been learned, they stay in the minds of the students for the rest of their lives, with all the rhythms, grammatical features and vocabulary

Poems may bring the use of creativity and the rhythm into the language classroom, though they may also bring some difficulties Poems are not constructed in a simple way and syntactically they are at a higher level than prose, thus it might be very difficult for a foreign language learner to comprehend them completely As stated by Povey (cited in Celce-Murcia and Hills, 1988) there are three main barriers for literature including poetry They are linguistic, cultural, and intellectual barriers Linguistic difficulties are the problems caused by the syntax

or the lexicon of the poem Cultural difficulties include imagery, tone, and allusion At the intellectual level, the students should be intellectual and mature enough to understand the theme

of the poem These difficulties could be easily removed if the teacher provides a poem which is syntactically and thematically appropriate to the level, age and the interests of the students Thus, by removing or minimizing the potential problems, poetry can provide an enormously rich, enjoyable and authentic context for foreign language learners

1.3.3 Choosing suitable poems and teaching procedure

In the selection of a poem, the teacher should first consider the grammatical structure to

be presented, practiced, or reviewed, then the level and the age of the students, next the theme and the length of the poem and its appropriateness to the classroom objectives It is advisable to select a poem from 20th century poets As older poems often provide a more difficult lexicon and syntax, and as they reflect some old-fashioned ideas, it is more convenient to use contemporary poems than older ones Poems, which reflect cultural themes, universal features, humanistic values, or emotional aspects, will be more relevant to the foreign language learners Finally, through taking the classroom objectives into consideration, a teacher should effectively benefit from poems as teaching aids

Celce-Murcia and Hills (1988) suggested a poem‟s teaching procedure which seemed to

be suitable to teaching high school students At the teaching stage of a poem, it is not advisable

to talk about the meaning of the poem in advance Since they offer a reading and listening activity, poems could be presented through a reading plan At the pre-reading stage, students might be motivated through some enthusiastic talks about poetry or the poet Some necessary vocabulary can also be handled at this stage At the reading stage, in order to create images and stress the prosodic features, the teacher may want the students to close their eyes while he/she is reading the poem After the poem has been read at least twice, it is better to elicit the primary responses of the students about the poem Next, after distributing the poem to students, students may be asked to read it either loudly or silently In order to practice the determined grammar point, students may be asked to paraphrase the poem Through transforming the verse into prose students get acquainted with the structure

After easing the grammar and understanding the vocabulary, students get an idea about the theme of the poem Reading the paraphrased poem reinforces the grammatical structure under consideration Asking questions about context may follow the reading Through asking

Wh- questions, providing additional information about the culture and asking students to share their experience with the subject matter, the cultural content of the poem becomes more real and vivid Words, pictures, and shared experiences can eliminate the gap that is created by different cultures, as no one can deny that poems cannot always evoke the same sounds, sights, smells, and associations for both native speakers and foreign language learners After discussing the surface content of the poem, students may again asked to close their eyes and visualize the poem while listening to it

As a follow-up activity a discussion may be held After reviewing the plot of the poem and providing adequate artful questions, the students will eventually discover the deeper meaning of the poem As being a facilitator, a teacher should always avoid telling the meaning After each student grasps his or her own meaning, it is proper to discuss the depth of the poem

In this procedure, the teacher's aim is to support the students in their attempts to understand the poem and make it relevant to their lives Once they have understood it and perceived its relevance, they will have no objection to practicing the poem or even memorizing it, for it will have become special for them (Celce-Murcia and Hills, 1988:126) At the follow-up stage, providing the determined structure, students may also be asked to write a poem about anything they want In such a procedure the four skills are effectively integrated to practice or present any grammar point

Since every class is different, teachers should creativity determine the teaching procedure It is not advisable to apply one procedure too strictly A teacher should adopt the activities according to the needs of the learners However, it might not be very useful to use poems for young students or for beginners Instead of poems, using nursery rhymes or songs would be more helpful since they provide more joyful and easier contexts From pre-intermediate to advanced levels, it is really beneficial to use either songs or poems Several poems can be adopted from contemporary poem books The poems of the W.H Auden, Robert Frost, Stanley Kunitz, Delmore Schwartz, W.D Snodgrass, Theodore Roethke, Gary Snyder, Richard Wilbur, and Robert Lowell, etc are suggested for the language teachers who want to use poems in their grammar lessons

1.4 Previous studies in ULIS and difficulties to apply the idea of teaching English through songs and poems in high schools

In the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies of ULIS, there have been two theses in which the authors are interested in using songs in English teaching One is Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen (August, 2006), who used English songs as a kind of supplementary material in teaching listening skill The other is Nguyen Thi Moc Lan (August, 2007), who used songs to motivate her students to learn vocabulary Taking a look for using poems to teach English, only one author was found Nguyen Thi Hong Quyen (2008) integrated short stories and poems in developing the reading skill for 2nd year students in Hai Phong University

All the three authors used songs and poems in their teaching English at the university There may be a lot of difficulties to use songs and poems in high school where all the teachers have to strictly follow the teaching curriculum with the Textbook by the Ministry of Training and Education It seems that there is not any space to integrate songs and poems in teaching English

When using Google to search for the answer to the questions how teaching – English – through – song – and - poem can be applied in high schools, I did not find any teachers in Vietnam to do this I only found some high school websites in which there are some pages for learners to enjoy English songs with lyrics, most of these songs are taken from the learning – English – through – songs websites listed above Here are some examples:

 http://nguyenhue.phuyen.edu.vn/Di%E1%BB%85n%C4%91%C3%A0n/tabid/62/forumid/33/postid/818/scope/posts/Default.aspx

There is a collection of English songs with lyrics the same as 7 volumes from thunglunghoahong.com

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY

This chapter develops a methodology to examine the experiences of students to be investigated in the research The situation of learning English through songs and poems in Vietnam will be discussed first and then the research questions will be established Next, the participants will be described as well as the appropriate research vehicle These are critical steps as the research method can influence the accuracy of the data, response rate and the criteria of the study Finally the method of data analysis will be explained

2.1 Setting of the study

Previously, on television, “Sing to Learn” was one of the first Vietnamese programme which tried to encourage learners to learn English through songs A lot of famous songs were taught carefully with the explanations of new words and expressions, grammar points the lyrics and singing along with a Vietnamese singer At that time the programme was always waited by many English learners In fact there are many other English learners in Vietnam enjoy this way

of learning They have found many websites to learn English through songs (See appendix 7)

At a workshop by Hanoi Ministry of Education about five years ago, Nguyen Quoc Hung introduced teaching English through poems He translated many English poems into Vietnamese and invited the singer Duc Chinh recited two of the poems Many English teachers enjoyed the poems but they did not seem to interest in the ideas Some workshops by British Council held in Melia Hotel in 2004 also mentioned this way of teaching At one of those workshops, teachers and students of Trung Vuong Lower Secondary School were asked to present how they had learnt English through songs, poems and dramas They gave us handouts

of “Play with words” translations, which was a collection of students‟ Vietnamese translations from English short poems in Tieng Anh 6 and 7 (2004) (See Appendix 5)

As far as I know, many teachers of English at secondary school think that they do not have time for those activities and because their students are not good at English to do the translations That is why many teachers skip this part of the textbook And so it is easy to understand that many of my 10th grade students admitted never reading English poems before Comparing with so many websites of learning English though songs, there are few websites for the Vietnamese to learn English through poems I have sought for learning-English-through-poems websites but have found only few ones (Appendix 7)

2.2 Research Questions

The study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of using songs and poems to motivate students to learn English at a high school It aimed to see whether students were more motivated to learn English through songs and poems The study was conducted with the following research questions:

1 Does learning - English - through - songs - and - poems increase motivation in the ESL classroom?

2 What is the most suitable time to use songs and poems in the English lessons of at high school?

3 What kinds of songs and poems are high school students‟ favourite ones?

4 What class activities are suitable for teaching songs and poems to high school students?

2.3 Research Methodology

To answer these above research questions, a quasi – experimental research was carried out in Van Noi High School during the two months at the end of the second term of the school year 2010 – 2011 This is a nonequivalent groups pretest-posttest design (Gibbons, Barry & Herman, Joan, 1997) This design was used due to the reason that there was limited of time As Hatch and Farhady (1982:23) state: Because of these and many other limitations, constructing a

true experimental design may be difficult if not impossible A non-equivalent groups design

includes an existing group of participants who receive a treatment and another existing group of participants to serve as a control or comparison group Participants are not randomly assigned

to conditions, but rather are assigned to the treatment or control conditions along with all the others in their existing group

Following is the formula of the research design:

G1 : Experimental group (Class 10B)

G2 : Control group (Class 10F)

X : Treatment: the use of songs and poems in teaching English

T1 : Pretest (Pre-questionnaire)

T2 : Posttest (Post - questionnaire)

Independent variable: the teaching methodology

Dependent variable: students‟ learning motivation and attitudes to learning English

2.4 Participants

Eighty grade 10 students from two classes participated in this study From the data obtained in the pre-questionnaire, one of the classes was selected as the experimental group and they were taught English songs and poems once a week, integrated to the usual English schedule (See Appendix 2) The control group only learned the usual schedule of Tieng Anh 10 curriculum (See appendix 1)

The school is situated in the suburban of Hanoi and most of their parents are farmers and their level of education is generally not high Their condition to learn English outside the class is not good Only some of them have personal computers connected with the Internet Most of them do not have chances to attend any English speaking clubs or extra – classes At the beginning of the school year 2010- 2011, they showed their low motivation towards learning English They did not pay much attention to learning English at Lower secondary school; therefore their result at the first term test was really bad It is clear that there is a lot of room for the teacher to motivate them in learning English

In order to get a better understanding to the background of the two groups of students, the pre-questionnaire was filled in by the two classes of students at the beginning of the research to collect data about their attitude and motivation towards learning English and learning English through songs and poems

2.5 Instruments to collect data

According to Brown (2001:6), “questionnaires are any written instruments that present respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they are to react either by writing out their answers or selecting from among existing answers” Two questionnaires (the pre - questionnaire and and post – questionnaire) were used together with and Students‟ reflections (including the worksheets, some of their thoughts and feelings towards learning English through songs and poems, their collections of favorite songs to learns) to collect data in this study

2.5.1 Questionnaires

The questionnaires were of the Likert-scale type with six different scales from „Strongly disagree” to „Strongly agree” which was partly adapted from “The post-experimental intrinsic motivation inventory” by Ryan, Koestner & Deci (1991) (see Appendix 3,4) There are two main sections in the pre-questionnaire Section one was about students‟ English learning

motivation This section determines data on students‟ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation The statements were designed based on the above definitions of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation Statements 1 to 4 are to measure students‟ intrinsic motivation Statements 5 to 8 are to measure students‟ extrinsic motivation Section two is about students‟ attitude towards English learning through songs and poems

The post-questionnaire (for details see Appendix 4) was divided into four sections Section one is about students‟ English learning motivation, which is exactly the same as the one

in the pre – questionnaire This aimed at measuring English learning motivation of both experimental and control group after the two months of the treatment Section two, three, four, are only for the experimental group Section two is about students‟ attitudes after learning English through songs and poems Section three is a close question with ranking on their interest in the songs and poems that were taught and section four is about their preferences to the learning-through-songs-and-poems activities

2.5.2 Students’ Reflections

There were ten sets of worksheets (for details see Appendix 6a-j) designed for the lessons Students were asked to complete the worksheets in class so as to demonstrate their understanding of what they had learned from the song or the poem The gap-filling exercise and giving definitions to vocabulary items tested listening and their vocabulary capacity Comprehension exercises, guessing the right order of the poem were designed to challenge their English knowledge while picture drawing and singing along the Karaoke version of the song were to bring fun to their learning experience Practicing reading aloud the song lyrics and the poems could help students better their pronunciation The extent to which they had completed the exercises was used as an indication as to whether they were motivated by the English-through-songs-and-poems activities in learning English

In addition to the five taught songs and poems, students were so interested in learning English through songs that they had found the songs on the Internet and designed the gap-filling tasks themselves With the help of the teacher, they had recorded two CDs of their own favourite song – collections and then shared with all the classmates (see Appendix 8 for their two CDs with their collections of songs to learn) They also expressed the love for English songs by designing their own song books, in which they copied the lyrics of their favorite songs, translating them and then writing their own feelings when they enjoyed the songs

(Appendix 8) It was a pity that they only spared a little love for poems They collected only one English – Vietnamese poem to learn English vocabulary on the Internet

2.6 Data Collection Procedure

 Step 1 Giving a pretest: The pre questionnaire was filled by both classes The data collected were analyzed With the data obtained in the pre- questionnaire, Class 10B with lower learning motivation was treated as the experimental group and class 10F with higher learning motivation was the control group so as to make the result more comparable

 Step 2 Treatment: The experimental group was additionally taught the five English songs and five English poems (which were carefully chosen and designed for the

classroom activities) but the control group only followed the usual schedule The

research was carried out from Monday, February 28th to Sunday, May 15th, 2011, which was the two last months of the second term of the school year 2010-2011 During the time, according to the curriculum of Tieng Anh 10, Unit 12 to Unit 16 were being taught to both classes The control group followed exactly the teaching schedule

(Appendix 1) while the experimental group followed the English–through-songs-and- poems teaching schedule – integrated with the five units (Unit 12 – Unit 16) (See

Appendix 2) When a song or a poem was taught, a worksheet was distributed to help students to focus on particular activities which were designed to lead in the topic or practice the pronunciation or grammatical points of the unit that the song or poem was taught along with

 Step 3 Giving Posttest: the post-questionnaire was filled by both groups after the two months of the treatment

 Step 4 Data analysis and findings: The data collected from the post-questionnaire were calculated to get the mean scores then compared with those in the pre

questionnaire to see if there was any increase in students‟ learning motivation and what were their favorite songs and poems and learning-English-through-songs-and-poems activities From the comparison, it is hoped to find out an effective way to teach English through songs and poems to high school students

2.7 Methods of Data Analysis

The main method of analysis used in this research is comparing the mean scores The data in the questionnaires for both classes were tallied and converted into mean scores and percentages for comparison By looking at students‟ attitude towards learning English and learning English through songs and poems in the pre-questionnaire, the change in their motivation was measured as well as the type of instructional activities they preferred and the kind of songs that they liked to sing, the kinds of poems that they liked to read and learn The class which was considered to have a lower motivation with a greater preference learning English – through – songs – and - poems was chosen to be the experimental group

As for the data in the post-questionnaire, students‟ motivation was measured again in both groups by the means of comparing the mean scores and percentage and compared with the mean scores of the pre-questionnaire

In addition, students‟ views in the experimental group on the English songs and poems that they like and the relevance of different activities related to the worksheet design and usefulness were collected by mean scores and percentage Finally, the students' reflections were collected and analyzed to gain information about their experience in learning English through songs This analysis is done in an informal, unstructured way

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter reports the data collected from different quantitative and qualitative sources The pre-questionnaire reports data on students‟ motivation and their attitude towards learning English through songs and poems With regard to whether learning English through songs and poems would increase students‟ motivation in learning English, what kinds of songs and poems are students‟ favorite ones and what learning activities through songs and poems are useful, the post-questionnaire will discuss how the activities increase students‟ motivation, therefore to find out the way to teach English through songs and poems to high school students

3.1 Pre – questionnaire data and analysis

3.1.1 Students’ Motivation and Attitudes to Learning English before the treatment

Questionnaire and mean scores:

In order to get a better understanding of the background of the two groups of students, the pre-questionnaire was filled in by the two classes of students at the beginning of the research to collect data about their attitude and motivation in learning English and learning English through songs and poems

Table 1: Students’ motivation and attitude to learning English before the treatment

(A1)

G2 (B1)

Difference (A1-B1)

2 I enjoy the English activities in the classroom 2.67 2.82 - 0.15

3 I don‟t enjoy learning English, but I know that learning English

is useful to me

2.77 3.37 - 0.60

4 English is important to me because it widens my horizons 1.99 3.40 - 1.41

5 I learn English because my parents want me to 1.78 2.21 - 0.43

6 With good English, I will be able to get a better job in the

future

3.70 3.67 0.03

8 I want my English teacher to speak only English in the

classroom

2.11 1.98 0.13

9 My teacher should always explain things in Vietnamese 2.58 3.00 - 0.42

10 I like pair work and group activities during English lessons 2.93 2.98 -0.05

11 I like to work on my own during English lessons 1.28 1.27 0.01

(1=strongly disagree, 6=strongly agree)

Table 1 shows students‟ motivation and attitude to learning English in the pre-questionnaire Statements 1 to 4 are statements to measure students‟ intrinsic motivation Statements 5 to 7 are statements to investigate students‟ extrinsic motivation while statements 8 to 11 are statements about the instructional activities (Oxford, 1998)

It can be seen from Table 1 that the mean scores for all the statements for both classes are around the mid-point 3 That is, students‟ views on all the aspects of learning English were not very positive G1 stands for Class 10B, G2 stands for Class 10F Class 10B‟s students have all the mean scores in statement 1 to 4 lower than that of Class 10F students The mean scores of 10B students between statement 1 to 4 are all below 3.0 (the average score is 2.52) whereas those of 10F students are higher (the average score is 3.08) In general, there is a larger potential to increase the intrinsic motivation of 10B than that of 10F students

Apart from statement 6, Class 10F has higher scores on all the statements from 6 to 8 which indicate that Class 10F has a higher extrinsic motivation than Class 10B The average scores from statement 5 to 8 in Class 10B is 2.53 and in Class 10F is 3.09 That is slightly higher than the average scores of intrinsic motivation statements in both classes Both classes have slightly higher extrinsic motivation than intrinsic motivation

As for the instructional activities in statement 8 and 9, compared with 10B students, students of 10F would like the teacher to speak more Vietnamese than English Both classes do not want the teacher speaks English much in class This shows that they are not very good at listening and speaking English For statement 10 and 11, the mean scores are nearly the same in the two classes and the mean scores are under the mid point 3 It seems that both classes are not so much active in pair and group work but they do not like to work on their own There are more students who want to work on their own in class 10B than in 10F

3.1.2 Students’ Attitudes towards Learning English through Songs and Poems before the treatment

Table 2: Attitudes towards learning English through songs and poems before the treatment

(A)

G2 (B)

Difference (A - B)

3 I often listen to English songs on radio, TV, the Internet 3.30 2.85 0.45

6 I think learning English through songs can improve my

8 I really want to learn English though songs 3.18 2.85 0.33

9 I really want to learn English though poems 1.87 1.22 0.65

10 I like the melody of the English songs but I don‟t understand

the lyrics

3.03 2.88 0.15

(1=strongly disagree, 6=strongly agree)

It can be seen from Table 2 that only one third of the results has the mean scores above the point 3, i.e the students do not have a positive attitude towards learning English through songs and poems However, comparing all the 10 statements, it is clear that Class 10B has higher scores than Class 10F That means they like to learn English through songs and poems than those in the other class Let‟s have a careful look at the details: on statement 1, both classes have the mean scores under the mid-point 3 that means they do not like singing much But from the statement 2 and 3, we can see that students in Class 10B like singing English songs more than those in Class 10F and they often listen to English songs on the radio, on TV or the Internet The statements 4, 5, 7, 9 about the attitudes to learning English through poems The average mean scores of these statements are especially low: Class 10B: 1.72 and Class 10F: 1.90 above the total point 6 Both classes think that they do not like reading poems, which shows that all the “play with words” parts in the English Textbook from grade 3 to grade 7

mid-seemed to have been ignored by both teachers and students at their Primary Schools and Lower Secondary Schools (see appendix 5 – examples of poems in the English Textbook) Meanwhile, the attitude towards learning English through songs is much better The average scores of statement 2, 3, 6, 8, 10 about singing to learn of Class 10B are: 3.13 and of Class 10F are: 2.54 The students in the two classes prefer songs to poems For the statement 6, 7 about students‟ wish to learn English through songs and poems, both of the classes have the average mean scores above the mid-point (Class 10B: 3.15 and Class 10F: 3.05) that is, they all think that learning English through songs and poems can improve their English For the statements 7,

8, 9 and 10, the mean scores of Class 10B are higher than Class 10F That means there are more students who want to learn English through songs and poems in Class 10B than in Class 10F

3.2 Changes in Students’ Motivation and Attitudes

Table 3: Students’ motivation and attitude to learning English after the treatment compared

with those before the treatment

(A1)

G1 (A2)

G2 (B1)

G2 (B2)

Difference (A2-B2)

2 I enjoy the English activities in the classroom 2.67 3.40 2.82 2.94 0.46

3 I don‟t enjoy learning English, but I know that

learning English is useful to me

2.77 3.02 3.37 3.12 - 0.10

4 English is important to me because it widens my

horizons

1.99 3.54 3.40 3.40 0.14

5 I learn English because my parents want me to 1.78 1.78 2.21 2.21 - 0.43

6 With good English, I will be able to get a better

job in the future

3.70 3.70 3.67 3.67 0.03

7 I learn English to pass examinations 2.11 3.89 3.03 3.03 0.09

8 I want my English teacher to speak only English

(1=strongly disagree, 6=strongly agree)

A2 and B2 are for the data of the post – questionnaire meanwhile A1 and B1 are for the data in the pre – questionnaire which are shown in Table 1

In order to measure the variation of students‟ motivation and attitudes to learning English after two months of the treatment in both control and experimental groups, the statements in this part

of the post – questionnaire are exactly the same to the ones in the pre- questionnaire: statements

1 to 4 are statements about students‟ intrinsic motivation Statements 5 to 7 are statements on students‟ extrinsic motivation while statements 8 to 11 are statements about the instructional activities

It is quite happy for the researcher to see that the mean scores for most of the statements

in the experimental group in table 3 are above the mid – point 3 and much higher than those in the pre-questionnaire (comparing the data A2 to A1) Meanwhile the mean scores from the control group are not changing much (Comparing the data B2 to B1) and lower than those from the experimental group (comparing the data A2 to B2) That is, the treatment did the job well

In other words, the interfering of English songs and poems into the usual lessons did help to motivate students to learn English

Having a look for the details: The average mean score of statement 1 to 4 in Class 10B

is changing from 2.52 to 3.54 and in Class 10F is changing from 3.08 to 3.12 That means the intrinsic motivation of 10B students increased more quickly than that of Class 10F Similarly the average mean score of 10B students between statements 5 to 7 is changing from 2.53 to 3.12 but that of Class 10F stays the same with the point 3.09 We can see from these points that the extrinsic motivation of 10F Class is not changing but that of 10B students is getting much higher, especially the mean score of statement 7 about learning English to pass examinations is changing from 2.11 to 3.89 That means more students in Class 10B want to learn English for their examinations

For instructional activities in statement 8 and 9, compared with 10f students, students of 10B would like the teacher to speak more English than Vietnamese in class For statement 8 the mean scores are 3.06 for 10B and 2.04 for 10F while for statement 9, the mean scores are 1.55 for 10B and 3.00 for 10F It seems that after two months of learning English through songs and poems, students of Class10B not only want the teacher to speak more English in class but also become more active because they really enjoy working in pairs and groups It can be clearly seen that the mean scores for statement 10 in Class 10B are 3.87, which is much higher than

that of the pre – questionnaire and that of Class 10F For the last statement in this part we can see that the mean score for 10B and 10F is 0.25 and 1.27 respectively, indicating that 10F students like to work more on their own

3.3 Attitudes towards learning English through songs and poems after the treatment

Table 4: Attitudes towards learning English through songs and poems after the treatment:

Class 10B only

score

3 I think learning English through songs can improve my

English

3.50

4 I can handle all the learning-English-through-song activities well 3.30

7 I think learning English through poems can improve my English 2.45

8 I can handle all the learning-English-through-poem activities well 2.28

9 I find learning English more interesting than before 3.30

10 I think the activities are useful for learning English 3.36

11 I think the activities take too much time of the usual lessons 2.46

12 We should not learn English through songs and poems along with the lessons 1.55

(1=strongly disagree, 6=strongly agree)

In the post - questionnaire, the mean score in Table 4 shows that the experimental group quite enjoy learning English through songs and poems However, they prefer learning English songs to poems

Statements 1 to 4 are about students‟ attitude to learning English through songs, statements 5 to 8 about their views to learning English through poems As revealed in Table 4 that all the mean scores for statement 1 to 4 are above the mid-point 3 i.e., 10B students really

enjoy learning English through songs They are more motivated to learn English after the English through songs activities as the mean score of statement 4 is 3.33 This indicates that English songs can help motivate students in learning English It can be seen in Table 2 that the mean score for statement 6 about students‟ thinking about the idea of learning English through songs can improve their English is 3.23, meanwhile the mean score for the same statement in the post –questionnaire is 3.50, which shows that there is a slight increase in students‟ view in this idea

Compared with the mean score 2.07 for the same statement in Table 2 about the idea of enjoy English poems, the mean score of statement 5 in Table 4 is 2.43, indicating that there is a bit increase in students‟ likes for English poems The average mean score for statement between

5 and 8 is 2.38, which shows the attitude towards learning English through poems are not quite positive, compared with the average score for statement between 1 and 4 is 3.31 Perhaps high school students have many subjects to study so that they prefer learning English through songs because they can relax when listening to music and singing along with the lyrics They do not have much time to practice learning more materials, even short poems like the ones in the research

For statement 9, the mean score is quite positive: 3.30, showing that many students of Class 10B find learning English more interesting than before And it is hopefully for the idea learning English through songs and poems when seeing the result of statement 10: 3.36, that means many students think the activities of learning English through songs and poems are useful for their better English

Because there are only 45 minutes in a lesson at high school and they have to learn their usual lessons along with songs and poems, and the activities of learning English through songs and poems may take more time than the teacher‟s plan and expectation We can see the students‟ ideas about the statement 11 Not many of them complain the overtaking time of the activities because they can do their usual tasks for the lessons at home, and their tasks are all checked in class carefully

Very few students agree with the statement 12 that we should not learn songs and poems along with the lessons (the mean score is 1.55) That is, they really want to learn English though songs and poems together with their usual Textbook

3.4 Songs and poems that students like to learn

Table 5: Songs and Poems that Students Preferred and Their Ranking

Poems

(1 = least enjoyable  4 = most enjoyable)

In this table, the researcher shows all the numbers of students who ticked each column and then the average score over the total point 4

It can be seen from Table 5 that students likes the five chosen songs more than the five chosen poems It suits the findings through Table 4 that more students enjoy learning English through songs than poems When selecting a song, the researcher first paid attention to the topic

of the unit that the song is taught along with, see Appendix 2, then the kind of the song with the clear and meaningful lyrics which suits the high school students‟ tastes The data in table 5 shows that students enjoy all the songs especially popular pop songs The song they find most enjoyable is “Take me to your heart” by Michael Learns To Rock It is considered one of the top 10 pop songs The melody of the song is quite slow, which is easy for the students to catch

up and follow when singing along with the Karaoke version The lyric of the song is easy to understand and the singers pronounce words very clearly The second highest score is for the song “The cup of life” (Ricky Martin) with the mean score of 3.35, which is a very high score

over the total 4 This is also a very popular football encouraging song, which is integral part of any football season The music is very exciting and rousing The lyric is really meaningful and easy to understand But the melody is a bit fast for most students to follow in the karaoke version

“My heart will go on” (Celine Dion) ranks third in the most – favourite songs It is very beautiful song and as famous as the film Titanic It is loved both in the music and the lyric, and slow melody but it is a bit sad and in deep mood The song in the fourth position is “Ballad of Hochiminh” (Ewan Maccoll) It is a famous song about our beloved Uncle Ho, which was written by a famous song writer in the world in 1954, which was translated into many languages, which was sung and heard by many anti –Vietnam war people in the world in those days The song brings the pride to the nation and Uncle Ho but the melody was rather quick for all students to listen to and sing along Also the lyric is rather long and contains many new words, which does not interest high school learners The song “New York, New York” is at the last position, ranking from the most enjoyable song to the least enjoyable song Many students said that they had not heard of this song before

As for the poems, the most enjoyable one is the poem: “He leaves the Nest”, which is the shortest poem with fewest words (only 45 words of all) This is a poem about a cock leaving its nest The poem is old and was originally written in Sanskrit Nobody knows who wrote it The translation is by John Brough Translating a poem from one language into another is often very difficult The translator has to look carefully at the meter (the number of syllables), the rhyme, the length of each line and, above all, the meaning Readers are all impressed by how the subject (the cock) is revealed only at the end of the poem Students were asked to draw a picture to describe the poem The idea seemed attractive to them and they let their imagination free from the poem to make beautiful pictures of their own, which made the poem memorable and impressive to students The two video poems “I‟m sorry” and “Poem to cheer someone up” are in the next positions The two poems show the relations which students usually have in their daily life The videos are really impressive to them The least enjoyable ones are for “The Conditional Poem” with the score 2.77 and “The Pronunciation Poem” with the score 2.75 But both of the mean scores for the two poems are much above the mid-score 2 That means students quite like the poems “The Conditional Poem” is easy to understand and easy to imitate

to continue writing their own poem but there is only one student out of 40 ones in Class 10B who likes doing this task “The Pronunciation Poem” is for practice pronunciation only so the

meaning is somewhat unnatural It is very long and not easy to memorize so a lot of students

do not enjoy practicing it

3.5 The degree of suitability of songs- and poems-based activities as ranked by the students

Table 6: Learning relevance towards the English through songs and poems activities

score

1 Gap- filling when listening to the song as warmers 0 1 18 21 3.50

2 Choosing right words when listening to the song 1 4 19 16 3.25

3 Doing exercises on vocabulary with the song

lyrics

2 4 18 16 3.20

4 Reading comprehension with the song lyrics 4 6 22 8 2.85

5 Singing along with the karaoke version of the

song

0 0 14 26 3.65

6 Translating the song lyrics into Vietnamese 7 9 18 6 2.57

7 Gap – filling when watching the video poem 5 7 16 12 2.88

8 Reordering mixed lines when listening to the

poem

4 5 19 12 2.97

9 Practicing pronouncing words, and stress,

intonation by reading the poems

11 Drawing the picture to describe the poem 2 8 19 11 2.97

12 Translating the poems into Vietnamese 9 9 18 4 2.27

13 Translating their own chosen songs 5 11 18 6 2.63

(1= not useful at all  4 = very helpful )

To answer the research question “What class activities are suitable for teaching English songs and poems to high school students?”, The mean scores in Table 6 show students‟ ideas about these learning through songs –and - poems activities It can be seen clearly that all the mean scores are much higher than the mid – point 2 That means the students really enjoy most of the activities They find “Singing along with the karaoke version of the song” and “Gap- filling

when listening to the song as warmers” the most helpful activities That means students really want to relax with the songs Singing karaoke is very relaxing They also want to begin the lessons with listening to songs as warmers

The next helpful activities are “Choosing right words when listening to the song” and

“Doing exercises on vocabulary with the song lyrics” with the high score of 3.25 and 3.20 The least helpful activity with the lowest score 1.95 is “Learning how to write a poem” Of course it

is very difficult task, which can be done only by the ones who are very good at English and have the especial love for poetry

All of the rest activities have the average scores between 2.27 and 2.85 That indicates students find these activities quite helpful In the lesson the activities really attracted the students They always felt pity to stop learning through songs and poems in order to start their usual lesson

3.6 Students’ reflections on learning through songs and poems

3.6.1 Students’ worksheets

There were ten worksheets for students to learn songs and poems Series of exercises

on vocabulary, grammatical points and reading comprehension were designed into forms of handouts along with the lyrics of the songs or the poems Students were eager to receive the handouts from the teacher After each song or poem had been taught, the teacher collected all the worksheets to see how well the students had done the assignments The results were quite positive Most of them had completed all the exercises designed for each song or poems with excitement, which shows the engagement in the lesson was high, the and the learning enthusiasm was great The most difficult exercise for each song or poem is translation but more than half of the students had done the translation quite well, their works were seen in the lyrics and poems translations in Appendix a - j

3.6.2 Students’ sayings about learning through songs and poems:

In order to know what students want to say about learning English through songs and poems for the two months and their plans of using this way in their future, the researcher leaves some lines in the last part of the post - questionnaire for students to express their own opinions Most of them said that this way of learning is really easy, interesting, relaxing, motivating, useful and passionate They loved this teaching method About 75% of the students enjoyed

English songs and they listened to them almost every day About half of them said that this way

of learning made them more motivated to learn English Some of them wished they had known this way of learning before, and if so, they had not been fed up with English in their Lower Secondary School, and if so their English should have been improved by then They were planning to learn more songs and poems in the next summer From the way the teacher guided them to learn English songs and poems; they could learn the songs and poems themselves at home and through the mass media They also showed that they preferred learning through songs

to poems

However, about 5% of the students said that even though listening to songs was relaxing, songs and poems could not help consolidate their further grammar and vocabulary as much as exercises That was why they only wanted to listen to English songs as means of relaxing, and they did not spend their time learning English poems because their goals were to pass the entrance examinations to universities They learned English as a must not as a hobby or interest They did not like the teacher to spend much time of the usual lesson for songs or poems

3.6.3 Student’s collections of their favorite songs

To know how students love English songs and poems, at the end of the research, the teacher asks them to choose one or more of their most favorite songs and poems to translate into Vietnamese and write down their feelings when listening to the songs or reading the poems Students were very interested in the idea They spent much time searching for their song lyrics and poems They translated them with enthusiasm They even practiced singing them quite well and volunteered to sing in front of the class The classroom atmosphere in those last days of the school year seemed more exciting than ever To the teacher‟s surprise, they not only copied many songs but also translated them and decorated their song – books with beautiful photos of the singers and their own drawings (Appendix 8) Their feelings were mostly written

in Vietnamese because their English was not good enough to express all their thinking and feelings Reading their feelings, the teacher could see that they were really moved when listening to the songs (See Appendix 8)

However, there were only three students who chose poems to translate They were poems about teen love, school or friendship Their translations were quite good but they