The use of songs to improve listening skills for students at ITC Foreign Language Centre in Haiphong = Sử dụng bài hát nhằm cải thiện kỹ năng nghe cho sinh viên20150227.PDF

LIST OF TABLES CHARTS PIE-CHARTS Pie-chart 1: Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill Pie-chart 2: Students’ attitude towards listening skill Pie-chart 3: The reasons cause students’

TABLE OF CONTENT

Certificate of originality……… ………… ……… …… i

Acknowledgements……… …… ……… ii

Abstract……… ……….iii

List of abbreviations……… … … ………iv

List of tables and charts……… ………….… v

Table of contents……… ……… vi

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale ……… …… ………… …… ………1

2 Aims of the study……… …… …… ……… 2

3 Research questions……… ………… …… 2

4 Scope of the study……… ……….…… 2

5 Methodology ……….…… ….……… … 2

6 Design of the study……… … … 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW a The definition of listening skill ……….……… … 4

b Listening skill in learning a foreign language teaching……… ……5

i The importance of listening skill in foreign language teaching…… ……5

ii The difficulties in learning listening skill ……… ….….6

iii Teaching listening skill according to CLT……… 8

c Teaching listening skill through English songs……….……… 8

i The importance of songs in foreign language teaching ………… 8

ii Using songs as a motivator for students to learn listening skill… ……… 10

iii Tasks designed for listening texts……….…… 11

d Summary ………… ……….……….….12

Chapter 2: USING SONGS TO TEACH LISTENING FOR STUDENTS AT ITC FOREIGN LANGUAGE 2.1 Hypothesis ……… …… ……….…13

2.2 The setting of the study ……… … ………13

2.2.1 Students’ background information ……… ……….13

2.2.2 The teachers and teaching methods ……….……13

2.2.3 Materials and facilities ……… 14

2.3 The subjects ……… ……… …… 14

2.4 Methods of data collection ……… 14

2.5 Procedures and methods of data analysis ……… …… … … 15

2.6 Data analysis and discussion ……….……… …… 15

2.6.1 Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill ……… 15

2.6.2 Students’ attitude towards listening skill ……….………… …….16

2.6.3 The reasons cause students’ difficulty in listening skill ……… 17

2.6.4 Teachers’ attitudes towards using songs to teach listening skill ……….… 18

2.6.5 Students’ attitude toward using songs to learn listening skill ……… …….18

2.6.6 The situation of using songs to teach listening skill ……… 19

2.6.7 Reasons that students listen to English songs……… … 20

2.6.8 Teachers’ opinion about advantages and disadvantages of using songs to teach listening skill……… 22

2.6.9 Students’ opinion about advantages and disadvantages of using songs to learn English ……… 25

2.6.10 Favorite activities while students listen to English songs……… 25

2.7 Discussion of the findings……… …26

2.8 Summary ……… 28

Chapter 3: IMPLICATIONS 3.1 Criteria of song selection……… 29

3.2 Problems to be faced with by students ………30

3.3 Some suggested tasks designed from songs ……… ……….…32

PART III: CONCLUSION 1 Summary of the study ……….33

2 Limitations and suggestions for further study ……… 33

References ……… ……….…….… 35

Appendix 1……… ……….……… i

Appendix 2……… ……… …….……… xiii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ITCFLC: ITC Foreign Language Centre

CLT: Communicative language teaching

EFL: Learning English as a foreign language

LIST OF TABLES CHARTS

PIE-CHARTS

Pie-chart 1: Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill Pie-chart 2: Students’ attitude towards listening skill Pie-chart 3: The reasons cause students’ difficulties in listening skill Pie-chart 4: Student's attitude towards English songs

Pie-chart 5: The situation of using songs to teach listening skill TABLES

Table 1: Teachers’ attitudes towards using songs to teach listening skill Table 2: Reasons that students listen to English songs

Table 3: Teachers’ opinion about using songs in class Table 4: Teachers’ opinion about disadvantages of using songs in class Table 5: Favorite activities while students listen to English songs BAR-CHARTS

Chart 1: Students’ opinion about using English songs in class Chart 2: Students’ opinion about the disadvantages of using songs in classes

As we know, in 2008 the Ministry of Education and Training made a decision on approval of the project “Teaching and learning foreign languages in the national education system period 2008 – 2020” Its main purpose is to reform the teaching and learning of foreign languages in the national education system at all levels so that students will have been able to achieve a remarkable improvement in learning foreign languages by 2015 Also, students at colleges and universities will be able to use the foreign language confidently in communication in an environment of integration, multi – languages, multi – cultural variables to serve the cause of industrializating and modernizating of the country

In the past, most textbooks paid more attention to reading and grammar, but recently they have been reformed to develop the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) equally Despite the innovation in textbooks and teaching methods, we can see a little change in students Among the four language skills “listening, speaking, reading and writing”, listening skill seems to be the most difficult to be mastered by the students and be far more difficult than many people can imagine (Mee, 1990 cited in M Fadlij, 2000)

During an observation at an extra – curriculum activity at ITC foreign language center

in Hai Duong, students at level A could not understand what the native speaker said When asked, most of them said that they felt tired at the end of the lesson and that they had no mood for listening to English on the tape

As a teacher of English, how to make the students understand spoken English during the listening lesson is of my first concern I decided to study English songs to teach

listening skill to my students so that they want to learn the listening skill and therefore they can improve their listening abilities in English

II Aims of the study

Aims of the study are:

 To investigate the effectives of using songs in teaching listening skill to the students at ITC foreign language center

 To suggest some methods on how to use English songs to teach listening to students

II Research questions

1 What is teachers and students’ attitudes to teaching and listening skill?

2 What are teachers’ and students’ attitudes at ITCFLC to using songs in teaching listening skill?

III Scope of the study

In this study, the author intended to use songs to help level A students at ITCFLC improve their listening skill without using other activities such as stories, games, or poems

IV Methodology

To fulfill the above aims, qualitative and quantitative method was chosen for the study All comments, remarks, assumptions and conclusion of the study were based on the observation, data and analysis Data collections for analysis in this study were gained though the following resources:

V Design of the study

The minor thesis consists of three parts:

Part I is the introduction in which the author presents the rationale, hypothesis of the study, aims of the study, scope of the study, methodology and design of the study

Part II is the development which is divided into 3 chapters:

o Chapter 1 set up theoretical background that is relevant to the purpose of the study

o Chapter 2 investigated the learning situation at ITC Foreign Language Center, difficulties in teaching and learning listening skill and find out the students’ point of view about using songs in classes

o Chapter 3 emphasizes the implications of the study in which discusses about the problems when applying in classes and suggests some criteria of choosing songs and some suggested tasks designed from songs

Part III is the conclusion, summarizes the key issues in the study, points out the limitations and provides some suggestions for further study

PART I: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 The definition of listening skill

Listening is one of the fundamental language skills, and crucial in the development of the second language competence so there are many definitions of listening which present different views of scholars towards the concept

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), listening is really a receptive skill along side with reading skills and the role of listeners is no longer passive but active Rost (1994) says that

“listening is referred to a complex process that enables us to understand spoken language.”

It is an invisible mental process, so it is very difficult to describe This involves understanding the speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning (Howatt and Dakin, 1974) Rost defines listening consists of:

 Discriminating between sounds

 Recognizing words

 Identifying grammatical groups of words

 Identifying “pragmatic units” – expressions and sets of utterances which function

as whole units to create meaning

 Connecting linguistic cues to paralinguistic cues (intonation, stress) and to nonlinguistic cues (gestures) in order to construct meaning

 Using background knowledge and context to predict and then to confirm meaning

 Recalling important words and ideas

(Rost, cited in Rosová, 2007) From the points of view above, it is obvious that an able listener is capable of integrating all these component skills

Underwood (1989) also says that “listening is the ability of paying to and trying to get meaning from something we hear” She explains that to listen successfully to spoken language, we need to be able to work out what speakers mean when they use particular words in particular ways on particular occasions, and not simply to understand the words themselves But listening is different from hearing Whilst hearing can be thought of as a passive condition, listening is always an active process (Underwood, 1989) Actually, hearing is possible to hear sounds without consciously engaging in the process In contrast,

in listening, the brain does not automatically translate the words into message they are conveying It involves much more than assigning labels to sounds or words

1.2 Listening skill in foreign language teaching

12.1 The importance of listening skill in foreign language teaching

It cannot be denied that we spend a large portion of our time listening because it is a key element of the verbal communication It has been estimated that adults spend almost half their communication time listening, and students may receive as much as 90% of their

in – school information through listening to instructors or to one another However, in the past, reading and grammar skills were paid much attention to while speaking and listening skills were taken for granted As a result, language learners did not recognize its importance

in developing language skills

Rost (1994) emphasizes the importance of listening for several reasons below:

 Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner Without understandable input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin

 Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner Since the learners must interact to achieve understanding, access to speakers of the language is essential Moreover, learners’ failure to understand the language they hear is impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning

 Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to attempt to understand language as it is actually used by native speakers

 Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, interaction patterns) in the language

Moreover, listening is also an important condition for developing other skills, especially speaking skill as Doff (1988) suggests that we cannot develop speaking skill unless we develop listening skill Indeed if we want to speak well, we firstly must listen to what others say and understand them clearly

To sum up, listening skill has taken a very important part in learning English It is the most communicative and practiced skill that needs to be developed as much as possible

1.2.2 The difficulties in learning listening skill

Of the four language basic English language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing), listening skill seems to be the most difficult skill to be acquired by students Many authors have mentioned this problem such as Underwood (1989), Ur (1996), Rost (1994) or Lynch (2005) in their writings

According to Underwood (1989), there are seven problems in listening skill that students may encounter: (1) lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak; (2) not being able to get things repeated; (3) the listener’s limited vocabulary; (4) failure to recognize the signals; (5) problems of interpretation; (6) inability to concentrate and (7) established learning habit She explains that these problems of students relate to students’ different backgrounds such as their culture and educations Students whose “culture and education includes a strong storytelling and oral communication tradition are generally

“better” at listening than those from a reading and book-based culture and education background” Furthermore, “students for whom the stress and intonation which occur in English are reasonably familiar have less trouble than those whose own language is based

on different rhythms and tones” (Underwood, 1989) From that point of view, students in Vietnam whose language is made of different tones face a great deal of difficulties in learning listening skills

Rost (1994) states that L2 listening is difficult for many learners because of problems

of motive, transfer, access to input and neurological development Furthermore, the research on learners’ listening problems (God, 2000) shows ten problems which occurred

at three stages of listening (perception, parsing and utilization) At the perception stage, problems relate to the non-recognition of familiar words It means that students may not match sounds automatically to words because they have not stored the sounds of words efficiently in long term memory At the parsing stage, students can quickly forget what is heard In this case, students understand the gist or general meaning, but not the exact meaning because they cannot remember key words and phrases At the utilization stage, students of foreign language can understand words but not the intended message The

reason is that they cannot connect words to external sources such as background knowledge or knowledge of discourse structure

Ur (1996) also assumes that the students may have difficulties in learning listening skill such as trouble with sounds, have to understand every word, cannot understand fast and natural native speech, need to hear things more than once, find it difficult to keep up, and get tired

Another problem is that the students have to listen without any kinds of the supported materials in front of them such as “texts, pictures, diagrams or other visual aids” (Lynch, 2005) Hence, they have to try to imagine and understand everything the speakers speak However, not all native English speakers have the same accent and intonation because of their own dialects and regional accents, which really confuses the listeners

To solve these problems, teachers should make the lessons more interesting to motivate the students to listen by some interesting activities in class One of the activities

is to listen to English songs In relation to the students at ITCFLC who still feel it very difficult to understand the meaning of the material after playing the tape for twice or three times in class Songs seem to be the best choice because the students will be stimulated and not be panic or worry when they are learning listening

1.2.3 Teaching listening skill according to CLT

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), derived from the late 1970s and early 1980s, can be said to be the product of educators and linguists who had grown dissatisfied with the audio-lingual and grammar-translation methods of foreign language instruction It can be understood as a set of principles about the goals of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles

of teachers and learners in the classroom According to Richards (2002), “CLT was an attempt to operationalize the concept of communicative competence and to apply it across all levels of language program design, from theory, to syllabus design, to teaching techniques.” In other words, CLT makes use of real-life situations that necessitate

communication The Teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real life As a part of communication, listening can be taught in a communicative way

According to Rost (1990), listening is given a new role in language learning in CLT: communicative approach views listening as an interactive functional basic mode of communication on rather than a skill to be learned and tested CLT emphasizes the use of extensive listening to material taken from “authentic” L1 situations where learners are expected to select the language they need to use in order to perform language tasks

It can be said that listening plays an important role in CLT It can enable the listeners

to select a function of language from the presented listening model and to apply it in communication activities Besides, it could stimulate communication by creating the need for social interaction through simulation of real-life situations CLT regards listening as a procedure in language learning not as a target of learning by itself

1.3 Teaching listening skill through English songs

1.3.1 The importance of songs in foreign language teaching

No one can deny that music has played a very important part in our life Every one likes music It accompanies with us very time we feel happy or sad Music is at everywhere, every time we need it: “when we exercise, when we work, when we play, when we worship and even when we die, music is there to reinforce or alter every mood and emotion” (Lynch, 2005) Studies have shown that music can improve concentration, improve memory, bring a sense of community to a group, motivate learning, relax people who are overwhelmed or stressed, make learning fun, help people absorb material

Due to its great value, music and songs have been taken into consideration as a method

to teach language as Medina (1993) says “it is currently a common practice to use songs in the classroom to support second language acquisition” because music can stimulate and motivate students to learn a new language It is really a language package that bundles culture, vocabulary, listening, grammar and a host of other language skills in just a few rhymes (Inggris, 2008)

In the words of Lynch (2005), “songs are useful in the language learning classroom” Therefore, he points out 9 reasons why foreign language teachers should use songs to teach EFL:

o Songs almost always contain authentic, natural language

o A variety of new vocabulary can be introduced to students through songs

o Songs are usually very easily obtainable

o Songs can be selected to suit the needs and interests of the students

o Grammar and cultural aspects can be introduced through songs

o Time length is easy controlled

o Students can be experience a wide range of accents

o Song lyrics can be used in relating to situations of the world around us

o Students think songs are natural and fun

(Lynch, 2005)

To share the same view, Davanellos (1999) says that “songs are not only fun, they have a serious purpose for language learning”, he also suggests several good reasons of using songs for teaching purposes One of the reasons the students are interested in studying is that they feel motivated as “enjoyable learning has to be more effective than teacher-centred procedures” (Davanellos, 1999)

To sum up, songs not only play an important part in our life but are a useful tool to learn in a foreign language classroom So teachers of foreign language should make use of them to make the lessons more interesting and stimulate students to learn

1.3.2 Using songs as motivator for students to learning listening skill

Songs can be used to show our emotions, it makes us happy, helps us ease the pain in the best way Besides, songs can be utilized in foreign language teaching for many purposes According to Eken (1996), songs can be used:

 To present a topic, a language point, lexis, etc

 To practice a language point, lexis, etc

 To focus on common learner errors in more direct way

 To encourage extensive and intensive listening

 To stimulate discussion of attitudes and feelings

 To encourage creativity and use of imagination

 To provide a relaxed classroom atmosphere

 To bring variety and fun to learning

It is proved that what you can do with a text you can do with a song They can also form the basis for many lessons (Futonge,2005 cited in Inggris, 2008) So Lynch (2005) suggests three factors that songs can be made use of in a foreign language classroom: the use of new vocabulary, idioms and expressions; pronunciation and accent of the singer; and use of new grammar and structure To share the same point of view, Ur (1986) points out that songs are taught for a variety of purposes: “for the sake of vocabulary or structures they contain, to get students to produce oral English by singing them; as an aspect of English-language culture; for fun.” Moreover, in the words of Saricoban and Metin (2000), songs can develop the four language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) There are two processes involved in listening: bottom-up process and top-down process Cullen (1999) says that the first is bottom-up processing where the listener builds

up the sounds into words, sentences and meaning The second is top-down processing where the listener uses background knowledge to understand the meaning of a message Practicing both of these processes is essential for developing comprehension Songs can be used to utilize these two processes Also, researchers have shown that music can change the brain waves and make the brain more receptive to learning Music connects the functions of the right and left hemispheres of the brain so that they work together and makes learning quick and easy

Krashen (1982) explains that optimal learning will occur if the affective filter must be weak According to his Affective Filter Hypothesis, a weak filter means that a positive attitude towards learning is present If the affective filter is strong, the learner will not seek language input, and in turn will not be open to language acquisition The practical application of this hypothesis is that teachers must provide a positive atmosphere

conducive to language learning Songs are one method for achieving a weak affective filter and promoting language learning

In conclusion, songs are one of the best methods to teach and motivate students to learn listening skill So teachers should take advantages of songs to stimulate and help students improve their listening skill

1.3.3 Tasks designed for listening texts

There are various kinds of listening tasks According to Ur (1984), possible and applicable listening tasks should be:

- Dictation exercise: This is common listening exercise which is usually practices in the

earlier years of school education It requires students an integrative knowledge of the phonological, syntactic and semantic systems of a language To do this task, teacher gives students handout, omitting some sentences of the text, then plays the tape and asks students

to listen to the text and write the missing sentences down

- Ticking off items: Learners tick beside the items: Learners tick beside the items that they

hear in the listening

- True/False: Identify whether the statement is true or false based on the listening

- Detecting mistakes: Some fact is mentioned with intentional mistakes for students to

point out

- Gap-filling: Students are given a passage with several gaps in it, they have to listen and

fill in the missing words in the gaps

- Pictures: one picture or a series of pictures may be used Sts are then asked to identify

pictures or components as they are referred to, either naming or ordering them in the order

in which they are mentioned

- Answering questions: based on the content of the listening, students are required to give

longer and full answer to the questions

Secondly, the importance of listening in second language learning and some problems that students may cope with when they learn this skill are discussed

Lastly, there are some discussions about the advantages of songs and it should be taken into consideration to be applied in teaching and learning foreign language

Chapter 2: USING SONGS TO TEACH LISTENING FOR STUDENTS AT ITC FOREIGN LANGUAGE

2.1 Hypothesis

As mentioned above, the hypothesis of the study is that:

Songs can be used to motivate students to learn and improve listening skill

2.2 The setting of the study

2.2.1 Students’ background information

ITC Foreign Language Centre (ITCFLC), part of Thinh Phat Company, was established 3 years ago From the beginning of its establishment, there have been 82 classes

of English opened of level A, 70 classes of level C and 33 classes of level C Most of the students at the centre are students and workers at all age ranging from 18-35 They come from all parts of the country, so their learning background varies a lot, most of them were learning at universities and colleges in Hai Duong, but the workers did not learn English for

a long time This caused a lot of difficulties for both teachers and students in teaching and learning English

In the past, most of these students paid more attention to written texts including reading and grammar Besides, they learnt English in an isolated environment from English

speaking people and had little chance to communicate with foreigners so their ability to speak and listen can not improved Of the four language skills, listening seems to be the most difficult for them From the writer’s observation, many of them complained that listening was really hard for them to learn and they benefited very little from this skill As a result, at monthly extra-curriculum activity with native teachers, they hardly understand all what those teachers have said In fact, they did not seem to have any motivation for learning listening at all

2.2.2 The teachers and teaching methods

Up to now, there are seven teachers of English at ITCFLC Four of them graduated from University of Languages and International Studies, two from Hanoi University, and one from Hanoi Pedagogical University No.2 None of them had ever been trained in an English speaking country The oldest had over ten years experience in teaching English, the youngest had three years

Most of them were aware of the importance of listening skill and tried hard to improve their teaching of listening, motivate students and help them over come those difficulties However, not all of the teachers choose the same techniques to teach listening Some chose

to use giving background information and new words, while others chose authentic materials or some extra activities that were suitable for their students

2.2.3 Materials and facilities

The materials for the whole course were New Headway textbook, workbook, and CDs

In this series of book, all four language skills were equally developed The centre also supplied teachers and students with some other books to improve their listening skills such

as sheep or ship, etc

Besides, facilities are also an important factor in teaching and learning process ITCFLC was well-equipped with good facilities for teaching and learning English There were 8 classrooms in which each of them is equipped with an air-conditioning, a cassette, a television, a DVD player, and a computer connecting with the internet Thus, the teachers had good chances to make use of these things to make the lessons more interesting and stimulate their students to study

2.3 The subjects

The subjects of the research were ten classes of level A chosen randomly and teachers

at ITCFLC This helped to provide reliable results and generalize the findings of the research Seven names of each class were written in a piece of paper Each class had an equal chance to be selected as the participants of the research The similar process was used for the selection of four teachers as the subjects of the survey By doing so, they could be representative the whole teachers and students at ITCFLC

2.4 Methods of data collection

The research was conducted according to qualitative and quantitative methods, mainly using questionnaire and interview Along with questionnaires and interview, observations were done during the experimental listening lesson by the researcher After

an experimental lesson, some students were asked to attend in the discussion All of which were for further information needed for the study In addition, formal and informal discussions and small talks with teachers and students to collect more data for this study were also carried out

2.5 Procedures and methods of data analysis

The aim of the two questionnaires was to collect data relating to teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards listening skill, the reasons that caused students’ difficulties in learning listening skill, teachers and students’ attitudes towards English songs and using songs in teaching and learning listening skill, and the situation of using songs to teach listening skill at ITCFLC Basing on categories established, data was then analyzed by using descriptive statistics (percentage) and qualitative statistics (informal discussions, interview) Pie chart, graphs and tables were mainly employed to analyze and compare figures The information was gathered from two questionnaires were presented and analyzed as follows:

2.6 Data analysis and discussion

2.6.1 Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill

Pie-chart 1: Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill

As can be seen from the pie-chart, the numbers of teachers who considered listening skill as a very important skill make up a large portion (80%) The remaining 20% of the surveyed teachers says that listening skill is important None of them thought that listening skill was not important at all in language teaching and leaning When asked, most of them admitted that although listening skill was quite difficult to be mastered by students but no one could deny its importance because people needed to live, work and communicate with other people in the age of the globalization over the world

2.6.2 Students’ attitude towards listening skill

Pie-chart 2: Students’ attitude towards listening skill

When asked, most of the students agreed that listening skill played a very important role in second language learning but it was the most difficult skill to be mastered As can be seen from the pie-chart 1, more than half of the informants (accounts for 76%) thought that listening skill was very difficult, 15% of them considered listening skill was difficult and 9% of them said that it was not difficult very much None of them regarded this skill an easy skill This also reflects the fact that most of them are unable to understand or comprehend English at the beginning level

2.6.3 The reasons cause students’ difficulty in listening skill

Pie-chart 3: The reasons cause students’ difficulties in listening skill

The question “Why is listening to English difficult to you?” aims at indentifying which causes students the most difficult while listening The result in the pie-chart 3 shows that a large number of respondents (44%) share the same idea when saying that speaker’s speed prevents them from listening the text successfully When discussing, these students said that they could not keep up with the speaker’s speed and were often left behind As a result, they hardly understood what the speaker had said Besides, limited vocabulary is another important reason causes students difficult to listen any kinds of text Speaker’s accent accounts for 20% meanwhile only 5% of them think that unfamiliar topics are the main reason preventing them from understanding the whole text

2.6.4 Teachers’ attitudes towards using songs to teach listening skill

To carry out the study, the researcher got teachers’ opinion about using songs to teach listening skill mainly from the questionnaire and interview Firstly, when being asked about their attitudes about English songs, whether they liked or disliked All of them said that they (100%) liked listening to English songs However, not all of them used songs as an extra activity in class In fact, 80% of the teachers agrees while 20% of them still has negative attitude and shows their suspect of using songs in class as the table below:

Songs as a useful tool to teach listening skill

Number of teachers

Table 1: Teachers’ attitudes towards using songs to teach listening skill

From the result of the table 1 above, most teachers have a positive attitude of using English songs to improve listening skill for students as they said in the interview that songs brought a non-threatening atmosphere and motivation for students Besides, songs can help students reduce stress and boredom during the lessons It is really a good idea to make use

of English songs to teach listening skill However, some of them state that it is not still an effective way to teach listening skill because songs contain sounds, noise and theme music which cause students a lot of difficulties in listening and recognizing the sounds

2.6.5 Students’ attitude toward using songs to learn listening skill

Pie-chart 4: Student's attitude towards English songs

From the pie-chart 4 of students’ attitude towards English songs, it can be clearly seen that most of the students show their interest in English songs, accounting for 86% However, there is about 8% of them says that they have no concerning about English songs even 6% still shows their dislike to English songs The reason is that they prefer listening to Vietnamese songs and that they do not understand anything when they listen

to English songs This point of view is very important for the researcher to choose suitable songs applied in class later

2.6.6 The situation of using songs to teach listening skill

Pie-chart 5: The situation of using songs to teach listening skill

Teachers’ frequency of using songs can be clearly seen from the pie-chart 5 above Through the interview, the researcher found that although most of teachers said that they liked English songs, they had not made use of this type of materials as possible None of them used songs in every period of teaching listening 13% of them admit that they sometimes use songs in class; meanwhile 20% says that they rarely exploit songs as a means of teaching listening Most of the teachers never use songs in teaching English, making up 67% From the answer, it can come to a conclusion that songs have not been used to teach English in general and listening skill in particular as much as possible In contrast, the number who never used songs to teach listening skill is not small at all

2.6.7 Reasons that students listen to English songs

Table 2: Reasons that students listen to English songs

When mentioning the amount of time students spend listening to English songs, most

of them said that they often listened to English songs in the evenings and only spent about

1 hour listening to them (95%) Some others said that they listened to English songs whenever they had free time A large amount of the informants (85%) share the same opinion about their aim of listening to songs is to relax and for pleasure Listening to songs really make them feel comfortable and relaxed after hours of working or studying hard Meanwhile, there is 55% of students saying that their main purpose is to improve listening skill None of them listens to English songs to stay awake or for professional reasons

2.6.8 Teachers’ opinion about advantages and disadvantages of using songs to teach listening skill

The table below shows teachers’ opinion about advantages of songs used to teach listening skill

Pay attention to the pronunciation of the words

21%

Help students relax during the lesson 79%

Table 3: Teachers’ opinion about using songs in class

From the table, all of the teachers share the same view that songs can be used as a means of reducing boredom in class (100%) There are also a large number of teachers agreeing with the point that songs can help students relax during the lesson (79%) Next is that songs help students listen better (73%) In the contrary, fewer teachers approve the idea that listening to English songs can attract their students to the pronunciation of the words in songs (21%) because they said that singers’ speed and different accents made their students confuse a lot

Beside some advantages, there are also several disadvantages of using songs to steach

in class approved by teachers as in the table below:

The class becomes noisy and out of control 54%

The sounds are not clear because singers usually link sounds together

24%

Table 4: Teachers’ opinion about disadvantages of using songs in class

The most popular problem that teachers agree with is that they find it really difficult to find appropriate songs for their students (85%) because it often takes them a lot of time to find suitable songs It is the reason why they rarely use songs in class At the second rank is the problem with students distracted by music, which accounts for 69% Next is the class becomes noisy, out of control, or limited time in class making up 54% 24% of them thinks that songs are not clear enough for student to hear because singer often link sounds together In addition, teachers worry about their ability to sing (11%) since they say that they could not sing and they feel ashamed if their students ask them to sing in front of class

2.6.8 Students’ opinion about advantages and disadvantages of using songs to learn English

After a period of time learning listening skill, many of students became interested in listening English songs as the chart below:

Help me listen to English better

Develop my guessing skill

Create a comfortable and relaxing environment

Help me to concentrate

on word stress

Help me to discriminate the sounds

Students' opinion about advantages

of using songs in class

Bar- chart 1: Students’ opinion about using English songs in class

It can be seen from the chart that most of the students agree with the point of listening to English songs makes lessons more enjoyable (80%) and also creates a comfortable and relaxing environment (76.5%) while learning English From the researcher’s observation and discussion with the informants, many students became tired of daily similar routine of learning English in the textbook In contrast, most of them felt excited when there was an extra activity of listening to English songs although some still complained that some tasks were still difficult for them

Besides, listening to English songs also helps students improve their listening skill, which is admitted by 65.7% of the informants However, some of them did not make any progress as they said that music made them be distracted, therefore they could not concentrate on doing the exercise

Some sub-skills of listening are at the last approval because most of the students said that they found these sub-skills quite difficult to do Guessing skill is in the first position which makes up 51%, the second position is students’ skill of awareness of word stress (35.7%) meanwhile the skill of sound discrimination is put at the bottom of the list (26.7%)

Beside a lot of benefits that students can gain from listening to English songs, there are also some disadvantages of songs used in class

Distracted by music

Others

Students' opnion about disvantages of

using songs in class

Bar-chart 2: Students’ opinion about the disadvantages of using songs in classes

As shown clearly in the chart, a large number of students say that they are distracted by music if they are listening to music to do the tasks (78%) After that, it is problem with the speed of most songs Some songs are too fast for them to keep up with, accounting for 49%

of the respondents Standing at the third place, 38% of the students feel annoyed by unclear sounds in the songs because most of the singers often link sounds together They find it difficult to discriminate each word or sound Different singers’ accent is also another problem that students may encounter, making up 21% Meanwhile only 9% of the total suggests some other difficulties while listening to English songs such as word recognition, word stress, intonation, and so on

2.6.9 Favorite activities while students listen to English songs

From the survey questionnaire, all of the students (100%) show their strong belief that listening to English songs helps then to improve their listening skill at a certain extent Below is the summary of which activities they like doing while listening to English songs

Finding the words appeared in the song 54.2%

Table 5: Favorite activities while students listen to English songs