A Study on Using English Songs in Teaching Listening Skill to Improve the Efficiency and Motivation for First-Year Non-English Major Students at Hai Duong Medical Technical University

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* ĐỖ THỊ PHƯƠNG NGUYÊN A Study on Using Engli

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*******************

ĐỖ THỊ PHƯƠNG NGUYÊN

A Study on Using English Songs in Teaching Listening Skill to Improve the Efficiency and Motivation for First-Year Non-English Major Students at Hai Duong

Medical Technical University

Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng bài hát tiếng Anh trong việc dạy kỹ năng nghe để tạo động lực và nâng cao hiệu quả cho sinh viên không chuyên Anh năm thứ nhất

Trường Đại học Kỹ Thuật y tế Hải Dương

M.A MINOR PROGMAME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 0111

Hanoi – 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*******************

ĐỖ THỊ PHƯƠNG NGUYÊN

A Study on Using English Songs in Teaching Listening Skill to Improve the Efficiency and Motivation for First-Year Non-English Major Students at Hai Duong

Medical Technical University

Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng bài hát tiếng Anh trong việc dạy kỹ năng nghe để tạo động lực và nâng cao hiệu quả cho sinh viên không chuyên Anh năm thứ nhất

Trường Đại học Kỹ Thuật y tế Hải Dương

M.A MINOR PROGMAME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 0111

Supervisor: Dr Mai Thị Loan

Hanoi – 2014

DECLARATION

I certify that the thesis titled: ―A study on using English songs in teaching listening

skill to improve the efficiency and motivation for first-year non-English major students at

Hai Duong Medical Technical University‖ is the result of my own work I have provided

fully documented references to the work of others The material in this thesis has not been

submitted for assessment in any other formal courses of study

Hanoi, August 2014 Mai Thi Loan, Ph.D

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The thesis is finished with the support of many individuals, and thus, is collection of numerous intellectual minds, sympathetic hearts, contemplative moments, and prolonged engagement

First of all, I deeply appreciate my supervisor, Dr Mai Thi Loan I am able to finish my master thesis due to her thorough reading, critical comments, invaluable suggestions, various sources of references and previous corrections on my writing Additionally, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to all the teachers and students of Hai Duong Medical Technical University for their willingness to help me to complete the collection of necessary data for the study

Finally, special gratitude is extended to my family and my close friends who

have encouraged and supported me in every stage of this study

ABSTRACT

This study investigates whether the using of English songs in teaching listening

skill to non-major students is effective or not and discusses some suggestions of how

to use English songs in teaching listening skill in classroom

To achieve the aims of the thesis, the author used the following data collection instruments: survey questionnaire for teachers, survey questionnaire for students, and tests for students

The results and findings point out the benefits of using English songs in teaching listening, some criteria to choose appropriate songs for teachers when teaching listening And some tasks the teachers should design to teach students with the use of songs

In conclusion, songs can be a good material for the use of teaching listening for students

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

L1: first language

L2: second language

Std Deviation: Standard deviation

HMTU: Hai Duong Medical Technical University

EFL: English as Foreign Language

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Chart 1: Students‘ attitude towards English songs 20

Chart 2: Students‘ improvement after they had been taught with the use of songs 21

Chart 3: The frequency of using songs to teach listening skill 25

Chart 4: Kind of task(s) the teachers usually designed to teach students with the use of songs 27

Chart 5: Raw marks in listening (pre - test) 31

Chart 6: Raw marks in listening (post - test) 32

Table 1: The benefits of learning listening through the use of English songs 21

Table 2: Students‘ favorite activities while they are listening to English songs 23

Table 3: Reasons that students listen to English songs 24

Table 4: Teachers‘ opinion about some advantages of using songs in class 26

Table 5: Teachers‘ opinion about some disadvantages of using songs in class 26

Table 6: Criteria for selecting songs of the teachers 27

Table 7: The sources for teachers to select songs 28

Table 8: Frequency distribution (pre - test) 30

Table 9: Mean and Std Deviation (pre - test) 31

Table 10: Frequency distribution (post - test) 32

Table 11: Mean and Std deviation (post - test) 33

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Scope of the study 2

1.5 Significance of study 2

1.6 Methodology 2

1.7 Design of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Listening 4

1.1.1 Definition of listening 4

1.1.2 Types of listening 4

1.1.3 The difficulties in learning listening skill 7

1.2 Motivation 8

1.2.1 Definition of motivation 8

1.2.2 Types of motivation 9

1.2.3 The importance of motivation in listening classes 11

1.3 Songs as a motivator for students to listen 12

1.4 Review of related studies 13

1.5 Summary 14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16

2.1 Setting of the study 16

2.1.1 Teachers‘ background information 16

2.1.2 Students‘ background information 16

2.1.3 Teaching and learning condition at HMTU 16

2.2 Research design 17

2.2.1 Participants 17

2.2.1.1 Students 17

2.2.1.2 Teachers 17

2.2.2 Data collection 18

2.2.2.1 Instruments 18

2.2.2.1.1 Questionnaire for teachers 18

2.2.2.1.2 Questionnaire for students 18

2.2.2.1.3 Test 18

2.2.2.2 Data collection and analysis procedure 19

2.3 Summary 19

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 20

3.1 Questionnaire for students 20

3.1.1 Aims 20

3.1.2 Participants 20

3.1.3 Data analysis 20

3.1.3.1 Students‘ attitude towards English songs 20

3.1.3.2 The improvement of students‘ listening after they had been taught with the use of songs 21

3.1.3.3 Students‘ opinion about the benefits of learning listening through the use of English songs 21

3.1.3.4 Students‘ favorite activities while they are listening to English songs 23

3.1.3.5 Reasons that students listen to English songs 24

3.2 Questionnaire for teacher 24

3.2.1 Aims 24

3.2.2 Participants 25

3.2.3 Data analysis 25

3.2.3.1 The frequency of using songs to teach listening skill 25

3.2.3.2 Teachers‘ opinion about advantages of using songs to teach listening skill 26

3.2.3.3 Teachers‘ opinion about disadvantages of using songs to teach listening skill 26

3.2.3.4 Kind of task(s) the teachers usually designed to teach students with the use of songs 27

3.2.3.5 Criteria for selecting songs of the teachers 27

3.2.3.6 The sources for teachers to select songs 28

3.3 Tests 29

3.3.1 Aims 29

3.3.2 Participants 29

3.3.3 Test description 29

3.3.4 Data analysis and findings 30

3.3.4 1 Pre – test (At the beginning of the term) 30

3.3.4.1.1 Frequency distribution 30

3.3.4.1.2 Correlation 31

3.3.4.2 Post-test (At the end of the term) 31

3.3.4.2.1 Frequency distribution 31

3.3.4.2.2 Correlation 33

3.4 Summary 33

PART C: CONCLUSION 34

1 Major findings from the research 34

1.1 Research question 1: What are the benefits of using songs to teach listening skill to students? 34

1.2 Research question 2: Which tasks should teacher design to teach listening to students with the use of songs 34

1.3 Research question 3: What are criteria to choose appropriate songs in teaching listening in classroom 35

2 Limitations of the study 36

3 Suggestions for further study 36

REFERENCES 38 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS I APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS V APPENDIX 3: PRE – TEST VII APPENDIX 4: POST - TEST X APPENDIX 5: SAMPLE TASKS XIIIIII

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

Among four skills of English, listening is often considered the most challenging for students due to the complex and subtle nature of listening comprehension in second language (L2) or foreign language It takes much time and effort to make progress in this skill At Hai Duong Medical Technical University, many students are afraid of learning listening and they often say that they do not want to learn listening

Like many other teachers, I think that this problem can only be solved by finding an answer to the question: ―How to help students change from the feeling of fear to the one of interest when they are doing listening?‖ However, interest is something very unstable and unpredictable because it depends on many factors such as: the content of the subject, the necessity of it, the method of the teacher, or even the weather of the day That explains the reason why it takes teachers a great effort and trial to maintain the students‘ interest in the lesson and avoid the boredom also Research shows that there are some main ways to hold students‘ interest such as: audio-visual aids including objects, flash cards, pictures, overhead projector transparency, film, video, and language activities like games, songs, story-telling, projects Of all the items, songs seem to be the most available and easiest to exploit Therefore, the author chose English songs as the means to do a research to improve the efficiency and motivation for first-year non-English major students at Hai Duong Medical Technical University

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study aims at finding out benefits of using English songs in teaching listening skill to non-major students, finding out the tasks the teacher should design to teach listening to students with the use of songs, and discussing criteria to choose appropriate songs in teaching listening in classroom

To be more specific, the objectives of this study are to:

- investigate the positives sides of using English songs in teaching listening skill

to non-major students;

- find out the tasks teachers should design to teach students with the use of songs;

- work out criteria to choose appropriate songs in teaching listening in classroom

1.3 Research questions

With these aims, the researcher carries out this study to answer the following questions:

(1) What are the benefits of using songs to teach listening skill to students?

(2) Which tasks should teachers design to teach listening to students with the use of songs? (3) What are criteria to choose appropriate songs in teaching listening in classroom?

1.4 Scope of the study

In this study, the author intended to use famous love songs to teach listening for non – major students at the pre – intermediate level at HMTU Songs may include many types such as: classical, pop, jazz, rap, traditional, love songs, etc This research just focuses on the use of famous loves songs that have soft music with quite simple words, catchy tunes and are easy to listen to

1.5 Significance of study

The study is hopefully useful for students and others of concerned Students will

be motivated to learn listening with the use of songs and they will be able to memorize the lessons easily Besides that, the use of songs may help them to disappear their boredom in learning The study also provides the teachers with the benefits of using English songs to teach listening skill at HMTU

1.6 Methodology

All comments, remarks, assumption and conclusion of the study were based on the data and analysis Data collection for analysis in the study was gained through the following resources:

- Survey questionnaires for teachers and students

- Tests for students

1.7 Design of the study

The paper was designed with three parts as follows:

Part A: Introduction presents the rationale of choosing the topic, the aim and

objectives of the study, the scope of the study, significance, methods and design of the study to be applied

Part B: Development composes of three chapters:

Chapter 1: Literature review sets up some theoretical backgrounds that are relevant to the purpose of the study: the definition of listening skill, types of listening, the difficulties in learning listening skill, the definition of motivation, types of motivation and its importance in listening classes, songs as a motivator for students to listen Chapter 2: Method of the study mentions setting of the study and research design including participants and data collection

Chapter 3: This chapter includes data analysis and findings

Part C: Conclusion deals with major findings of the research Limitations of the study

and some suggestions for further study were also included in this chapter

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Listening

1.1.1 Definition of listening

According to Howatt and Dakin (1974:34 - 36), listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying This process involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, the speaker‘s grammar and vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously

Ronald, K and Roskelly (1985:78) define listening as an active process requiring the same skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising, and generalizing that writing and reading demand; and these authors present specific exercises to make students active listeners who are aware of the inner voice one hears when writing

Besides, according to Rost (1991:164), listening comprises some component skills such as discriminating between sounds, recognizing words, identifying grammatical groupings of words, identifying expressions and sets of utterances that act

to create meaning, connecting linguistic cues to non-linguistic and paralinguistic cues, using background knowledge to predict and later to confirm meaning and recalling important words and ideas

Underwood (1989:187) 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 From these ideas, listening involves

a multiplicity of skills It is a complex, active process interpretations in which listeners match what they hear with what they already know

1.1.2 Types of listening

According to Wolvin& Coakley(1996) (cited in Goh 2000), five types of listening have been identified according to their purposes as follows:

 Discriminative Listening

on the level of the students, the listening can be discriminating sounds to identifying individual words

Comprehensive listening is a kind of listening which the focus is to understand the message The writers consider this as the basis for the next three types of listening However, the problem can come in the form of understanding Depending on both individual and social factors, students can end up understanding the same message in different ways Lots of work in teaching listening in the classroom has to happen here

in facilitating the students to develop their comprehension skills

Therapeutic listening - is one kind of listening where the listener's role is to be a sympathetic listener without much verbal response In this kind of listening, the listener allows somebody to talk through a problem This kind of listening is very important in building good interpersonal relations

Critical listening is the fourth kind of listening where listeners have to evaluate the message Listeners have to critically respond to the message and give their opinion Appreciative listening focuses on enjoying what one listens When students listen

to English music, even if they do not understand, they still enjoy challenging notion of comprehensive listening as the basis for other three types of listening Generally, students listen to the songs once and try to make out the lyrics before listening a second time with the lyrics Then they recalled that they appreciated the song better during the second time and were able to see the relation between how one would enjoy something that s/he is able to make sense of

In this way, the discussion of the five types of listening turned out to be quite informative and thought provoking for all underscoring the adage when one teaches to learn

According to Johna Kline (1996: 29 - 42), different situations require different types of listening We may listen to obtain information, improve a relationship, gain appreciation for something, make discriminations, or engage in a critical evaluation While certain skills are basic and necessary for all types of listening, each type requires some special skills He identified five types of listening

Informative listening is the name we give to the situation where the listener‘s primary concern is to understand the message Listeners are successful in so far as the meaning they assign to messages is as close as possible to that which the sender intended Informative listening, or listening to understand, is found in all areas of our lives Much of our learning comes from informative listening

Relationship listening aims at either helping an individual or improving the relationship between people Therapeutic listening is a special type of relationship listening Therapeutic listening brings to mind situations where counselors, medical personnel, or other professionals allow a troubled person to talk through a problem But it can also be used when you listen to friends or acquaintances and allow them to get things off their chests Although relationship listening requires you to listen for information, the emphasis is on understanding the other person Three behaviors are key to effective relationship listening: attending, supporting, and empathizing

Appreciative listening includes listening to music for enjoyment, to speakers because you like their style, to your choices in theater, television, radio, or film It is the response of the listener, not the source of the message, that defines appreciative listening The quality of appreciative listening depends in large part on three factors: presentation, perception, and previous experience

As for critical listening, the ability to listen critically is essential in a democracy On the job, in the community, at service clubs, in places of worship, in the family—there is practically no place you can go where critical listening is unimportant Politicians, the media, salesmen, advocates of policies and procedures, and our own financial, emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual needs require us

to place a premium on critical listening and the thinking that accompanies it Effective

critical listening requires careful judgment about the expertness and trustworthiness of the speaker In fact, ethos or speaker credibility may be the most important single factor in critical listening and thinking However, ethos without logos is not enough

The final type of listening is discriminative listening It may be the most important type, for it is basic to the other four By being sensitive to changes in the speaker‘s rate, volume, force, pitch, and emphasis, the informative listener can detect even nuances of difference in meaning Detection of differences between sounds made

by certain instruments in the orchestra, or parts sung by the a cappella vocal group, enhances appreciative listening Finally, sensitivity to pauses, and other vocal and nonverbal cues, allows critical listeners to more accurately judge not only the speaker‘s message, but his intentions as well

In my opinion, the effectiveness of listening, whether informative, relational, appreciative, critical, or discriminative, requires skills In some cases, the skills are the same for the various types of listening; in some cases, they are quite different

1.1.3 The difficulties in learning listening skill

The listening process is often described from an information processing perspective

as an active process in which listeners select and interpret information that comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express (Thompson& Rubin1996: 331) Considering various aspects of listening comprehension, Underwood (1989) organizes the major listening problems as follows:

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 habits

Underwood (1989: 15), sees these problems as being related to learners' different backgrounds, such as their culture and education She points out that students whose culture and education includes a strong storytelling and oral communication tradition are generally better at listening comprehension than those from a reading and book-

based cultural and educational background Moreover, learners whose native language possesses the stress and intonation features similar to those of English are likely to have less trouble than the learners whose L1 is based on different rhythms and tones

Focusing on EFL learners with Chinese language backgrounds, Goh (2000: 55 - 75) investigated listening comprehension problems in students in college EFL studies The data were collected from learner diaries, small group interviews, and immediate retrospective verbalization Findings include ten listening comprehension problems in relation to three cognitive processing phases which are perceptions, parsing, and utilization, proposed by Anderson (1983, 1995) Perceptual processing refers to maintaining attention to spoken input, parsing means encoding the input to establish a meaningful representation in short-term memory, and utilization concerns using the background knowledge to interpret the input for storage

In my opinion, listening is vital not only in language learning but also in daily communication Maybe, the difficulties in learning listening skill are caused from listeners' lack of control over the speed at speakers and listeners‘ limited vocabulary

To acquire an acceptable listening skill, listeners themselves should have much more exposure to a variety of listening Teacher plays an important role in teaching learners strategies and how to apply them to the listening task

1.2 Motivation

1.2.1 Definition of motivation

Motivation is defined in different ways by different researchers

According to Gardner (1985: 134), motivation in his socio – psychological model

is the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitude toward learning the language Penny (1996: 95), considers motivation difficult to give a definition; she prefers to think about motivation in terms

of motivated learners, that is, learners who are willing to involve themselves in learning activities to progress She states that teaching and learning can become much easier and more pleasant when there is learners‘ motivation Psychologists have made the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

According to Penny (2004: 375), it is difficult to define motivation as it is better

to think of the motivated learner: ―One who is willing or even eager to invest in

learning, activities and making progress Learners‘ motivation makes teaching and learning immeasurably easier and more pleasant as well as more productive‖

Williams and Burden (1997: 120) see motivation as a state of cognitive and emotional arousal, a state which leads to a conscious decision to act and gives rise to a period of sustained intellectual and/or physical effort

Relating motivation to learning a second language (L2), (1997: 75), stated that motivation involves the attitudes and effective states that influence the degree of effort that learners make to learn an L2, Brown (2000: 160) indicated that motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something

Literature shows that different researchers have different ways of defining motivation However, they all share the same point of view that motivation combines effort and desire plus favorable attitudes and occurs as a result of a combination of internal and external influences

From my little experience, I have found out that it is important to be interested in what students like or who they admire Then it is easier to get them closer to the teacher because then they can speak more together about the issue that they are interested in The author agrees with the definition of motivation proposed by Gardner (1985) According to Gardner (1985:50), motivation includes four aspects: goal, effortful behavior to reach the goal, desire to attain the goal, positive attitudes towards the goal However, a goal is not necessary a measurable component of motivation, but

a stimulus that gave rise to motivation

1.2.2 Types of motivation

According to the self-determination theory, there are two types of motivation, one based on intrinsic interest in the act vity and the other based on extrinsic rewards

to the activity itself (Deci & Ryan (1985), cited in Lucas (2010: 6))

Intrinsic motivation is generally possessed by people having personal interests

in doing something and helping to set their goals People are intrinsically motivated not because accomplishing the activity they do bring a reward, but because doing the activity itself is a reward (Dörnyei‘s 1998: 51)

Dörnyei‘s (2001: 55) notes that a student with intrinsic motivation participates

in his or her learning for its own sake, for the enjoyment it provides, the learning it permits, or the feeling of accomplishment it evokes

Richard Ryan and Edward Deci (1985: 201) believe that intrinsic motivation is founded upon innate needs for competence and self-determination (cited in Lucas, (2010: 6))

Another type of motivation is extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, derives from an anticipation of rewards such as praise, awards, prizes, and evaluation, and fear for punishment An extrinsically motivated student does the activity in order to obtain some reward or avoid some punishment external to the activity itself, and this kind of motivation refers to learning situations where the reason for doing a task is something other than an interest in the task itself (Williams and Burden (1997: 40))

Foreign language teachers should be conscious of the fact that learners bring to the classroom not only their intelligence but also attitudes and interests which are consequences of a variety of psychological and sociological factors Therefore, that is part of responsibility for teachers to channel these affective elements (Girard (1997: 71))

Apart from intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, Ellis, R (1997: 76) adds another type of motivation, which is resultative motivation In his opinion, motivation is result

Instrumental motivation, on the contrary, is something which concerns the practical value and advantages of learning a new language‘ (Lambert 1974: 98, cited in Ellis, 1997), and which is characterized by ‗the wish to learn the language for purposes

of study or career promotion (Penny 1996: 276) and the desire to obtain something

practical or concrete from the study of a second language (Hudson 2000) In other words, instrumental motivation is the learner‘s desire to learn a language for utilitarian purposes (such as employment/travel/exam purposes) in the context of language learning

Both kinds of motivation are essential elements of success in learning a second language, but it is integrative motivation which has been found to sustain long-term success when learning a second language Ellis (1997) In some of the early researchers

by Gardner and Lambert (cited in Ellis, R 1997), integrative motivation was viewed more important in a formal learning environment than instrumental motivation Integrative motivation was regarded as superior to instrumental motivation for predicting the success of second language learning However, from another perspective, instrumental motivation is meaningful for the learner who has had limited access to the L2 culture, or foreign language settings Dornyei's (1996, cited in Vaezi, 2008:55) opposed Gardner by claiming that instrumental motivation is more important than the integrative motivation

In my opinion, it is important to note that instrumental motivation has only been acknowledged as a significant factor in some research, whereas integrative motivation

is continually linked to successful second language acquisition

To sum up, there are many kinds of motivation However, it is the author's belief that intrinsic motivation produces more potential benefits than extrinsic motivation Intrinsically motivated students tend to try harder and think more deeply than extrinsically motivated ones

1.2.3 The importance of motivation in listening classes

Listening to English is regarded to be hard for students who are not English majors From the researchers‘ observation and discussion with students, the author has realized that many students have associated listening courses with pain and boredom and often complain that they become tired of listening to the tape from the beginning

to the end and benefit little from listening lesson Therefore, it is necessary for English teachers to realize the importance of how to make listening classes more interesting, especially at the first stage of the lesson and how to know motivate students so that they can develop their listening comprehension (Broughter 1978)

Motivation is a basic principle of all kinds of teaching – the language of the students is best motivated by practice in which he senses the language that is truly communicative, that is appropriate to its context, that his teachers‘ skills and techniques are moving him forward to a fuller competence in the foreign language (Broughter 1978:.47)

So, how to keep students‘ interest in learning must be focused Without interest, motivation and variation in teaching and learning, students certainly feel bored with listening

In conclusion, it is known that motivation is difficult to be measured, but teachers can notice when their students are motivated by their facial expressions, attitudes and also by their participation in class Motivation is an important factor that contributes to the success in teaching and learning foreign languages in general and in teaching and learning listening skills in particular

1.3 Songs as a motivator for students to listen

The importance of motivation in second language teaching and learning has been discussed for many years Teachers and researchers believe that motivation plays

an important part in the process of acquiring an additional language because motivated students are usually those who participate actively in class, express interest in the subject-matter, and study a great deal But since motivation is something very personal, it is not easy to develop (Lightbrown & Spada 1999) If we can make our classrooms places where students enjoy coming because the atmosphere is supportive and non-threatening, we can make a positive contribution to students‘ motivation to learn For this sake, songs seem to do very well

Songs have a great tendency to attract the attention of students that other forms

of the mass media lack Even the person who is totally tone deaf may at times considers himself a good singer and a person who cannot understand the words of a song can still appreciate the song itself Songs, especially current pop songs exert a great influence over the young generation from which our students come And because songs deal with the whole realm of human emotions and experiences- from love, hate, joy, to loneliness and sadness, they really appeal to the young people

While many students find it difficult and stressful to learn a new language, songs can help wash away these feelings Each song has its own lyrics and as the lyrics

come out from the composer‘s heart with tempo and rhyme, it is easy to penetrate into other people‘s hearts That is the reason why when students mumble the words of the songs along the lyrics, they gradually get used to the language and find it easier to learn According to McDonald (1984:187), the use of the songs in English classroom allows the students to hide behind the music and then avoids the heat of an early spotlight landing on timid students By that way, it also wraps the students‘ perceptions of how difficult it is to use the new language

In addition to that, when songs are played, the group spirit is really fostered, which is a great help to students in their practice of the language skill And because the students can carry the songs beyond classroom doors and sing for their family and friends This, in turn, tends to reinforce the students‘ interest in learning English

From the opinions above, it can be concluded that 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

1.4 Review of related studies

In the context of Vietnam, there have been few studies on the use English songs and its effectiveness on learning English skills

Tran Thi Tuyet Mai (2010) at Duy Tien High school conducted a study titled

―Using English traditional songs to improve students‘ pronunciation‖ with its aims are finding out whether the use of English traditional songs to teach pronunciation for high school students is effective or not and working out the most effective ways of using English songs to teach pronunciation for high school students

Tran Thi Oanh (2008) conducted a study titled ―The use of song to improve listening skill for students at ITC foreign language center in Hai Duong‖ In her study, she focused mainly on investigating the effectiveness of using songs in teaching listening skill

Bui Thi Thu (2011) exploited songs to motivate students in learning English grammar She illustrated that the English songs have an important role in helping students memorize the grammatical rules more easily

Not only in Vietnam, there have been so many foreign researchers investigating the teaching language methodology with the use of English songs

Andrew Yau Hau Tse, a teacher of English in Malaysia conducted a thesis on

―Malaysian teachers' perspectives on using songs in English language teaching‖ The purpose of his study is to probe the angles of Malaysian ESL teachers on the employment of songs Specifically, it aims at inquiring their philosophy on the pedagogical value, attitudes, and cerebration on the impact of songs in English teaching Based on appropriate literature, songs have proved to be the most impressive characteristics of ESL programmes that they are helpful listening materials, and the most relaxing and language learning strategy reported by young learners of English In addition, they are vital and indispensable elements

Kwong, Suk-mun, Elsa, (2006) also studied about English through songs: factors affecting students' motivation in English as a second language classroom Knowing that students at school did not have a desire to learn English songs but are attracted by the popular songs, the researcher would like to take her dual role as a teacher of English and teacher of music to use the English songs to investigate the factors that affect students‘ motivation in learning English through songs

Neil T Millington in Japan had a thesis on ―Using songs effectively to teach English to young learners‖ This paper starts by analyzing why songs should be considered as useful pedagogical tools The author then proposes using songs as language learning tasks to maximize the benefits of using songs and attempts to show how this might be done using practical examples The paper also explores how classic children‘s songs could be modified to help teachers use them more frequently to teach

a wider variety of topics

Hans Mol in Australia investigated the use of songs in English classroom He explained that songs will help learners become familiar with word stress and intonation, and the rhythm with which words are spoken or sung and that songs also help memorization

As a teacher of English, the author realized that songs will enable learners to remember chunks of language which they can then use in conversations or in writing As language teachers, we can use songs to practice listening, speaking, reading and writing

1.5 Summary

This chapter has provided the relevant literature, which has helped to form the theoretical and conceptual framework for the study Firstly, the definition of listening skill, types of listening process and the difficulties in learning listening skill are given based on some authors‘ ideas in which listening has been considered as a vital role in communicative language teaching Secondly, the importance of motivation in listening classes and songs as a motivator for student to listen are also presented in this chapter

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Setting of the study

2.1.1 Teachers’ background information

Up to now, there are 11 English teachers at Hai Duong Medical Technical University All of them are quite young, well – trained and energetic which is a very good condition for HMTU They are both males and females, and all of whom graduated from

Ha Noi National University, Ha Noi University and Ha Noi Open University Five of them had an M.A degree Eight are in their thirties with more than 7 years of teaching experience Three others are in their forties with over 15 years of teaching experience 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 overcome 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

2.1.2 Students’ background information

This research was carried out at Hai Duong Medical Technical University with the participation of forty first year non-major students They all were in the first term and from two different classes For those students, English was not their major but a compulsory subject in the schedule Being technical students, English was really an impossible subject as they always complained that it has so many rules, it is so complicated, and they have no head for English However, as English was taught and examined through four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, it is become more indigestible to them Of the four skills, listening was always the most horrible to the students as it was the first time they learn English via skills, so they could not get used to listening to English That was the reason why many of them either often played truant or did their private things during listening lessons

2.1.3 Teaching and learning condition at HMTU

HMTU was founded 45 years ago and this university is situated in the center of Hai Duong city English is not an old subject at this school It was introduced 20 years ago Before that, Russian had been taught

Due to the fact that this school was founded a long time ago, it has enough classrooms and modern equipment It not only has projectors in all classrooms but also

two language labs for English classes HMTU has a foreign language center with 11 teachers of English and they are passionate teachers The difficulty in teaching and learning comes firstly from students In general, students in the school differ in their level of language proficiency Most students have been learning English since grade 6, but a small number of students who come from the cities started learning English in grade 3 Some of the students live in the remote rural areas where living and learning conditions are difficult

Although most of the students started learning English at the early age, many of them have low proficiency of English because they paid more attention to other subjects Before coming to this university, they had to take an exam with three subjects and these subjects are not English The students have wrong attitudes toward learning English as well as shortage of time for English Despite the above difficulties, the teachers of English at HMTU are young, well – trained and energetic which is a very good condition for HMTU

In terms of language teaching method, most of the teachers at HMTU are familiar with the traditional teaching method which put a great emphasis on grammar and vocabulary and there is a little time for teaching listening When working with new syllabus, they feel it difficult to initiate activities and manage the class Fortunately, all of them are young teachers and they have great desire and motivation

to acquire knowledge of communicative competence to apply in teaching English

2.2.1.2 Teachers

11 teachers participated in answering questions These teachers are in charge of teaching English to first-year students, among which 9 are female and 2 are male All teachers graduated from Hanoi University or Vietnam National University, English Department 5 teachers out of 11 have Master degrees, 3 teachers are doing a Master

enthusiastic teachers and willing to help their students to overcome their listening comprehension problems

2.2.2 Data collection

Both questionnaires and test were employed in this research so as to get the accurate data

2.2.2.1 Instruments

2.2.2.1.1 Questionnaire for teachers

Questionnaire was delivered to teachers at the end of the first term It aims at finding out teachers‘ frequency of using songs, their opinions about advantages and disadvantages of using songs, kind of tasks they designed to teach listening skill, teachers' opinion about the criteria for choosing appropriate songs in teaching listening skill The questionnaire is written in English with six questions: question 1 aimed at finding out the frequency the teachers use song to teach listening; question 2 made clear about teachers‘ opinion about benefits of using songs to teach listening skill; question 3 found out teachers‘ opinion about disadvantages of using songs to teach listening skill; question 4 worked out the tasks that teachers design to teach with the use of songs; question 5 worked out the criteria for teachers to select songs in teaching listening in classroom; questions 6 found out the sources teachers collect songs to teach listening

2.2.2.1.2 Questionnaire for students

Questionnaire for students was delivered at the end of the first term It aims at identifying students' degree of interest, students‘ improvement, their opinion about the benefits of learning listening through the use of English songs, their favorite activities while they are listening to English songs and reasons that students listen to English songs The questionnaire for students is written in Vietnamese so that students can understand the questions more easily and it consists of five questions: question 1 aimed at finding the degree students like listening through songs; question 2 worked out the extent which songs can help students to improve their listening; question 3 found out the students‘ opinion about the benefits of learning listening through the use

of English songs; question 4 aimed at discovering students‘ favorite activities while they are listening to English songs; question 5 pointed out the reasons that students listen to English songs

II: Listen to short talk and tick true or false statements Time allowed for each test is fifteen minutes The aim of the tests is to answer the question whether teaching listening skill through the use of songs is effective or not

2.2.2.2 Data collection and analysis procedure

The researcher carried out this study in two first - year - student classes during the first term of the school year 2013 – 2014 There are 30 students in each class with various levels of English Class E1102.1 was taught with English songs in the listening part and class E1102.3 was taught without using English songs The data was collected

in the following steps

Step 1: Two classes (E1101.1 and E1101.3) were handed a listening test as a pre- test

at the beginning of term

Step 2: At the end of the term, these two classes were given another listening test as the post – test to find out the effectiveness of teaching and learning listening through songs

Step 3: The survey questionnaire for students was delivered to the experimental class

to find out the degree students like learning listening through songs, what extent can they improve their listening skill through songs, what benefits of learning listening skill through songs, what favorite activities while they are listening to songs and why they listen to English songs A survey questionnaire was also delivered to the teachers

of English at HMTU to find out the frequency teachers use English songs to teach listening skill, teachers' opinions about advantages and disadvantages of using songs in class, the tasks that teachers design to teach with the use of songs, criteria to choose appropriate songs, and the sources they collect songs These two questionnaires were delivered at the end of the term

The results then were analyzed and presented in forms of tables and charts Data analysis and findings will be presented in the next chapter

2.3 Summary

In this chapter, the author introduces the setting of the study and research design including participants, data collection and analysis procedure

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 3.1 Questionnaire for students

Chart 1: Students’ attitude towards English songs

The pie chart clearly shows the students‘ attitude towards the English songs From the chart, it can be seen that most of the students were fond of listening English songs which takes up for (88%) More than half of them (73%) expressed their great love for this way of teaching However, there are some students said that they did not enjoy the use of English songs (12%)

3.1.3.2 The improvement of students’ listening after they had been taught with the use of songs

Chart 2: Students’ improvement after they had been taught with the use of songs

There were 86% of students reported that they made some improvement in their listening skill after a term of learning with songs And 67% stated that their listening was improved a lot Some of these students said that they could hear and understand what the singers sang However, there are still a few students (14%) frankly said that they did not make any progress

3.1.3.3 Students’ opinion about the benefits of learning listening through the use

of English songs

Note: 1: Strongly disagree 2: Disagree 3: Don’t know 4: Agree 5: Strongly agree

Develop my confidence in listening to English 11 19 17 22 31

Help me to recognize key words while

listening

Help me pay greater attention to word stress 7 9 25.6 36.7 21,7 Help me to discriminate English sounds better 13.3 22.3 39 13.4 12

These numbers illustrates students‘ awareness of the effectiveness of English songs to their listening lessons Firstly, it can be clearly seen that most of the students agreed that English songs make their lessons more relaxing 81,3 % of the students agreed with the first choice, and 44 % expressed their strong agreement The number for the second choice, which is that songs make the listening lesson more enjoyable is 82,7% This is really important as it means the class is no longer covered with the feeling of anxiety and unwillingness but joy and fun This marks a raise in students‘ motivation for the skill as when they find the lesson enjoyable, they will like to learn it more and more and when they feel relaxed in it, they will do it better and better Especially, more than half of the students approved that they felt much more confident

in doing listening skill, which never happened before As much as 53% of them stated strongly that they were no longer nervous or stressed when doing listening task This positive result reassures that English songs do a great help in raising students‘ motivation in learning listening skill However, there still exist 17% of them showing

no concern about this question When being asked for reasons, they explained that they felt excited to solve the tasks with songs but this excitement could not erase the feeling

of nervousness when they dealt with the real listening exercises

In addition to that, 70% of the respondents claimed that thanks to English songs, their listening skill is better than before Of the rest, 16.6% made no decisions, and 13.3% found no progress in their study of the skill

Guessing skill seems to be the most progressive one as 54.4 % students said that their guessing skill was improved through songs

Word recognition stands at the second place with the number of 56,4% and it is followed by the skill of awareness of word stress which is illustrated by 58,4% Surprisingly, sound discrimination skill is put at the bottom of the list with only 25,4%

of the learners who claimed that songs helped them discriminate sounds better Most

of the students found this sub-skill quite difficult to do, so they either showed no concern for it (39%), or disagreed with the statement (35,6%)

The thing should be noted here is that the number of students who had no idea

on these points seems to be high 35.6% and 25.6% are the respective number of students who did not know whether songs help them to recognize key words while listening or pay greater attention to word stress For guessing skill, it is 25.3% These

people, perhaps, neither saw any progress in their skills nor paid much attention to them

Regardless of these things, it can be concluded that songs can help students improve some bottom-up listening skills such as word recognition, awareness of word stress, and enhance their attention while listening

3.1.3.4 Students’ favorite activities while they are listening to English songs

Table 2: Students’ favorite activities while they are listening to English songs

From the table, it can be seen that the students‘ most favorite activity is arranging the jumbled lines, counting for 97,3 % This maybe due to the fact that this kind of task was the easiest and it did not require much their attention Listening to the songs and fill in the blank with a missing word is at the second position of their choice, which makes up 91% Perhaps, this type of activity was quite difficult but very interesting as it took a lot of their concentration while listening and they felt excited about the words they wrote down Nothing was more wonderful if those words were correct answers

Besides, 55% of the respondents regard listening and ticking True or False sentences is the third of their most favorite activities In fact, this task was not too difficult and they could practice concentration while listening

Another type of task would attract students a lot is listening to the song and circling the words appeared in the song, which was chosen by 52% Besides, many students also like listening to the songs and correcting mistakes in the songs such as

finding out the extra words or wrong words in the lyrics This is realized with the portion of 43%

The next activity that students show their concern is discussing about the meaning of the songs 33% of the students were eager to know about the content of those songs because it could make them understand more about the songs they were

listening to

At the bottom of their choice, only 12% of the students show their interest to dictation, even a smaller number of them (6,3%) think that doing the multi-choice questions while listening is interesting It is understandable because these tasks are often too difficult and take them a lot of time and sub-skills to fulfill

3.1.3.5 Reasons that students listen to English songs

Table 3: Reasons that students listen to English songs

A large amount of the informants (over 80%) share the same opinion about their aim of listening to songs is for relaxation and pleasure Listening to songs really make them feel comfortable and relaxed after hours of working or studying hard Meanwhile, there is 59% of students saying that their main purpose is to improve listening skill Only 1% or 2% of the students listen to English songs to stay awake or for other reasons

3.2 Questionnaire for teacher

3.2.1 Aims

The aim of questionnaire for teacher is to find out teachers‘ frequency of using songs and kind of tasks they designed to teach with the use of songs and teachers‘ comment on advantages and disadvantages of using songs to teach listening skill, criteria for choosing appropriate songs