Principles of using English songs to teach English to first year students at Ho Chi Minh University of Industry

Principles of using English songs to teach English to first year students at Ho Chi Minh University of Industry Vũ Thị Hồng Vân Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: Lý luậ

Principles of using English songs to teach English to first year students at Ho Chi Minh

University of Industry

Vũ Thị Hồng Vân

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp giảng dạy tiếng Anh

Mã số: 60.14.10 Người hướng dẫn: TS Tô Thị Thu Hương

Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract: This study aims at setting up some principles of using English songs to

teach English to first year students at Ho Chi Minh University of Industry Based on Tomlinson’s principles of materials development, previous studies on using songs in language teaching and teachers’ real situation of using songs as teaching material at HUI, the researcher has established some principles which mainly focus on three issues: identifying clearly the goals of using songs, choosing songs and designing tasks from songs properly The principles then were applied into real teaching at HUI and the result was quite feasible The students’ evaluation form has shown that the principles have had positive effect on language teaching and learning at HUI In conclusion, establishing and following the principles of using songs is a “should do job” to HUI teachers if they want to achieve and enhance the pedagogical benefits of English songs in language classroom However, due to researcher’s limited ability and experience, the principles can not cover all aspects; teachers should always keep trying, experimenting new ways of using songs and extending new using songs

principles

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Phương pháp giảng dạy; Bài hát

Content

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

As a result of the globalization, English nowadays is playing a more and more important role in helping people to communicate with others from all over the world Being aware of this importance of English, all schools in our countries are putting more and more emphasis on teaching this language Like other universities, English is being taught at our university as a compulsory subject; therefore English counts for as many credits as the majored subjects Contrary to the long duration of learning English is the lack of motivation

as well as interest in learning English of the students at our university This is quite easy to

understand because most of the students at our university are non-majored English students Their English proficiency is quite low as a result of the passive, test-oriented learning style at their high school that is just focusing on the main subjects taken in the entrance examination

to the university In addition, teaching and learning method is also a cause of the students’ demotivation of learning English Regarding the teaching methods, most of the English teachers still keep the traditional teaching approach which focuses on grammar and translation The English lessons are said to be boring, tiring and sometimes even tense Being aware of this negative learning and teaching condition, many teachers in our university are trying to change their teaching method by integrating different teaching approaches and using more interesting teaching aids such as pictures, flashcards, PowerPoint, games, stories and songs Among those, songs seem to be the most popular to students and also more frequently used by teachers than others However, the effectiveness gained through using songs is still not high as expected Although songs have been proved to be a very interesting teaching materials and have been applied in teaching in many European countries, this method still seems to be a new one for Vietnamese teachers in general and the teachers at Ho Chi Minh University of Industry (HUI) in particular Most teachers still meet difficulties in working out the way to exploit the maximum benefits of songs in English classroom It seems that teachers just spontaneously use English songs as an entertaining tool to relax students not a teaching aid Teachers fail to set a particular pedagogical aim or follow a specific rule of using songs Generally, songs are often played at the end of the lesson when teaching and learning is finished and students are sitting to wait for the bell rang Sometimes teachers also let students listen to English songs at break time; hence not all students pay attention to the songs Sometimes songs are also put in the course books as an extra task such as listen to the song and fill in the blanks However, teachers tend to have different ways of carrying out this task While some teachers ignore this task and just let students sit and enjoy the music, other explain the instruction and let students listen to the song, get them to finish the task and then check as an exercise They rarely explain what students can learn from the songs or have no further activities or tasks for the students after having students listened to music Therefore students often forget the song right after listening or even if they are interested in the song, they do not know what to do with it In short, for most of the students at my university, they just regard songs as a means of entertainment not a useful tool/source of learning English For teachers, most of them have not succeeded in exploiting the pedagogical benefits of English songs except for the entertaining and relaxing benefits As a teacher of English at the university, I am also very interested in using songs as a teaching aid in English lessons

Learning that at present, songs are not effectively used in teaching English at HUI, I myself realize that in order to get optimal benefits from using English songs as a teaching tool, there should be some principles of using songs to teach English to guide teachers

2 Aims of the study

(1) setting out the principles of using English songs to teach English to first year HUI students through empirical research, i.e HUI English teacher survey and student evaluation;

(2) finding out the feasibility of applying these suggested principles of using songs to teach English to first year students

3 Scope of the study

The study mainly focuses on finding out the principles of using songs to teach English to first year students at Ho Chi Minh University of Industry It, therefore, does not focus on exploring the effectiveness of the principle application

4 Method of the study

1 Teachers’ questionnaire

2 Evaluation questionnaire for students

The data collection process lasted 2 weeks (teacher questionnaire) and in the last week (student evaluation) during the first term of the academic year 2012- 2013

5 Design of the study

This study contains three main parts as follow:

Part 1 is the introduction in which I would like a present the rationale of choosing this topic, the aim of the study, the scope of the study and the methods to be applied

Part 2 is the development which includes three main chapters:

 Chapter 1 is about the theoretical background related to the purpose of the study

 Chapter 2 deals with investigating the situation of using English songs in teaching at HUI and finding out the principles of using songs to teach English for first year students at Ho Chi Minh University of Industry

 Chapter 3 is concerned with applying the proposed principles of using songs in teaching English at HUI and then evaluating the feasibility of these principles when applied in real teaching at HUI

Part 3 is the summary of the major findings in Part 2 and suggestions for further study This part also contains the List of References and Appendices

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Reasons why English songs should be used as teaching materials

- Affective reason

- Cognitive Reasons

- Linguistic Reasons

2 Materials in foreign language learning and teaching

According to Brian Tomlinson (1998), “material” refers to “ anything which is used

by teachers to facilitate the learning of a language” From this point of view, songs are also considered teaching materials which can effectively support the teaching of foreign language

3 Principles of developing teaching materials

3.1 Materials should achieve impact

3.2 Learner’s attention should be drawn to linguistic features of the input

3.3 Materials should provide the learners with opportunities to use the target language

to achieve communicative purposes

3.4 What is being taught should be perceived by learners as relevant and useful

3.5 Materials should take into account that learners differ in learning style and affective attitude

3.6 Materials should help learner feel at ease and develop confidence

4 Previous studies on using songs to teach English

4.1 Teaching grammar

Regarding the studies which focusing on using songs to teach grammar, there have been many researches such as research by Ha (1999), Thu ( 20005) These researches have shown that songs are beneficial for teaching grammar and the two authors give some elements

that help teacher choose songs such as: appropriate length, rhythm, lyrics and content,

students’ level, students’ age, students’ interest, grammar points to be studied and features of the song According to Thu (20005) songs can be used for all of the phrases in

grammar lesson such as warming up, presentation, practice and production Ha (2005)

suggested a lot of interesting activities with songs such as identifying particular parts of speech, giving the right form of the words in the brackets, multiple choice, blank filling, and creating new lyrics and so on

4.2 Teaching Vocabulary

Chuanxuan Shen (2009:5) explains that when coming across an impressive song, learners will be eager to understand the content and sing after the singer or sing it themselves This leads to their further motivation to learn all the new words appearing in the song By this way, their vocabulary will be naturally improved Thorn Bury (2002) adds that “In lyrics, words usually appear in context, the sound of new words is easily remembered along with the melody of the song and by listening to the song, students are exposed the new words many times” Definitely, the usefulness of songs to teaching and learning vocabulary is undeniable This has been affirmed in the research of Huyen (2002) and Chuanxuan Shen (2008), however not many suggestions on designing tasks for teaching vocabulary were mentioned in these two

studies Dagmar Siskova (2008) recommends that “ for teaching vocabulary, the most

appropriate activities are writing a dialogues using the words of the song, dictating a song, using a song for gap-fill, cloze, or correction, using songs into project work, practicing songs for pronunciation, intonation and stress”

4.3 Teaching Pronunciation

Veronika Rosova (2007) concludes that songs can be of great help in teaching three

areas of difficulties in pronunciation, namely sounds, words and connected speech To be

detailed, Veronika claims that “the rhymes in songs provide listeners with the repetition of similar sounds, and when students choose to listen to the song again and again, they are exposing them to these sounds, repeating them, getting better at recognizing them and producing them” For learning words, In Veronika’s opinion, songs fitting the music and

containing memorable rhythms can help students associate with the syllables, the stress in

the words

Besides, songs can be useful for teaching three other elements of pronunciation such as

word stress, rhythm and intonation (Mai: 2010)

4.4 Teaching listening

Researchers both nationally, Huyen (2002: 68), Huyen (2006), Trang (2006) and internationally De Kock (1989:123), Fiveash (1989:195), Lynch, L.M (1993:23), James (2000: 36-37) and many others suggest the use of music to enhance students’ listening proficiency Music provides students with practice listening to different forms of intonation and rhythm

4.5 Teaching speaking, writing and reading

Chuanxuan Shen (2009) demonstrates that singing an English song demands familiarity of a number with phonological rules such as liaison, loss of explosion,

assimilation, voicing, deletion, and so on which help students enhance their speaking fluency According to Shen (2009), songs also help refresh the boring atmosphere in writing lesson Teacher can ask students make a new version of the original song on their own by following the same tune, imitating the format of the lyrical lines Therefore, writing the lyrics by imitation might be a effective way of digging out students’ creativity in language The right song will arouse their empathy, stimulate their inspiration and light their passion to express their experiences and emotion in the same way

CHAPTER 2: A STUDY ON USING SONGS AS TEACHING MATERIAL IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO FIRST YEAR SUTDENTS AT HUI AND SUGGESTED

PRINCIPLES OF USING SONGS TO TEACH ENGLISH

1 Research approach and questions

The study was mostly qualitative using questionnaire survey, complemented with student evaluation The questions set for the survey were:

1 What are HUI English teacher’s attitudes toward the use of English songs in their

teaching?

2 How do they often use English songs to teach English?

3 What is the effect of teaching English with songs on their students’ language proficiency?

4 What are their difficulties when using songs to teach English?

5 What solutions do they suggest for the problems of using songs to teach English?

2 Participants

The study was carried out with the participation 20 English teachers coming from Ho Chi Minh University of Industry

3 Data collection instrument

Questionnaire for teachers

This research was conducted as a qualitative study, using questionnaire for teachers The questionnaires for teachers are used to investigate the necessity of using songs in language classroom, the way teachers use English songs in language classroom, the difficulties that they may encounter while using songs and to search for solutions to those difficulties

4 Procedures of data collection

The information was collected within one week in the third semester of the school year

2011 – 2012

5 Data analysis

Data from questionnaires were analysed quantitatively via Excel for descriptive statistics in the form of pie chart, percentage and frequency Data from student evaluation was analysed interpretively to gauge the feasibility of the principles putting into practice

6 Results of data analysis

The statistics in the data analysis have showed that most of the English teachers have been aware of the importance and usefulness of English songs in language learning and teaching Therefore, more than half of them use English songs in language classroom However their use just mainly focuses on motivating and helping students relaxed Besides, English songs are also exploited to teach listening, pronunciation; nevertheless the percentage

of those who use songs to teach grammar, speaking, reading or writing is not high This means that the way teachers handle with English songs in language classroom is not very diverse This can be an existing limitation that is the teachers haven’t either grasped a full understanding or made an optimal use of the pedagogical value of songs in language teaching One more thing revealed through the data analysis is that there are not many activities and tasks associated with songs for students to get involved in This is another limitation that can reduce the effect of English songs on students’ language acquisition and improvement Most

of the time, teacher just play songs and let students sit passively to enjoy the music Not stop there, teachers when using songs have to cope with a lot of difficulties, especially in choosing and designing tasks from songs Additionally, students’ low ability of listening and speaking

as well as the limited time in the class can also lead to the low efficiency of using songs in language class What’s more, many teachers complain that big class size is also a challenge for teachers (more than 50 students in a class) Teachers find it difficult to control students as well as the noise when playing songs in the class

The discussion above suggests that it is necessary to establish some basic principles of using songs for teachers to follow so that they can achieve their teaching purpose The principles can focus on three main issues namely identifying the aims of using songs, choosing songs and designing tasks from songs

8 Suggested principles of using songs in teaching English

Principle 1- Songs should achieve impact on learners in alignment with course/lesson objectives

- Songs have to meet students’ need, curiosity, interest and

Principle 2- Songs should be used to enhance learners’ language development

- Language proficiency needs to strengthen learners’ language components such as: grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation and language skills such as listening, speaking, writing and reading

Principle 3 - Teachers should take the difference of learners’ learning style and affective attitude into consideration

Brian Tomlinson (1998) has pointed out the necessity for teachers to understand their student’s preferable way of learning before deciding to use songs as a teaching aid in the class Not every student is interested in learning with songs For those students who belong to the group of “auditory”, “kinaesthetic” or “experiential”, songs appear to be a good choice

Principle 4 - Songs should be properly chosen

Teachers should consider carefully some elements such as songs’ features, student’s features and the goal as well as the topic of the lesson before choosing them

Songs’ feature: music type, length, speed, linguistic content and features

Student’s factor: interest, age, English proficiency and learning style

The goal and topic of the lesson: Songs chosen should be based on the goal and topic of the

lesson

Principle 5 - Pedagogical tasks should be appropriately designed for use with songs

1 Teachers should design appropriate tasks based on the language aspect to be taught, the songs and students’ level

The tasks designed should focus on the language aspect that teacher is going to teach

in the lesson

In order to design the tasks suitably and effectively, teachers also shouldn’t forget to consider some factors such as song’s lyrics, vocabulary, difficulty level, the rhythm and speed, students’ level, the difficulty level of the tasks

2 Tasks and activities associated with songs should help learners feel at ease and develop confidence

It’s advisable for teachers to avoid choosing too long or difficult songs or designing too difficult tasks; otherwise learners will feel tense or worried to finish the tasks and may no longer feel interested in learning with songs next time

CHAPTER 3: PRINCIPLES OF USING SONGS IN TEACHING ENGISH TO FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT HUI: AN APPLICATION AND EVALUATION

1 Putting the principles into use: teaching English to first year students at HUI

In order to evaluate the feasibility and suitability of the suggested principles in English teaching and studying at HUI, the researcher has applied those principles into her actual teaching of two English classes: basic English one and basic English two

1.1 Some description of the pilot classes

The total number of two English classes is 100 students Most of them are at the age of

19 Their English level is pre- intermediate

1.2 Procedure

The researcher used songs to teach English to two classes in two weeks in the first semester of the new school year 2012 -2013 Each week there were two lessons and in each lesson, the researcher both used English songs to teach different language aspects such as grammar, listening, and vocabulary The researcher used the principles of using English songs

as a guide line

1.3 The application of the principles of using songs

Based on the principles, I decided to use the song “Love concerto” to enhance my students’ vocabulary To be detailed, through using the song, I can help my students consolidate the use and grasp the difference between “adverb” and “adjective” in an interesting way

Before using song, I also considered whether my students are interested in learning with songs or not

Regarding the principles of choosing songs, I also studied very carefully three main factors that help to choose suitable songs I find that the song “Love concerto” is a suitable one with slow rhythm, clear pronunciation, interesting and understandable content Besides, the lyrics of the song contain a lot of adjective and adverb which is related to the content of the lesson So students can enjoy the music and learn at the same time

Taking the principles of designing tasks from songs into consideration, I am aware that the designed tasks should meet some requirements such as helping learners feel at ease, relating to the linguistic input to be taught and providing learners with opportunities to use the target language to communicate

A SAMPLE LESSON PLAN

2 Evaluation of the feasibility and suitability of the proposed principles in teaching English at HUI

2.1 Procedure and data collection instrument

After applying the principles of using songs to teach English to two classes at HUI, the researcher delivered an evaluation form to students in two classes to check out whether these

principles are suitable and useful or not The researcher herself reflected on the feasibility of the application, then discussed with the head of EFL section and other fellow teachers for their confirmation

Evaluation form for students

The evaluation form was created for students with the aim of checking whether the applied principles of using English songs in language classroom work or not Students are expected to express their attitudes and opinions on the effect of using English songs in language classroom on their language learning motivation as well as language proficiency in the three first questions The next two following questions aim at finding whether teachers have applied the principles of choosing songs and designing songs properly or not and the last one asks about the students’ general opinion on the lesson with the use of English songs: whether they satisfy or not and why

2.2 Data analysis and discussion

a The effect of using English songs on students’ learning motivation

It can be seen from pie chart 4 that using English songs in class room has positive effect

on students’ learning motivation with 85% of students agreeing that using songs motivate them to learn English

b The effect of using English songs on students’ language proficiency

When being asked about the effect of using songs on learners’ language proficiency based on the top down degree: very much, much, not much and not at all, 28% choose very much, 38% choose much while 13 % choose not much and other 21% claim that the interference of English songs in class has no effect on their language development

Among 79 students agreeing that learning with English songs help them improve the language components and language skills, 66% of them state that listening is the skill that is enhanced most through songs Ranking the second is pronunciation with 66% of them choosing Following vocabulary is pronunciation with 62% Grammar is also enhanced quite much through songs with 59% of the students Although speaking, writing do not have high percentage like others, they are still claimed to be improved with the use of songs with the percentage respectively, 29 %, 12% The only skill that seems not to get much positive effect from songs is reading with 10% of the learners choosing

b Choosing songs and designing tasks from songs

Result gained though the evaluation form show that songs were chosen properly with 84% of students answering “yes” to the question “are the songs chosen properly”