Using songs and poems in teaching English to motivate students at Van Noi High School

Using songs and poems in teaching English to motivate students at Van Noi High School Nguyễn Thị Thúy Hà Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS.. Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa Năm bảo vệ: 2011 A

Using songs and poems in teaching English to motivate students at Van Noi High School

Nguyễn Thị Thúy Hà

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS Chuyên ngành: English Teaching Methodology; Mã số: 60 14 10

Người hướng dẫn: Dr Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa

Năm bảo vệ: 2011

Abstract: This study aims at investigating how the use of songs and poems in teaching

English can motivate students at Van Noi High School The study with the design of a quasi – experimental method with two groups, was carried out in two classes (Class 10B and 10F) with 80 grade 10th students during the two months at the end of the second semester of the school year 2010 - 2011 The main instrument to gather data was the pre and post questionnaire With the data obtained in the pre- questionnaire, Class 10B with lower learning motivation was treated as the experimental group and class 10F with higher learning motivation was the control group so as to make the result more comparable The experimental group was additionally taught the five English songs and five English poems but the control group only followed the usual schedule The findings

of the data analysis from the post-questionnaire showed that there was an increase in learning motivation in the experimental group while the motivation in the control group almost stayed the same The students in the experimental group enjoyed learning English through songs and poems However, many of them liked this way of learning because of the relaxation that the songs and the poems brought about so they preferref songs that have easy, meaningful lyrics and beautiful, moderate melody The most favorite poems were easy, funny, short ones The activities they enjoyed most were gap – filling when listening to songs and doing vocabulary exercises Based on the findings, some recommendations are made on how to integrate songs and poems in the curriculum of English at high schools as an effective motivational strategy in English learning and teaching

Keywords: Tiếng Anh;; Bài hát; Bài thơ

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.2.1 Reasons for using songs in the language classroom 6 1.2.2 How can songs be used in language teaching? 7

1.2.3 Choosing suitable songs and teaching procedure 8

1.3.1 Reasons for using poems in language classroom 10 1.3.2 How can poems be used in language teaching? 11

1.3.3 Choosing suitable poems and teaching procedure

12

1.4 Previous studies in ULIS and difficulties to apply the idea of teaching

English through songs and poems in high schools

14

3.1.1 Students’ Motivation and Attitudes to Learning English before the

treatment

21

3.1.2 Students’ Attitudes towards Learning English through Songs and Poems

before the treatment

23

3.2 Changes in Students’ Motivation and Attitudes 24

3.3 Attitudes towards learning English through songs and poems after the

treatment

26

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

by the students

30

3.6 Students’ reflections on learning through songs and poems 31

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

3.6.3 Students’ collections of their favorite songs 32

2.1 Integration of songs in the teaching English in high schools 35

2.1.1 Choosing the song for the topic of the unit that the song is taught

along with

35

Integration of poems in the teaching English in high schools 37

Choosing the poem for the topic of the unit or for the pronunciation or

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

37

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

song)

38

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

It is commonly believed that motivation is key to a student’s success Therefore, one of the teacher’s responsibilities is to find ways to motivate the students In the motivation literature, a variety of motivational strategies have been suggested, but scholars also advise teachers to apply those strategies selectively taking into consideration the learner variables such as their age, their level of proficiency, the type of the language teaching course, etc Therefore, a quasi-experimental research was conducted in Van Noi High School to test the hypothesis of using songs and poems to motivate students to learn English

2 Aims of the research

The research aimed:

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

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

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

at a high school

3 Method of the study

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

4 Significance of the study

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

5 Scope of the study

With the scope of a quasi-experimental using two 10th grade classes, extraneous variables could not be controlled Therefore, the research results do not have high generality and may only match the situation at Van Noi High School With the limited time of two months, no more than five songs and five poems have been taught to experimental group along with their English curriculum The data collection instrument was only using questionnaires, which may lead to insufficient research results This research focused only on the aspect of motivating students by using songs and poems The other factors of using songs and poems to teach English will be not discussed here

6 Design of the study

The study is organized around three parts with three chapters:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

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

the ways of using songs and poems in EFL class

1 1 Motivation

1.1.1 What is motivation?

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

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

1.1.2 Motivation and attitude

Many teachers in their experience of teaching “recognize that motivation is important for learning and therefore want to have motivated students” (McCombs & Pope, 1994:9) In the eyes of social psychologists, there is more involvement in second language learning The student’s attitudes, his readiness to identify and his orientation to the learning process are the keys to the success in mastering a foreign language (Gardner & Lambert, 1972)

1.1.3 Motivation in second language learning

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

be defined in terms of two factors: learners’ communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second language community

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

1.2 Learning English through songs

1.2.1 Reasons for using songs in the language classroom

There are a number of reasons for using songs in the classroom Firstly, music brings enjoyment to the language classroom Many language teachers like to use music in their language classrooms as music brings enjoyment and fun to people’s lives Secondly, songs motivate language learning Murphey (1990) & Davanellos (1999) state that music and songs are highly motivating and relaxing Thirdly, songs also sustain students’ interest in learning Davanellos (1999:13) pointed out that “Songs are highly memorable” The pleasurable learning through songs experience enables students to practice pronunciation (Monreal, 1982), rhythm and stress, syntax and vocabulary as “a good teacher will take precautions to ensure that the language which the song reinforces is natural and useful” (Bechtold, 1983:181)

1.2.2 How can songs be used in language teaching?

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

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

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

1.2.3 Choosing suitable songs and teaching procedure

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

meaningful or popular songs, which not only review or introduce grammar points but also reflect cultural aspects (Horner, D, 1993).At the primary level of singing the song, the

prosodic features of the language is emphasized At the higher levels, where the practice of grammar points is at the foreground, songs can be used with several techniques

The following procedure to teach a song by Eken, D.K (1996) in an English teaching

forum seems to be suitable for high school teaching:

After deciding the grammar point to be studied, and the song and the techniques to be used, the teacher should prepare an effective lesson plan Since songs are listening activities, it is advisable to present them as a listening lesson, but of course it is necessary to integrate all the

skills in the process in order to achieve successful teaching When regarding a lesson plan, as a pre-listening activity, the theme, the title, or the history of the song can be discussed By

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

grammar points should be studied In the listening stage, some of the techniques listed above can be used, but among them gap filling is the most widely used technique Through such gaps, the vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation is highlighted In the follow-up, integrated skills can be used to complete the overall course structure

1.3 Learning English through poems

1.3.1 Reasons for using poems in language teaching

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

1.3.2 How can poems be used in language teaching?

Poems, like songs, contextualize a grammar lesson effectively Since poetry is often spoken, repeated, dealt with, and considered, it acts as an effective tool for practicing a specific grammatical structure

Like songs, poems exaggerate the rhythmic nature of the language Thus it is an important aspect to be taught, since English is a syllable timed language with stressed syllables being spoken at roughly equal time pauses, even in everyday speech

1.3.3 Choosing suitable poems and teaching procedure

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

be presented, practiced, or reviewed, then the level and the age of the students, next the theme and the length of the poem and its appropriateness to the classroom objectives It is advisable to select a poem from 20th century poets Poems, which reflect cultural themes, universal features,

humanistic values, or emotional aspects, will be more relevant to the foreign language learners Finally, through taking the classroom objectives into consideration, a teacher should effectively benefit from poems as teaching aids

At the teaching stage of a poem, it is not advisable to talk about the meaning of the poem in advance At the pre-reading stage, students might be motivated through some enthusiastic talks about poetry or the poet Some necessary vocabulary can also be handled at this stage At the reading stage, in order to create images and stress the prosodic features, the teacher may want the students to close their eyes while he/she is reading the poem After the poem has been read at least twice, it is better to elicit the primary responses of the students about the poem Next, after distributing the poem to students, students may be asked to read it either loudly or silently In order to practice the determined grammar point, students may be asked to paraphrase the poem Through transforming the verse into prose students get acquainted with the structure

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Setting of the study

2.2 Research Questions

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

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

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

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

2.3 Research Methodology

To answer these above research questions, a quasi – experimental research was carried out in Van Noi High School during the two months at the end of the second term of the school year

2010 – 2011 This is a nonequivalent groups pretest-posttest design (Gibbons, Barry & Herman, Joan, 1997)

2.4 Participants

Eighty grade 10 students from two classes participated in this study Class 10B acted as the experiment group while Class 10F as the control group

2.5 Instruments to collect data