1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale of the study.

If you are a passionate teacher coming to class eagerly and enthusiastically and then are struck
by sayings like these: “ Teacher, we hate listening lessons. Why don’t we change it for another
thing?” ; “ Teacher, we are so afraid of listening, please don’t do it” or “ Teacher, I can’t
catch anything from the tape. I completely have no head for listening.” you will feel like
falling short in your career. However, this is a common problem among non-major students of
English and is somehow a puzzle to many teachers of English.

Like many young teachers, I used to show this confusion to some experienced teachers and
was advised that students would get used to the subject themselves gradually, and the only
thing I could do is let them have time to do it. However, in my opinion, the first impression is
very important so if students learn listening with a fear at the beginning, this fear will bring
nothing to their present listening skill as Lewis. M and Hill. J (1992: 20) argue: “ If you feel
pressurized, afraid, or tense, even if you perform, at that moment, you will probably forget”.
Not stop at that point, the feeling of fear also have greater effect on the student’s later study as
it can “ destroy students’ interest for the subject and spoil their creativeness” ( Sesnan, B.
2001: 122). On the other hand, Lightbrown, P.M & Spada, N (1999) show that students never
learn everything they are taught, they only learn what they are interested in. And they even
prove that students are unlikely to be very successful at learning anything unless they enjoy
the process.

From that point of view, I think that this puzzle 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

- To investigate the effectiveness of using English songs in teaching listening skill to
non-major students.
- To discuss some suggestions of how to use English songs in teaching listening skill in
classroom.
3

1.4. Scope of the study.

In this study, the author intended to deal with the question of how to motivate students through
English songs not taking care of other kinds of activities such as poems, stories or games.
They included country songs and love songs that have soft music with quite easy words and
simple content. These songs were experimented for the period of one term (15 weeks).
They were used at the end of the lesson not at the beginning as warmers.
Due to the limited time, the author could not implement the research for a longer term and
study on a larger population. The chosen population contained 60 students from two classes at
the same level. The aimed teaching purpose was practicing the listening skills for students
through English songs.

At last, the study did not mean a collection of English songs but studying the efficiency of
using songs as a supplementary teaching material and also discussing an appropriate method
of exploiting them in classroom effectively.

1.5. Methodology.

The major method which was used in this study is qualitative. All comments, remarks
assumptions and conclusion of the study were based on the data and analysis. Data collections
for analysis in the study were gained through the following resources:

1.1 The place of listening in foreign language course.

According to Howatt and Dakin, listening is the ability to identify and understand what others
are saying. This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and
his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning. Defined with those characteristics, listening must
surely come first in communication. Actually, we start listening as a baby, and we do an awful
lot of it when we begin to speak. Not stop at that point, listening is also the most practiced one
in the second language study because it is the principal way to acquire the language as Adrian
Doff (1996) states that “ Listening to spoken English is an important way of picking up the
structures and vocabulary”. To prove this point, he shows a situation in which learners are
living in a country where English is the first language. He assures that these learners have such
plenty of exposure to the language- they hear it all the time, that they acquire it much more
easily than the others.

Moreover, listening is also a condition for developing speaking skill. Still Adrian Doff (1996)
emphasizes that “ We cannot develop speaking skill unless we develop listening skill”. In
deed, a good speaker needs to be a good listener first because to have a successful
conversation, students must understand what is said to them first and they can only do the
understanding through listening.

In addition to that, listening is also crucially as important as a kind of “spirit medicine” as “
students experience a degree of powerlessness when they cannot understand the language.”
(Paul Bress: 2001: 42). In other word, the more learners understand the more powerful they
feel and the more confidence they have in their ability to communicate. This feeling of 6

confidence is very important as it helps foster the learners’ motivation and cherish their
interest in the lesson, therefore leads to the later stable progress.


number of consecutive sequences or levels and the output of each sequence becomes the input
for the next higher one. That is the reason why Buck (2001) considers it one-way street. On
the contrary, in top-down process the various types of knowledge involve in understanding
language are not applied in any fixed order. They can be used in any order or even
simultaneously, and they are all capable of interacting and influencing each other. According
to this process, it is quite possible to understand the meaning of a word before decoding its
sound, because we have many different types of knowledge, including knowledge of the world
around us. In most situations we know what normally happens and so we have expectations
about what we will hear. These maybe either precise or vague but while we are listening, we
almost always have some hypotheses about what is likely to come next. In such cases it is not
necessary to utilize all the information available to us- we can just take enough to confirm or
reject our hypotheses. To take a well-know example, if we hear the following uncompleted
sentence “she was so angry, she picked up the gun, aimed and… ” We know what is going to
happen and we probably need very little acoustic information to understand the final word, be
it ‘fired’, ‘shot’ or whatever. As we listen, we will expect a word such as fired and we will
possibly process only enough of the sound to confirm our expectation, or we may not even
bother to listen to the last word at all. Our background knowledge about guns and what angry
people do with them helps us to determine what the word is.

It, therefore, can be seen that the two processes are both important for learners in
understanding the language since both of them can offer keys to determining the meaning of
spoken discourse. So it is advisable to the teacher to help their students understand the
importance of those listening processes, from which they would utilize suitable listening
strategies for comprehension.

1.2 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


Moreover, 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 comes out
from the composer’s heart with tempo and rhyme, it is easy to penetrate into other’s people’s 9

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), 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 a timid students.” By that
way, “It also wraps the students’ perceptions of how difficult it is to use the new language.
The result is a loss of certain inhibitions, a new respect for one’s own voice and the learning
of whatever vocabulary, grammar, …the song has to offer” (McDonald, 1984:35)

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
song beyond classroom doors and sing for their family and friends. This, in turn, tends to
reinforce the students’ interest in learning English.

In short, speaking like Finocchiaro (1973:174) by using songs “language learning can be
combined with recreation or aesthetic appreciation for a change of pace in the classroom to
enhance motivation” . However, the writer of this paper would like to quote Spencer’ words as
a way to conclude this point, that is “Songs provide preliminary materials to the listening
exercises and also give the students a clear and concrete reason for listening” (Spencer-1994)

1.4. Aspects of listening comprehension that can be improved through songs.

What is listening comprehension? According to Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching &

information, etc.
3. Listening and making longer response (repetition and dictation, paraphrasing,
answering questions, answering comprehension questions on texts, predictions, filling
gaps, summarizing, etc)
And he confirms that songs can be designed to serve all of these stages of listening
comprehension.
Nambiaar, S.A (1985) seems to share this point with Stefan Chiarantano as he states that
“using songs is one effective way to enhance students’ listening comprehension” . To make it 11

clearer, he mentions three main aspects that enhance students’ comprehension: grammar,
vocabulary, and phonology and he proves that songs can do well on all of these fields.
Grammatically, songs can be used as a form of reinforcement for the particular structural item
that had been taught in the previous lessons, and alternatively songs could also be used as an
introduction to the particular grammatical item. For this point, he mention the song ‘Living on
a jet plane’ as an example of the present continuous tense and the song ‘ Where have all the
flowers gone” as an example of the present perfect tense. About vocabulary, he argues that
songs can offer an active vocabulary learning as “numerous words that deal with a particular
theme or emotion abound in the songs” For example, the song ‘Love is blue’ can be used to
teach students about words of colours. Phonologically, songs can also be used to introduce
some particular phonological features as “ the words of songs are from the authentic language
so they are very rich in phonological forms such as: ‘wanna’ for ‘want to’ or ‘gonna’ for
‘going to’”. Moreover, while listening to the songs, students can also foster the pronunciation
of the words.
Lynch, L.M (1993) adds the point that “ the use of songs can also help develop skill for
details” To do it, songs must be designed into cloze or linking activities in which some words
or linking words are omitted from the songs and students’ duty is to listen to the songs and
then complete them. These activities allow students an opportunity to study the sentence


    qualitative         
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
2.3Subject Profile
The research was carried out at Phuong Dong university with the participation of sixty first-
year non-major students. They all were in the second term and from two different classes of 13

Bio-technology department. To those students, English was not their major but a compulsory
subject in the schedule. Being technical students, English to them was really an impossible
subject as they always complained that “it has so many rules, it is so complicated” and that
they “have no head for English”. However, as English was taught and examined through four
skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, it is became 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. That state resulted in their very low marks or even failure in the examination of
English. That was the reason why the author would like to conduct this research of using
songs as a type of supplementary material in teaching listening skill in order to erase their
prejudice against listening skill, evoke their like for this very communicative skill and then
help improve this bad state among the students.
2.4 Procedures and methods of data collection
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• "#

putting song lines in the order, filling in the missing words, or correcting the mistakes see
appendix 1)
Secondly, when students prepared to listen, the teacher put them in pairs and asked them to
skim through the handout to make some guesses about lines order or missing words.
Finally, teacher played the song, allowing students first to listen once from the beginning to
the end. Then she played the tape more slowly, pausing after each verse so that students had
time to do the task. After three times, teacher asked for students’ work and then corrected
them. In the end, students could either sing along or discuss the content of the songs.
2.7. 15

The aim of the questionnaire was to explore students’ attitudes toward the use of English
songs in learning process in class. What the students thought about the use of English songs
and to what extent they got engaged in listening skill in the classroom would provethe use of
songs in teaching and learning listening skill effective or not. All the survey questions were
handed out to students who had access to English songs in class. And below are what they
revealed.
a. Students’ attitude toward English songs
Chart 1: The students’ attitude toward English songs
This pie chart illustrates vividly the students’ attitude toward English songs. From the chart, it
can be seen that most of the students held their interest in English songs. Of 87% who showed
their keenness on English songs, as much as half of them expressed their great love for these
“wonderful chants” ( as they said). However, there were still ten percent having no concern
about the songs and even three percent of them even frankly showed their dislike to English
songs. These people, when discussing with the survey-conductor said that in their opinion
English songs are too difficult to listen and too complicated to understand and that they would
prefer to listen to Vietnamese songs. These illustrations are very important as they relate to the
students’ later performance in all listening lessons. Though it used to be supposed to get

6.70%
try to take note.
Listen attentively and remember the content.
Try to catch the words of the song.
Just relaxed and listen for fun.17

To link the songs with the listening skill, the teacher did design some tasks for the students to
do while they were listening to English songs. The below table demonstrates which task or
activity is more appealing to students.
Table 1: Students’ favourite activities while they are listening to songs
1 2 3 4 5
Answering the comprehensive
questions.
33.3% 20% 20% 13.3%

13.3%
Summarizing the content of the
songs
23.3% 20% 13.3%

20% 23.3%
Gap-filling

16.6% 20% 13.3%

20% 30%
Discussing about the meaning of


utmost when I do this task. It is wonderful feeling when I can fill in a right word. It feels like
catching a fish after a long time of waiting” (Le Hoai Thuong)
Surprisingly, summarizing the content of the song is the third of the most favourite activities.
Nearly half of the students (43%) chose it the interest one. When asked for the reason, they all
argued that because they were always curious about the content of the songs, this task is really
helpful as it enables them to have a full understanding of the song.
It is quite unexpected that dictation is at the bottom of the list. Of 19.9% of the students who
expressed their love for this activity, only 6.6% of them said that they liked it very much. The
rest all claimed that they did not have much interest in this task as it is either boring or time-
consuming. Together with dictation is answering the comprehensive questions. Not many of
the students showed their like for this activity (26.6%). This is understandable as this task
seems to be the most difficult one and requires a lot of sub-skill to fulfill.
c. The effectiveness of English songs in teaching listening skill.
Involved in those activities, students unconsciously became interested in listening lessons.
This fact is proved through the table below:
Table 2: The effectiveness of English songs in teaching listening skill.
Choices Agreement 1 2 3 4 5
Makes the listening lesson more relaxing. 6.6 6.6 6.6 33.3

46.6
Make the listening lesson more enjoyable 0 10 6.6 33.3

50
Develops my confidence in listening to English. 10 20 20 30 20
Helps me to listen to English better 3.3 10 16.6

50 20
Helps me to recognize key words while listening 3.3 0 36.6


Especially, most of the students approved that they felt much more confident in doing
listening skill, which never happened before. As much as 50% of them stated strongly that
they were no longer nervous or stressed when doing listening task but calm and confident : “It
is like a magic because I am not afraid of listening skill anymore but I feel like doing it as I
want to learn and sing English songs” ( Tong Thanh Mai-503301 class- Biology department).
This positive result reassures that English songs do a great help in raising students’ motivation
in learning listening skill.
However, there still exist 20% 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: “ I don’t know how to express this state but however eager I am to do tasks with
the songs, I can’t stay calm when doing the real listening tasks” ( Hoang Giang-503301 class-
Biology department) 20

In addition to that, English songs also help improve students’ listening skill. This point is
supported by 70% respondents, who claimed that 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.
However, this state will be made clearer by the analysis of the following choices about some
sub-skills of listening such as word recognition, awareness of word stress, guessing skill and
enhancing their attention Firstly, it can be seen from the table that guessing skill seems to be
the most progressive one as 63.3 % students said that their guessing skill was improved
through songs. Word recognition stands at the second place with the number of 59.9% and it is
followed by the skill of awareness of word stress which is illustrated by 56.6%. Surprisingly,
sound discrimination skill is put at the bottom of the list with only 23.3% 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 (40), or disagreed with
the statement (36.6).

strange in the song that I cannot recognize them even though I know it already.” ( Tran Van
Thanh-503301 class- Biology department)
In short, it can be drawn out that though songs offer a lot of help in improving students’
listening skill, they have some drawbacks which should be noted when they are applied as a
type of teaching materials.
2.8. Tests’ result analysis.

The aim of the listening tests was to answer the question what progress the songs help
students to make in their skill. The time for the test was within fifteen minutes. During the test,
the teacher worked as a cassette player and examiner. The marking was done with the same
way of assessment and then was analyzed in turn. The class with English songs in teaching
process was called class A, the other was B. The same test design was delivered to students in
two different periods of time : at the beginning and at the end of the term.

After the tests were collected and marked, the author then analyzed the test scores in terms of
Frequency distribution to find out the range of marks each class reach and measures of
central tendency to clarify the progress tendency of each class. In the same way, the results of 22

the post test were interpreted and compared with those of pre-test. And then the standard
deviation (s.d) was taken into consideration as a very powerful measure of dispersion,. These
data helped the author explore the degree to which the group of test scores deviated from the
mean, then finding out what effects the using of English songs in teaching listening have on
students.

* At the beginning of the term : Pre-test.
-Frequency distribution


ranged from two to eight, in which mark five and six are the most common and students in
class B seem to be of more uniform level whereas class A has more excellent individuals. This
is shown in the table where the column of marks five and six is higher in class B whereas the
column of marks seven and eight is higher in class A However, the comparison of the modes
reveal that the class B seems to be better than class A as its modes of six is higher than the one
of class A which is five.
-Correlation:

N Mean
Std.
Deviation
Median
Class A 30 5.3667 1.56433 5

Class B 30 5.1667 1.59921 5

The mean of 5.3667 says that class A is a little bit better than class B whose mean is 5.1667.
The means also show that in general the students are only at average level. However, the two
class both have the median of five which is fairly corresponding to the mean. The standard
deviation of 1.56433 and 1.59921 shows a very small spread of scores which implies a narrow
range of ability in students of both classes.
* At the end of the term: Post-test
-Frequency distribution 24

Class A Class B
climbs to nine. This positive sign of six shows a raise in progress of the two class in their
listening skill. This argument is proved more strongly by the median which is one point higher
than the one of the pre-test. However, the full mark (mark 10) is still untouched, which
indicates an average level of difficulty of the test. From the table, it can be seen that class A is
inferior to class B in the below average marks but it outnumbers class B in the above average
marks. In addition, if in the pre-test mode, class A is at the second position to class B, with
Score Number of testees % Score Number of testees %
1 0 0 1 0 0
2 0 0 2 0 0
3 2 6.7 3 3 10
4 2 6.7 4 3 10
5 4 13.3 5 4 13.3
6 7 23.3 6 8 26.7
7 9 30 7 7 23.3
8 3 10 8 3 10
9 3 10 9 2 6.7
10 0 0 0 0 0 25

the mode of seven, it takes a reverse place now. As so, it can be drawn out that class A seems
to overtake class B on the way to improve their listening skill. -Correlation: