VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
* * *

NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY HÀ

USING SONGS AND POEMS IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO
MOTIVATE STUDENTS AT VAN NOI HIGH SCHOOL
(SỬ DỤNG BÀI HÁT, BÀI THƠ TRONG DẠY TIẾNG ANH
NHẰM GÂY HỨNG THÚ CHO HỌC SINH TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT VÂN NỘI)

M.A MINOR THESIS
FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY

HANOI, SEPTEMBER, 2011 iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Candidate’s statement
i
Acknowledgements
ii
Abstract
iii
Table of contents
iv
List of tables
viii
List of abbreviations
ix
PART A: INTRODUCTION.
1
1. Rationale

8
1.3. Learning English through poems
10
1.3.1. Reasons for using poems in language classroom
10
1.3.2 How can poems be used in language teaching?
11 v
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
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
15
2.1. Setting of the study
15
2.2. Research Questions
16
2.3 Research Methodology
16
2.4. Participants
17
2.5. Instruments to collect data
17
2.5.1 Questionnaires
17
2.5.2 Students’ Reflections

31
3.6.1. Students’ worksheets
31
3.6.2. Students’ sayings about learning through songs and poems:
31
3.6.3. Students’ collections of their favorite songs.
32
PART C: CONCLUSION
34
1. Major Findings
34
2. Pedagogical Implications
35
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
2.1.2 Designing tasks for the songs
36
2.1.3 Procedure to teach a song
36
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
Designing tasks for the poems:
37
Procedure to teach a poem (These steps are quite like the ones to teach a

Appendix 8: Students’ reflections: (extract from some of students’ song
books):

XXXII
Thu Huyen’s diary
XXXI
Nguyen Thi Tu Linh’s song book
XXXIII
Nguyen Thi Phuong’s song book
XXXVII

LIST OF TABLES viii

ix

ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies
EFL : English as Foreign Language
TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
G1 : Experimental group
G2 : Control group
X : Treatment
T1 : Pretest
T2: Posttest 1
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
It is commonly believed that motivation is key to a student‟s success. In today‟s classroom,
keeping learners motivated is a main concern for educators. Motivation stimulates the interest
of students and inspires them to take part in classroom activities. 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.
Understanding how students are motivated can help teachers engage them in the
classroom. “Engagement is 99% of teaching. If you get students‟ attention and keep it, the
lessons themselves are so much easier!” (Nicole Foley, personal interview, September 16,
2006)
Knowing that importance of learning motivation, numerous studies have been carried out to
investigate students‟ motivation and strategies to motivate students to learn. Taking an
example, among 740 M.A theses in the library of Faculty of Post – Graduate Studies in
University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), there are about 24 theses on this

th
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 10
th
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

3
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:

processes are transformed into action” (Dornyei, 2001:7) which focus on how attitudes,
thoughts, beliefs, and interpretation of events influence individual behavior (Dornyei, 2001).
Dornyei (1998:118) attempted to achieve a synthesis of the static and dynamic conceptions of
motivation by defining it as a “process whereby a certain amount of instigation force arises,
initiates action, and persists as long as no other force comes into play to weaken it and thereby
terminate action or until the planned outcome has been reached”.
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). There
is always a question that teachers like to ask: “why is student A more active than student B in
participating class activities? Student A raises questions during language lessons and no matter
how inattentive the rest of the students are, he has his own way to learn. Student B, on the other
hand, is claimed to be cleverer, and without using much effort, he gets high marks in tests.
From teacher‟s point of view, student A is more motivated than student B despite the higher
intellectual capacity and language aptitude of student B. In the eyes of social psychologists,
there is more involvement in second language learning. The student‟s attitudes, his readiness to

5
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. If learners need to speak the second language in a wide range
of social situations or to fulfill professional ambitions, they will appreciate the communicative
value of the second language and will therefore be motivated to acquire proficiency in it.
Likewise, if learners have favorable attitudes towards the speakers of the language, they will
desire more contact with them. That is motivation to learn a second language is seen as
referring to the “extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the language because of
a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity” (Gardner, 1985:10-11).

factors. In contrast, extrinsic motivation originated outside the individual and is concerned with
external environmental factors that help shape students‟ behavior”
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. Music plays an
important role in culture and communication (Murphey, 1990) as “cultures have musical
traditions because of the enjoyment people receive from creating rhythms and expressing their
feelings, ideas, thoughts, and cultural values through lyrics” (Abbott, 2002:10). Secondly, songs
motivate language learning. Murphey (1990) & Davanellos (1999) state that music and songs
are highly motivating and relaxing. The readily made music material with its conversation
language and repetition patterns are what language teachers look for to motivate different types
of language learners. It provides variety and fun. Murphey (1990:5-8) claims that “songs can be
immensely valuable for developing certain capacities, but they can be many times more
valuable if we exploit them creatively to bridge the gap between the pleasurable experience of
listening/singing and the communicative use of language”. Thirdly, songs also sustain students‟

7
interest in learning. Davanellos (1999:13) pointed out that “Songs are highly memorable”. The
length of a song is more manageable for the allocation of time for class instruction (Chan,
1997) when compared with some lengthy comprehensive articles. It is easier to sustain
students‟ interest when students‟ attention is more focused on the general meaning of the text
(Chan, 1997). The repetitive patterning of the songs reinforces learning without loss of
motivation (Murphey, 1990) and as Bechtold (1983:180) notes “songs can help reinforce

motivate students in language learning.
The effectiveness of using songs to motivate language learners can be highlighted with
the careful choice of vocabularies and grammar in response to the students‟ level of mastery
(Jolly, 1975). In addition, students can reconstruct the form of the songs that they are familiar
with, by changing the narrative point of view from one to another, student can be a lyric writer
in a composition activity (Chan, 1997).
Songs are especially useful to students whose language is syllable-timed for practicing
the stress pattern of spoken English. The regulated and stronger rhythm of songs as compared
with speech can be used to practice the patterns formed by stressed and unstressed syllables.
Other activities include asking students to guess the title of a song after listening to it and lyrics
of the songs can be used as a tool for comprehension practice when students listen and dictate
(Chan, 1997).
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. Some examples of these
techniques are:
 Gap fills or close texts
 Focus questions
 True-false statements
 Put these lines into the correct sequence
 Dictation
 Add a final verse
 Circle the antonyms/synonyms of the given words

9
 Discuss
The following procedure to teach a song by Eken, D.K. (1996) in an English teaching

1.3.1. Reasons for using poems in language teaching.
Poems are included in the English textbooks for lower secondary school students in
Vietnam. In many units, especially in Tieng Anh 7 (2006) ( See examples poems in Appendix
5) there are two poems in the part “Play with words”, which are written for the topic of the unit
and with the rhyme words for students to practice pronunciation and to find out the interesting
ideas in the poems and it is easy to remember the topic of the unit. However, most of the
English teachers I know skip this part. They do not find reading it important compared with the
other parts of the unit. It is a great pity to underestimate the role of poetry 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. Being exposed to the kind of material for a long period of time, students will
inevitably become tired of them for lack of intellectual inspiration. But 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.
In addition to the linguistic benefits poetry provides, it can foster the aesthetic sense of
students. Poems are usually composed of condensed words and vivid images. Reading them can
make us more receptive to imagination and improve our ability in appreciation of beauty
(DiYanni, 1998). Moreover, our experience and feeling will be strongly evoked to look into
ourselves and look around the outer world. It is the kind of mental process that makes one a
lifelong reader.
V. L. Holmes and M. R. Moulton offer explanation of language acquisition through
poetry, and they give reasons for using poetry in language teaching. Children are often
introduced to poetry early in their lives by parents, grandparents, and other caretakers who
chant nursery rhymes or sing lullabies to soothe their children‟s anxiety – all before the
youngsters have any consciousness of linguistic forms. Many children learn their first words
from poems because the sounds of poetic language, with its patterns of rhythm, rhyme, and
cadence, intrigue them and make them listen carefully. Linguists suggest that early knowledge
of syntax comes from children listening to language forms from their environments. More often

or the lexicon of the poem. Cultural difficulties include imagery, tone, and allusion. At the
intellectual level, the students should be intellectual and mature enough to understand the theme

12
of the poem. These difficulties could be easily removed if the teacher provides a poem which is
syntactically and thematically appropriate to the level, age and the interests of the students.
Thus, by removing or minimizing the potential problems, poetry can provide an enormously
rich, enjoyable and authentic context for foreign language learners.
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. As older poems often provide a more difficult lexicon
and syntax, and as they reflect some old-fashioned ideas, it is more convenient to use
contemporary poems than older ones. 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.
Celce-Murcia and Hills (1988) suggested a poem‟s teaching procedure which seemed to
be suitable to teaching high school students. At the teaching stage of a poem, it is not advisable
to talk about the meaning of the poem in advance. Since they offer a reading and listening
activity, poems could be presented through a reading plan. 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.

Frost, Stanley Kunitz, Delmore Schwartz, W.D. Snodgrass, Theodore Roethke, Gary Snyder,
Richard Wilbur, and Robert Lowell, etc. are suggested for the language teachers who want to
use poems in their grammar lessons. 14
1.4. Previous studies in ULIS and difficulties to apply the idea of teaching English through
songs and poems in high schools.
In the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies of ULIS, there have been two theses in which
the authors are interested in using songs in English teaching. One is Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen
(August, 2006), who used English songs as a kind of supplementary material in teaching
listening skill. The other is Nguyen Thi Moc Lan (August, 2007), who used songs to motivate
her students to learn vocabulary. Taking a look for using poems to teach English, only one
author was found. Nguyen Thi Hong Quyen (2008) integrated short stories and poems in
developing the reading skill for 2
nd
year students in Hai Phong University.
All the three authors used songs and poems in their teaching English at the university.
There may be a lot of difficulties to use songs and poems in high school where all the teachers
have to strictly follow the teaching curriculum with the Textbook by the Ministry of Training
and Education. It seems that there is not any space to integrate songs and poems in teaching
English.
When using Google to search for the answer to the questions how teaching – English –
through – song – and - poem can be applied in high schools, I did not find any teachers in
Vietnam to do this. I only found some high school websites in which there are some pages for
learners to enjoy English songs with lyrics, most of these songs are taken from the learning –
English – through – songs websites listed above. Here are some examples:
 />id/33/postid/818/scope/posts/Default.aspx
There is a collection of English songs with lyrics the same as 7 volumes from
thunglunghoahong.com

present how they had learnt English through songs, poems and dramas. They gave us handouts
of “Play with words” translations, which was a collection of students‟ Vietnamese translations
from English short poems in Tieng Anh 6 and 7 (2004). (See Appendix 5).
As far as I know, many teachers of English at secondary school think that they do not
have time for those activities and because their students are not good at English to do the
translations. That is why many teachers skip this part of the textbook. And so it is easy to
understand that many of my 10
th
grade students admitted never reading English poems before.
Comparing with so many websites of learning English though songs, there are few websites for
the Vietnamese to learn English through poems. I have sought for learning-English-through-
poems websites but have found only few ones (Appendix 7) 16
2.2. Research Questions
The study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of using songs and poems to
motivate students to learn English at a high school. It aimed to see whether students were more
motivated to learn English through songs and poems. The study was conducted with the
following 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 &

learning English. They did not pay much attention to learning English at Lower secondary
school; therefore their result at the first term test was really bad. It is clear that there is a lot of
room for the teacher to motivate them in learning English.
In order to get a better understanding to the background of the two groups of students,
the pre-questionnaire was filled in by the two classes of students at the beginning of the
research to collect data about their attitude and motivation towards learning English and
learning English through songs and poems.
2.5. Instruments to collect data
According to Brown (2001:6), “questionnaires are any written instruments that present
respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they are to react either by writing
out their answers or selecting from among existing answers”. Two questionnaires (the pre -
questionnaire and and post – questionnaire) were used together with and Students‟ reflections
(including the worksheets, some of their thoughts and feelings towards learning English
through songs and poems, their collections of favorite songs to learns) to collect data in this
study .
2.5.1. Questionnaires
The questionnaires were of the Likert-scale type with six different scales from „Strongly
disagree” to „Strongly agree” which was partly adapted from “The post-experimental intrinsic
motivation inventory” by Ryan, Koestner & Deci (1991) (see Appendix 3,4) There are two
main sections in the pre-questionnaire . Section one was about students‟ English learning