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

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.

3
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

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

5
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.

familiarity of a number with phonological rules such as liaison, loss of explosion,

6
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

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

8
- 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,

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

10
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

well as the aim of the lesson.
c. Students’ general attitude toward the use of English songs in the class
Generally, most of the students (77%) being asked showed their satisfaction with the
lessons using songs as teaching materials. However, the other 23% of the students claimed
that their English proficiency has been improved much due to both subjective and objective
reasons.

PART 3: CONCLUSION
The principles of using English songs to teach English to first year studens at Ho Chi
Minh University of Industry are proved to be quite suitable with the real teaching and learning
condition at HUI and have brought about certain effects to both teachers and learners. For
teachers, the principles play as an important guideline for them to use songs effectively.
Therefore, learners’ motivation and language proficiency has been clearly improved,
especially listening, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. This suggests teachers some
other interesting ways of teaching English, especially teaching grammar because grammar is
often considered as a boring and challenging aspect by most of the students. However, the
evaluation form also revealed some existing limitations of using songs. There is still a
considerable number of students finding that songs do not help much in language learning and
teaching. The reason given is that these students are unable to sing English songs and they are
rarely exposed to English songs out side the class. Therefore, they often forget the songs
quickly after the lesson. To deal with this problem, teachers should create much more chances
for learners to be exposed to the songs that teachers have introduced to them. Teachers can
play the music at the break time or even organize some singing contests or music festivals to
inspire learners to listen and sing English songs.
1. Limitation of the study
- There should have been a group discussion between teachers to collect their opinions
on suggested principles of using songs to study (whether they agree or disagree with
the researcher’s ideas) and call for some other recommendations on the use of English
songs.
- The evaluation of the feasibility of principles of using songs at HUI would have been

promoting fluency within a communicative framework, TESOL Quarterly, 22, 473-
492.
11. Griffee, D.T. (1992), Songs in action, Herfordshire, England: Phoenix ELT.
12. Gugliemino, L. M. (1986), The affective edge: Using songs and music in ESL
instruction, Adult Literacy and Basic Education, 10, 19-26.
13. Ha, P. T. T. (1999), A study on using songs and roleplay to teach grammar to 11th
form students in the communicative approach, Unpublished BA thesis, Vietnam
National University, Hanoi.

13
14. Horn, C. A. (2007), English second language learners: Using music to enhance the
listening abilities of grade Ones, Unpublished M.A thesis, University of South Africa.
15. Huyen, N. T. T. (2006), A study of using English songs as a kind of supplementary
material in teaching listening skill for first-year non-major students at Phuong Dong
University, Hanoi National University, Hanoi.
16. Huyen, V. T. N. (2002), Using songs as a teaching aid to enhance English acquisition
of pupils at gifted high schools, Unpublished BA thesis, Hanoi National University,
Hanoi.
17. Jalongo, M., & Bromley, K. (1984), Developing linguistic competence through song,
The Reading Teacher, 37 (9), 840-845.
18. James, S.L. (1990), Normal language acquisition, New York. Anon.
19. Krashen, S. D. (1983), Principles and practices in second language acquisition,
Oxford, England: Pergamon Press.
20. Larsen-Freeman, D. and M. Long. (1991), An Introduction to Second Language
Acquisition Research, London: Longman.
21. Lems, K. (1996, March), Music across the ESL curriculum, Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the TESOL, San Francisco, CA.
22. Little, J. (1983), Pop and rock music in the ESL classroom, TESL Talk, 14, 40-44.
23. Lo, R. & Li, H.C. (1998), Songs enhance learner involvement, English Teaching
Forum, 36, 8-11, 21.

school students in learning English grammar, Unpublished BA thesis, Vietnam
National University, Hanoi, Hanoi.
38. Tomlinson, B. (1998), Materials Development in Language Teaching: Cambridge
University Press.
39. Trang, N. T. (2006), Using songs to teach listening comprehension to 10th form
students, Unpublished BA thesis, Hanoi National University, Hanoi.