SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN LƯƠNG THẾ VINH
Mã số: ................................

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

Motivating students to practice listening skill through English
songs to decrease students’ tense while listening, make them feel
more interested in listening and enrich their vocabulary.

Người thực hiện: BÙI NGỌC XINH
Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu:
Quản lý giáo dục : …………………………………………



Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn: Tiếng Anh



Phương pháp giáo dục : …………………………………..



Lĩnh vực khác:



…………………………………..

Sản phẩm đính kèm:



SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN
LƯƠNG THẾ VINH

CỘNG HOÀ XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM

Độc lập - Tự do - Hạnh phúc
Biên Hòa, ngày 03 tháng 5 năm 2012

PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT, ĐÁNH GIÁ SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM
Năm học: 2011-2012
Tên sáng kiến kinh nghiệm: Motivating students to practice listening skill
through English songs to decrease students’ tense while listening, make them feel more
interested in listening and enrich their vocabulary.
Họ và tên tác giả: BÙI NGỌC XINH; Chức vụ: Giáo viên
Đơn vị: trường THPT Chuyên Lương Thế Vinh
Lĩnh vực: (Đánh dấu X vào các ô tương ứng, ghi rõ tên bộ môn hoặc lĩnh vực
khác)
- Quản lý giáo dục
 - Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn: .............................
- Phương pháp giáo dục  - Lĩnh vực khác: ..................................................... 
Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm đã được triển khai áp dụng: Tại đơn vị  Trong Ngành 
1. Tính mới (Đánh dấu X vào 1 trong 2 ô dưới đây)
- Có giải pháp hoàn toàn mới

- Có giải pháp cải tiến, đổi mới từ giải pháp đã có

2. Hiệu quả (Đánh dấu X vào 1 trong 4 ô dưới đây)

- RATIONALE OF THE STUDY…………………………………………3
- PROCEDURES……………………………………………………………7
- FINDINGS ………………………………………………………………..10
- CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………… 16
- APPENDIX 1……………………………………………………………...17
- APPENDIX 2…………………………………………………………… 26
-

REFERENCES ………………………………………………………… 31


Title
Motivating students to practice listening skill
through English songs to decrease students’ tense
while listening, make them feel more interested in
listening and enrich their vocabulary.

2


INTRODUCTION

Listening is one of the four main skills in learning English.

After many years of teaching at Luong The Vinh high school I have found that a lot of
students at this school are afraid of listening periods , seem very tense while listening in
class and almost have no pleasure in listening lessons because listening lessons which
are based on the school curriculum cannot provide them with what they want. However,
they very much want to improve their listening skill but they don’t know how to do it. As
a teacher, I think that I should do something to help them get pleasure from listening first


-

build rapport with other people

-

show support

-

work better in a team-based environment

-

answer questions ; and

-

find underlying meanings in what other say.”

Sarwar quotes a statement by Logan ( 1980 , in Sarwar , 2001 , pp 127-136 ) who says that “
People can learn from a variety of sources , even if the final goals are the same ” . Hence ,
teachers’ role is very crucial in leading students to developing their learning habits inside as
well as outside the classroom . One of the good learning habits is listening to English songs.

c. The aim of the innovation :
- To make listening lessons more interesting
- To decrease students’tense while listening
- To motivate students to practice listening to English songs at home


class 12A 1 were chosen as the participants of the

study were that :
-

They like music .

-

They usually listen to music in their free time .

-

They all have a cassette player at home .

-

They usually listen to Vietnamese songs not English songs.

-

Some of them listen to English songs but they just listen to the music or tune of the
song not the lyrics.

( I once talked to them during speaking class about their free time ,and their attitude to
their listening skill .)
The Secondary Innovation
This innovation process could not be conducted without the secondary innovation
which was English songs . The researcher wanted to control the participants’participation

questions the students could freely express their thoughts about the extensive
7


reading activity and tasks .
The questionnaire revealed that
- 90 % of them thought that listening was the most difficult.
- 20 % reported that they often tried to listen to every word.
- 80 % of them felt that they were failed listeners when they could not understand the
listening lessons.
- 85 % of them felt very tense during listening periods.
- 90 % did not listen to English songs very often .
- 90 % of them reported that they could hardly learn any new vocabulary from the
listening lessons and if they learned any vocabulary they quickly forgot them.
- 95 % hardly knew any of the ten songs that the teacher gave them before the innovation.
b./ A pre-test on vocabulary
- A pre- test which consisted of 30 multiple-choice questions on vocabulary was used
. The giving of the pre- test to the students aimed at checking their vocabulary before the
innovation. After the students had finished the test the researcher asked the students to
hand in all of their tests and did not let them have a chance to look at the test again. The
purpose of doing this was that the researcher wanted to use the pre-test again as a posttest after the students had finished listening the ten songs to check if they learnt anything
from listening to songs.
( The vocabulary / idioms / phrasal verbs were taken from the songs that they were

8


going to listen to during the innovation.)
2 ) Students and teachers keep track of student progress by using English songs.
The listening of the songs could be carried out at the beginning of the listening periods as

Oral reports

The students took turns or volunteered to sing the songs individually or in groups

9




Post -test ( Multiple -choice test on vocabulary )

The same multiple choice test on vocabulary / idioms / phrasal verbs was given a to the
students again to check if their vocabulary increased or if they gained any vocabulary
after they listened to the songs.
( The vocabulary / idioms / phrasal verbs were taken from the songs that they had
listened to.)


Questionnaire

A questionnaire was administered to the students at the end of the research . The
questionnaire was devised to find out (1 ) the students’motivation to songs ( 2 ) their
attitude towards listening ( 3 ) their evaluation on listening to songs ( 4 ) and their
comments on listening to songs .
The questionnaire included both open-ended questions and questions with fixed
alternatives .For the questions with fix alternatives the students were asked to indicate
whether they “strongly agreed ” , “agreed ” , “were neutral ” ,
“disagreed ” or “strongly disagreed ” with each of the statements . For the open-ended
questions the students could freely express their thoughts about the extensive reading
activity and tasks .


5

23 ( 51 % )

0

2(4%)

The table showed that most of the students in class 12 A 1 seemed unfamiliar with some
vocabulary in the ten songs.

b ) The post test

The result of the post test :

11


The number of correct answers

The number of students who got the
correct answers

30

20 ( 44 % )

25


What did you think about listening activity

?

A./

Statements

1

2

3

4

5

SA

A

N

D

SD

1. You think that listening is
very difficult .

9%

4%

6%

81 %

10

5%

listening .
3.You could learn a lot ( e.g.
vocabulary

, grammar points

)from listening lessons .
4. You listen to English songs
very often .
5. You feel tense in listening
periods.

85 %

%
6. You feel

relaxed

1

2

3

4

5

SA

A

N

D

SD

50%

35%

14%

60%

17%



28

songs at home more often .

%

5. You felt less tense and more
relaxed in listening periods.

65 %

17%

9%

10
%

6. You started being interested
in listening to the lyrics of

53 %

17 %

14 %

English songs.


The students were engaged in the listening lessons.

-

The students felt more relaxed while listening to songs.

-

The students started being interested in English songs.

-

The students liked singing English songs , so they practiced listening to them more
often.

-

The relationship between the teacher and the students was better because they
sometimes discussed the content of a song , talked about the singers. Once they
invited the teacher to go singing karaoke with them.

-

They thought that listening activity was useful to them in many aspects : creating
confidence in learning English , encouraging them to become independent listeners ,
and helping them find pleasure and real purposes in listening

-

However , they also wished to be provided with authentic listening materials .

Nod your head.

Cover your ears.

Bend your knees.

Count to four.

Stamp your feet.

Cross your legs

Now say “please”

Touch the floor.

Clap your hands.

Touch the floor.

Count to three.

Blink your eyes.

Wiggle your toes.

Open your mouth.

Smile at me.


Who’s that girl ? Who’s that ?
Who’s that girl in the short black dress ?
That’s my older sister , Bess.

Who’s that ?
Who’s that ?
Who’s that boy ? Who’s that ?
Who’s that boy with the baseball bat ?
That’s my younger brother , Pat .

Who’s that woman in the long red skirt ?
Who’s that man in the bright green shirt ?
Who’s that boy with the curly hair ?
Who’s that girl with the teddy bear ?

That’s my mother in the long red skirt.
That’s my father in the bright green skirt.
That’s my brother with the curly hair.
That’s my sister with teddy bear.

18


Song 3

COLOURS
Red , Yellow , Blue and Green stand up.
Red , Yellow , Blue and Green turn around, and stretch up high above your head
Red , Yellow , Blue and Green sit down.
Pink , Purple , Brown and Tan stand up.

Song 5
DO-RE-MI
Doe, a deer , a female deer
Ray , a drop of golden sun
Me , a name I call myself
Far , a long long way to run
Sew, a needle pulling thread
La , a note to follow sew
Tea, I drink with jam a bread
That would bring us back to doe. . .oh oh oh
Do re mi fa so la ti do, so do

Song 6
GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD TO EAT
Trick or treat ?
Trick or treat ?
Give me something good to eat
Apples , peaches , tangerines.
Happy Happy Halloween
Trick or treat ?
Trick or treat ?
Give me something sweet to eat.
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Cookies , chocolate , jelly beans.
Happy Happy Halloween .
Trick or treat ?
Trick or treat ?
Give me something sour to eat.

Today is Sunday , today is Sunday ,
Sunday church, Saturday payday, Friday fish , Thursday roast beef ,Wednesday soup,
Tuesday string beans, Monday washday . Are you hungry brothers ? We wish the same to
you.
Song 8

THE SKELETON DANCE
The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone.
The hip bone’s connected to the backbone.
The backbone’s connected to the neck bone.
Doin’the skeleton dance.

Shake your hands to the left.
Shake your hands to the right.
Put your hands in the air.
Put your hands out of sight!

Shake your hands to the left.
Shake your hands to the right.
Put your hands in the air.
Wiggle , wiggle , wiggle, wiggle
wiggle , wiggle , wiggle, wiggle ,
wiggle , wiggle, wiggle , wiggle . . .

22