THANH HOA EDUCATION & TRAINING DEPARMENT

THANH HOA CITY EDUCATION & TRAINING OFFICE

INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE

Topic:

EXPERIENCES IN TEACHING SONGS AND CHANTS
FOR PRIMARY STUDENTS OF GRADE 4

The implementer: Dam Thuy Dung
Position: Teacher
School: Quang Phu Primary School
Subject: English

THANH HOA, 2019
0


INDEX
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The reasons for choosing the topic

PAGE
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1.2. The purpose of research.

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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The reasons for choosing the topic.
Since English has become an international language, more and more
people learn English. The importance of English as a world language has made
people to learn English as early as possible. Teaching English as a foreign
language to young learners need special approach since young learners have
special characteristics, they have their own way of learning. The forms of fun
activities for children are songs, chants and rhymes. The main objective of this
1


experience initiative is to emphasize the importance of using songs and chants in
teaching of English as a foreign language to young learners.
Their functions, criteria for election and the way of presenting them to the
class will also be analised. Song, chants and rhymes are amazing tool for
teaching language, especially to children. Young learners pick up pronunciation,
vocabulary, grammartical structures and rhymes of language.
English has become the main language of communication all over the
world and early learning of English in the school context is becoming more
common. Teaching of English from primary education is very common many
countries, icluding Viet Nam. Learning English starts at the age of 5 and 6.

confidence from this newly acquired fluency that comes so quickly .
Most primary school teachers generally use songs as a teaching technique
and Carmeron (2001) claims that the use of songs and chants is also important
2


for young learners in foreign language classrooms. Likewise, Johnstone (2002)
claims that teachers of young learners may make an important contribution to
children’s early language education by introducing their classes to recorded
songs, and Demirel(2004) claims that the most effective way to teach listening
comprehension, pronunciation,and dictation to young leaners is through teaching
songs.
After exploring and accumulating the experiences from colleagues, I have
some experiences in teaching songs and chants and achieved quite effective
results. The students are more active and interested in learning English and more
confident in speaking before the class. This improves that my methods are right.
With the passion and the love for teaching English, I have studied and developed
the research: "Experiences in teaching songs and chants for primary students
of grade 4 "
1.2. The purpose of research.
- The research applies the methods of teaching songs and chants to
involve students in learning English well.
- Creating the language circumstance to communicate in English and
promote students to actively participate in communicative activities; offering
some solutions and methods for teaching songs and chants.
- Exchanging and sharing some experiences in teaching songs and chants
for young learners.
1.3. The objects of research.
Research Time : School Year 2018-2019.
Research Location: Quang Phu Primary School

the language the child hears, as well as the consistency of the reinforcement
offered by others in the environment, would shape the child’s language behavoir.
This theory gives great importance to the environment as the source of
everything the child needs to learn .
First of all we will want the classroom to be bright and colourful,with
windows the children can see out of, and with enough room for different
activities to be taking place. We might expect them to be working in groups in
different parts of the classroom, changing their activity every ten minutes or so.
“We are obviously”, Susan Halliwell writes : “not talking about classrooms
where children spend all their time sitting still in rows or talking only to the
teacher” (1992). Because children love discovering things, and because they
respond well to being asked to use their imagination, they may well be involved
in puzzle-like activities,in making things, in drawing things, in games, in
physical moverment or in songs.
There are many reasons for using songs and chants in teaching English as
a foreign language in primary schools. Naturally, “children really enjoy learning
and singing songs” (Phillips 1993: 100) and have fun doing rhythmic activities
while reciting rhymes. But there are deeper psychological, cultural and linguistic
aspects.
A familiar way of language acquisition.
Children grow up with songs and chants and develop their first language
by them. Apart from being the most important spoken language, songs and
chants are the first experienced parts of communication in the children’s mother
tongue. They listen and react to nursery rhymes and finger games spoken and
often acted by their parents. They go to sleep with lullabies sung by their closest
care-givers or try to imitate little songs by babbling. So songs and chants give
them an intimate feeling, a special connection with their human environment
and influence the acquisition of their first language in an important way.
Analogous to the development of the mother tongue, the following points
also support foreign language acquisition :

context. So they support the monolingual and contextual approach in teaching a
foreign language. Words in songs and chants are meaningful to the learner,
which influences the acquisition in a positive way. “In general they use simple
conversational language with a lot of repetition” (Murphey 1992: 7). Therefore
songs and chants stick in the learner’s mind and the words and expressions used
are memorized more easily. Besides, songs and chants provide many
possibilities for constant repetition and revising as important mechanisms of the
language acquisition.
Support for phonetic development
“Poems, rhymes, chants and songs could be used to give a feeling for the
rhythm of the spoken language. Many well-known rhymes make use of the
iambic pentameter, the natural rhythm of the English language” (Straeter-Lietz
1999: 9). Practising intonation through reciting rhymes and poems is mostly
funny and very effective. To vary the sometimes boring pronunciation teaching
it is a proven remedy using rhymes and rhythmic chants, e.g. with minimal
pairs.
The cultural aspect.
Music is a powerful stimulus for student engagement precisely because it
speaks directly to our emotions while still allowing us to use our brains to
analyse it and its effects if we so wish. According to Lo and Li(1998), songs are
able to change the monotonous mood in the class and with the smoothing effect
5


of music; they provide a comfortable class environment so that students can
devolop their lingual skills more easily. Besides, utilizing songs in class
environment amuses students, helps them feel relaxed and get rid of their
negative attitudes towards a foreign language while learning a lingual structure
through a song (Saricoban, 2002).
A piece of music can change the atmosphere in a classroom, it can amuse

exposed to music through TV programs.Vietnamese Broadcasting Corporation
provides publically funded programming. They have many educational TV
programs for children. One of their most popular programs, The Vietnamese
Voice Kids has been running for many years. Hosted by many children, the
program invites many young learners to particpate in singing songs and dancing.
Vietnamese culture and the educational system are unique in many ways.
By understanding of the educational system, the power of groups, the challenge
6


ofdeveloping independence, individuality, and creativity, the influence of
perfectionism, the perception of Vietnamese uniqueness and its influence on
language and the importance of music, both Native English speaking teachers
and Native Vietnamese speaking teachers might be able to teach English
language to children more effectively.
Analysis of my school’s result in teaching and learning English in recent
years showed that our average score in speaking and listening has been
consistently lower than those schools in urban areas. It was a situation that was
of concern and motivated the examination of the school’s approach to the
teaching of speaking and listening.
Our school is a public primary school in a rural area in Thanh Hoa
province. It is a large school with around 799 students, ranging from 6 to 10
years old. There are three to four classes in each year levels, meaning that
collaboration among teachers is extremely important to ensure consistency in
learning programs. Songs and chants are taught in Lesson 1, Lesson 2 and
Lesson 3 in English 3,4,5. After several years of teaching the book Tieng Anh 4,
I found that many students can not speak or listen well. However, they like
singing and dancing during the lesson. Songs and chants use melody, strong
rhythm and simple vocabulary to arouse children's interest and attention. They
set up a situation where children learn and remember the target language

(B)
(C)
10= 22,7% 16= 36,4%

Poor
Fail
(D)
(F)
10=22,7% 8=18,2%

After doing the survey, I have classified the students and immediately
applied the methods and experiences which I accumulated over the years to
improve the teaching and learning quality.
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2.3. The solutions of implementation.
In this part of the research I will suggest some techniques in using songs
and chants for teaching English. This research is by no means comprehensive;
rather it is an opportunity for sharing what I know about new perspectives in
teaching songs and chants for young learners.
2.3.1. How to teach songs and chants.
The following guidelines are not meant to be dogmas. According to the
specific situations they could be varied by the teacher.
Guidelines for teaching chants:
For presentation songs or chants should be played from a CD or spoken
by the teacher and the actions should be demonstrated. Then the teacher should
check if the students understood the content. It is not necessary to translate word
by word but the students should know what the rhyme or chant means. This step
can be supported by visual aids. Now the students learn the text step by step. In



Hello, Linda. Nice to meet you.
Both methods can also be supported by visual aids. If there are any
actions they should be done by the students while learning the text because it is
easier to learn them together. Longer texts can be learned verse by verse in the
following lessons. Now the children say the whole rhyme in chorus, in groups or
alone and do the actions.
Guidelines for teaching songs:
The order and the way of teaching songs is similar to teaching chants. At
first the song should be sung by the teacher or played from a CD once or twice
while the students only listen. They begin to understand and to absorb the tune
and the rhythm. During the next playing or singing the students can clap the
rhythm or hum the tune. Before learning the text step by step (see 2.3.1.) the
teacher should check the understanding and explain the words the children did
not understand. Then the students sing the song several times, at first supported
by the teacher’s voice, later without the teacher’s support.
When and how to use songs and chants?
Song and chants can be used at the beginning, during or at the end of any
lesson. We may use them in many different ways in the language classroom: as
short warm-ups to start our lessons, to introduce new language, to revise and
practice language, to change the mood or to get everyone’s attention. When
using music within our English classroom, we must select congs that are suitable
for the age group we are teaching and make clear which language aspect we are
going to practice or reinforce (pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling,
etc.). We can build up the following record chart which will help us to analyse
the full potential of each song and chant. If we use songs and chants regularly,
we can see that all four skills (speaking, reading, listening,and writing) can be
very well and equally practiced .
2.3.2. Types of songs and chants

Spelling songs
They are useful to train the sounds of the English alphabet. The separate
letters mostly sound different from their pronunciation in words. Therefore the
pupils need help for learning the individual letter sound.
Example: “Farmer Brown has got a dog” (from websites on the internet)
Farmer Brown has got a dog and Rover is his name, sir.
Farmer Brown has got a dog and Rover is his name.
R-O-V-E-R, R-O-V-E-R, R-O-V-E-R, and Rover is his name.
Instead of “dog” and “Rover” in the next verses stand: cat - Pussy - P-US-S-Y.
Action songs
The biggest group of songs aims at associating words with movements of
their body. They also “internalize the sounds and rhythms of English, … develop
a sense of rhythm [and] … give the children a chance ‘to let off steam’.”
(Phillips 1993: 101)
For example: “If you’re happy” (from websites on the internet)
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.
If you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it,
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.
If you’re happy and you know it, stamp your feet…
If you’re happy and you know it, sing a song, tra-la- la…
If you’re happy and you know it, shout “HOORAY”…
If you’re happy and you know it, do it all: clap your hands, stamp your
feet, sing a song, shout
Songs for special occasions
These songs are suitable for deepening the special vocabulary and for
celebrating these occasions in the school. They emphasize the cultural aspect of
songs.
For example: (from Unit 15: When’s Children’s Day? – Lesson 1 – Page
31- Tiếng Anh 4 )

The 3rd time, only action for 'hat',
The 4th time, only action for 'three',
The 5th time, only action for 'corners'.
Role-play songs
This type of song “contextualize vocabulary and make the transfer from
singing to meaningful referents.” (Murphey 1992: 129) They use the children’s
love for stories and role playing.
For example: “There was a princess long ago” (from websites on the
internet)
There was a Princess long ago, long ago, long ago . There was a Princess
long ago, long long ago.
And she lived in a big high tower, a big high tower, a big high tower, And
she lived in a big high tower, long long ago.
A wicked fairy waved her wand, waved her wand, waved her wand, A
wicked fairy waved her wand, long long ago.
The Princess slept for a hundred years, a hundred years, a h. y., The
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Princess slept for a hundred years, long long ago.
A great big forest grew around, grew around, grew around, A great big
forest grew around, long long ago.
A handsome Prince came riding by, riding by, riding by, A handsome
Prince came riding by, long long ago.
He chopped the trees down one by one, one by one, one by one, He
chopped the trees down one by one, long long ago.
He woke the Princess with a kiss, with a kiss, with a kiss, He woke the
Princess with a kiss, long long ago.
So everybody’s happy now, happy now, happy now, So everybody’s happy
now long long ago

For example: Apples, peaches (from websites on the internet)
Choosing rhymes: Apples, peaches
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Apples, peaches, pears and plums,
Tell me when your birthday comes!
While saying a game leader point at a child at each syllable. The last child
tells its month of birth, e.g. “March”
The next children say the month beginning from January.
January, February, March.
The last child is the chosen one.
Action rhymes
For example: (from Unit 5: Can you swim ? – Lesson 3 – Page 34 Tieng Anh 4 )
Can you sing?
Can you sing?
Yes, I can.
I can sing.
Can you swim?
No, I can’t.
I can’t swim.
Can you swing?
No, I can’t.
I can’t swing.
While saying this chant the children do the action with rhymes.
Jump rope rhymes
The children like rope skipping. This rhythmic activity is often connected
with these simple poems. Jump rope rhymes support the acquisition of numbers
or simple sentence structures.
For example: (from Unit 4: When’s your birthday? – Lesson 2 – Page 27

for rhythm for the language and, moreover, they train the right pronunciation of
vocabulary.
For example: “A sailor went to sea, sea, sea” (from websites on the
internet)
A sailor went to sea, sea, sea
A sailor went to sea, sea, sea,
To see what he could see, see, see,
But all that he could see, see, see,
Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.
The children stand in pairs facing each other and clap in time to the
rhythm of the words.
Ball bouncing rhymes
They train the feeling for rhythm and the concentration both on reciting
and ball bouncing.
For example: “Number one, touch your tongue” (from websites on the
internet)
Number one, touch your tongue.
Number two, touch your shoe.
Number three, touch your knee.
Number four, touch the floor.
Number five, learn to five.
Number six, pick up sticks.
Number seven, go to heaven.
Number eight, over the gate.
Number nine, touch your spine.
Number ten - do it again.
While saying this rhyme the child bounce its ball and tries to do the
described action.
Topic rhymes
For example: “Take a snowball” (about the topic “Winter”) (from

words in the texts. The children compare with their own knowledge and write
down the number of mistakes.
Mixed-up lines or words
To promote reading skills and knowledge about sentence structure the
teacher can copy the text from textbooks or other sources, cut it out and mix the
order of words or lines. The children listen and put the lines or words in the
correct order again.
2.3.4. Song or chant contest
The English teacher organises a contest where the children recite their
favourite chants or sing their favourite songs. They can perform it alone or in
groups. A jury choose the best performer but all children involved should get an
appreciation to keep up their motivation. It is also possible to celebrate a “Day
of the English language” where the children can show their knowledge in songs,
chants and plays. There are no limits for the teacher’s ideas.
2.3.5. Problems
Beside the many advantages there are also problems in using songs and
chants for English teaching. Not all teachers are able to read notes and to work
out new songs. Therefore songs should be an important element in further
vocational teacher training. Besides, the department of education should provide
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enough money for CDs and appropriate equipment for English lessons. A good
help for quite unmusical teachers is to transfer new texts into well-known
melodies.
Some authentic rhymes or songs contain old expressions or dialectal or
distorted linguistic material. Therefore teachers should check their collected
material for useful and suitable content.
2.3.6. Six steps for making a song or a chant the focus of your class
My intention here is to provide a basic outline you can use with any song.

Alternatively, prior to having listened to the song you can teach a couple
of words and give a simple task for the first listening. My favourite strategy is to
give three or four words from the song and ask to them to listen out for the
words that rhyme with them. You could also brainstorm possible rhymes before
listening.
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Step 3: Listen to the song again, this time with lyrics
This time, you should give learners the chance to read the lyrics to the
song. At this point you might do one or more of the following activities:
- Learners can just read the lyrics while they listen. They can possibly
highlight unknown words for later discussion.
- You can make a lyric worksheet as a gap fill; learners fill in the gaps
as they listen.
- You can make cut-out strips of selected missing words and again
make a lyric worksheet as a gap fill; this time learners match the word strips
to the gaps as they listen.
Step 4: Focus on a particular verb tense or aspect of grammar
Virtually every song centres on a particular verb tense. This is too good an
opportunity to pass up in terms of uncovering the grammar. My suggestion is to
start with questions such as these:
- After “ Let’s” is what types of verbs: Verb-ing, Verb-bare infinitive or
Verb-to infinitive ?
This acts as a springboard for discussing the function of a specific tense,
as well as examining its form. Furthermore, it often tends to raise awareness of
grammatical flexibility and ‘poetic licence’ in the construction of song lyrics.
Students often expect songs to obey the grammatical rules that have been
drummed into them. In a surprisingly large number of cases, this can lead to the
enlightening discovery that rules can be broken!

the location, the characters, and what happens. Then each group explains their
idea to the rest of the class and the learners vote on the best one. The results can
be surprising, as they frequently come up with an interpretation that hadn’t even
occurred to you!
2.4. The efficiency of the experience initiative.
After applying successfully the methods and procedures to teach sóng
and chants, the students’ improvement in speaking and listening skills can be
seen clearly. The result in the second semester of the school year 2018-2019
shows the increase in the percentage of students who can improve listening and
speaking skills sucessfully. What is especially pleasing is the impact of
pronunciation in class 3 as there are fewer students who can not pronounce
correctly than the beginning of the first semester. The significance of the
methods of teaching songs and chants can be seen when examining the
percentage of students with a reading age above their chronological age since
the program’s implementation. Comparing with the result survey at the
beginning, I find that the recent result is better than the old one. The following
chart will show the result:
Class
4A

The numbers
Excellent
of students
(A)
44
16 = 36,4%

Good
(B)
17 = 38,6%

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the monolingual and the contextual approach with fun, activity and motivation.
Almost incidentally the children become familiar with parts of the foreign
culture and see them as enrichment for their own life.
According to the guidelines for teaching songs and chants and depending
on the concrete situation the teacher can vary the way of teaching these forms. It
should not be forgotten to back up the basic vocabulary before introducing a
song or chant or making sure that the content is understandable. The teacher
should provide different possibilities for the students to comprehend the text.
The English teacher can choose from among a lot of types of songs and
chants with special characteristics and different actions. Each teacher should
collect useful songs and chants on which he can fall back. If he or she knows the
possibilities to exploit these orms the teacher should be able to use songs and
chants successfully in English lessons.
We know from our experience that children love English songs and
chants. All teachers should see this big advantage and use songs and chants as an
permanent part of their English lessons not only in primary school.
We as teachers also enjoy singing, dancing and reciting with our children
in class because it gives us the chance to influence the children’s development in
a positive way and to intensify relationship to our children.
In conclusion, songs and chants make large vocabulary background, like
expressions and useful sentences. They help to develop listening and speaking
skill. Songs will help learners become familiar with word stress and intonation,
and the chants with which words are spoken or sung also helps memorization.
And once memorized, children repeat it again and again. They also hear
informal or colloquial English that they may encounter outside the classroom
and they become familiar with parts of the foreign culture, seeing it as
enrichment for their own life.

the training courses, teachers have the opportunity to exchange and learn their
experiences.
Acknowledgments:
I am grateful to the Ministry of Education and Training for publishing the
book Tieng Anh 3,4,5; for valuable discussions and innovative ideas and
techniques of teaching songs and chants during the program. I would also like to
thank the experts of Thanh Hoa City Education and Training Office, my
colleagues at Quang Phu Primary School, for providing helpful comments for
the research.
Finally, I would like to encourage Vietnamese teachers to have more
confidence in teaching English songs and chants even though we are not native
speakers of English. With full advanced preparation, including practicing
English and designing effective teaching activities, we can all be experts in
teaching English.
Sincerely thank you!
Certified by the Principal
Quang Phu, April 10th 2019
I declare that this is my experienced
initiative. I do not copy the other
person's content .
Written by
Dam Thuy Dung
REFERENCES
1. Vietnamese Educational Publisher - Tieng Anh 4 (2017). Ministry of
Education and Training.
2. Murphey, T. (1992). Music and song. Oxford University Press.
3. Harmer, J. (2003). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow:
Longman.
4. Graham, C. (1992). Singing, chanting, telling tales. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,
Inc.



TT

Tên đề tài SKKN

1

Biện pháp để phát triển
kỹ năng nghe và nói cho
học sinh lớp 3 thông qua
bài hội thoại.
Kinh nghiệm dạy bài hội
thoại nhằm phát triển kỹ
năng nghe và nói cho
học sinh lớp 3.
Experiences in teaching
pronunciation for
primary student.
Experiences in teaching
pronunciation for
primary student.

2

3
4

Cấp đánh giá
Kết quả đánh

B

2013-2014

22


0


1