VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE TEENAGERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON USING SONGS TO PROMOTE ENGLISH LEXICAL LEARNING AT SEAMEO RETRAC A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master‟s degree in TESOL By DINH TRAN THIEN DUYEN Supervised by NGUYEN DANG NGUYEN, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, AUGUST 2019 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This page is used for expressing my thanks to organizations and individuals that have helped me to finish my thesis successfully. Firstly, I would like to express my appreciation to my instructor – Dr. Nguyen Dang Nguyen for giving me directions and advices during the time the thesis was conducted.
I would not be able to accomplish the thesis without his willing help in both academic and technical issues. I also thank Dr. Doan Hue Dung for giving advices in my first proposal of the thesis although she was too busy to go with me till the end. Secondly, I would like to say thank to the Directors and Kiddy program‟s Managers of SEAMEO RETRAC for accepting my request of doing the experimental research there.
Nguyen Manh Thuong for arranging me the classes in time so that I could manage to collect data successfully. Thirdly, I would like to thank the University of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature for giving me the chance to conduct this thesis. The staffs were always willing to help me in announces and quick solutions for the unintended problems during that time. Finally, I would like to thank my family and my friends who have been always by my side and encourage me when I felt down.
Thanks my parents for supporting me in financial issues in order that I could be comfortable to accomplish my responsibility. i STATEMENTS OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of Master‟s Thesis submitted today entitled TEENAGERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON USING SONGS TO PROMOTE ENGLISH LEXICAL LEARNING AT SEAMEO RETRAC in term of the statement of the requirements for the Theses in Master‟s program issued by the Higher Degree Committee. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institutions. Ho Chi Minh City, August 2019 DINH TRAN THIEN DUYEN ii RETENTION OF USE I hereby state that I, Dinh Tran Thien Duyen, being the candidate for the Master degree of Art in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Theses deposited in the library.
In term of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of the thesis. Ho Chi Minh City, Augusta 2019 DINH TRAN THIEN DUYEN iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY .ii RETENTION OF USE.iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .iv LIST OF TABLES .vii LIST OF FIGURES .1 Background to the study .2 Aims of the study .4 Significance of the study .5 Scope of the study .6 Organization of the thesis chapters .5 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 The roles of lexical learning …………………………… .1 Definitions of lexical learning .2 The characteristics of lexical learning and its importance .2 Teenagers - their learning characteristics and their perspectives .1 Who are teenagers? .2 Teenagers‟ learning features .3 What kinds of perspectives can be expressed by a teenage? .3 Songs and their advantages in lexical learning .1 Benefits of using music in language classrooms .2 Methods of using music and songs in language lessons.3 Using songs to promote lexical learning .4 Learning outcomes of using pop songs .4 Some recent empirical studies………………………….1 The purposes of the research .4 Participants and sampling procedures.6 Data collection and analysis procedure .1 Developing teaching materials .2 Trial phrase for the experimental .3 Data collection procedure .4 Data analysis procedure .36 Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .1 Analysis of data .1 Students‟ perspectives before the treatment .2 Students‟ perspectives in the post-questionnaire .3 Students‟ behaviors from the daily observation .4 Students‟ opinions from their diaries .2 Discussion of results .1 Students‟ perspectives before the treatment .2 Students‟ perspectives in the post-questionnaire .3 Students‟ behaviors from the daily observation .4 Students‟ opinions from their diaries .3 Summary of major findings .2 Pedagogical implications of the study .3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for teachers .4 Recommendations for further study. Appendix 1: Pre-questionnaire. Appendix 2: Post-questionnaire.
Appendix 3: Observation form. Appendix 4: Prompted questions for students‟ diaries. Appendix 5: Lesson plans for the eight songs.97 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Description of participants Table 3.2: Description of the two questionnaires Table 3.3: The relationship between the topics of the songs and topics of the units in the textbook Table 3.4: Trial research procedure for SPRE-B-32 W2 Table 3.5: Results of reliability for the items in pre- questionnaire Table 3.6: Results of reliability for the items in post- questionnaire Table 3.7: Main research procedure for the two main classes Table 4.1: Students‟ opinion in learning vocabulary in their textbooks Table 4.2: Students‟ preferences in learning vocabulary in their textbooks Table 4.3: The choices for problematic aspects in lexical learning Table 4.4: Students‟ attitudes when learning the aspects of lexical learning Table 4.5: Students‟ opinion in learning vocabulary through songs Table 4.6: Students‟ preferences in learning vocabulary through songs Table 4.7: The choices for improving problematic aspects in lexical learning though the use of songs Table 4.8: Students‟ overall opinions in benefits of songs for their lexical learning vii Table 4.9: Students‟ attitudes when learning the aspects of lexical learning through songs Table 4.10: Observation results of SPRE-A-50 from week 2 to week 5 (part 1) Table 4.11: Observation results of SPRE-A-50 from week 6 to week 9 (part 1) Table 4.12: Observation results of SPRE-A-51 from week 2 to week 5 (part 1) Table 4.13: Observation results of SPRE-A-51 from week 6 to week 9 (part 1) Table 4.14: Samples of students‟ behaviors in part 2 observation form Table 4.15: Overview of students‟ opinions in their diaries Table 4.16: Relationship between genders and choices in activities viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Research design Figure 3.2: An overview of the data collection procedure Figure 4.1: Student‟s preference in class activities Figure 4.2: Summary of the responses to question 6 in the pre-questionnaire about the problems in lexical learning Figure 4.3: Summary of the responses to question 5 describing the improved problems in lexical learning in the post-questionnaire Figure 4.4: Proportion of six elements taken from the students‟ diaries ix ABSTRACT Since learning and teaching English became popular around developing countries, finding a good way of learning English, especially English lexical learning, has been very necessary. With the young learners, it is more difficult to attract their concentration in learning.
They should be instructed with a more effective method to have improvements in studying English and arouse their interests in learning as well. The research investigates the perspectives of the teenage students at SEAMEO RETRAC when English songs were applied into their normal lessons. The quasi- experimental study was employed in two classes with 35 students at pre-intermediate level in 10 weeks. They were taught with 8 songs during 8 weeks without any interruption.
The songs were designed with a lot of interactive and communicative activities which could give them opportunities to practice the vocabulary in these songs as well as some valuable lessons in their lives. Data was collected by three kinds of tools: questionnaires, observation and students‟ diary. All of them were designed with the purpose to test two hypotheses raised before the research: Using songs in teenagers‟ lessons helps to achieve their positive perspectives in (1) motivation and (2) effectiveness in English lexical learning at SEAMEO RETRAC. Following these ones, the tools provided the data of our students‟ perspectives on their motivation and their improvements when being taught with songs; as well as the teacher‟s observation on students‟ behaviors during lessons with songs and without songs on a same day.
The results indicated that there were positive perspectives on students‟ motivation and improvements in their English lexical learning. The findings suggest that English songs should be used more regularly for teenagers because it is a good method for lexical learning which is suitable for this range of ages. However, to get the most effective, teachers should notice their students‟ perspectives in terms of preferences in music styles or their classes‟ feature. x Keywords: songs, teenagers’ perspectives, English lexical learning, motivation xi Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study English has become very necessary during the time of globalization; the teaching and learning English has also developed together with the appearing of various teaching methods.
Researchers have tried to find out new methods or improve the previous ones in order to give more applications into the reality of using English more than just absorb the raw knowledge. Methods are changed to make our lessons become more interesting and suitable for the ages, the interests, the characteristics as well as the abilities of our learners. For our young learners, especially with the teenagers, a comfortable atmosphere should be established for them to learn English effectively, not being forced to learn. It means that activities in teaching should be changed from traditional to modern ones which help our learners to acquire a language naturally.
Our young learners have their own personalities which make us really hard to force them in learning seriously, so modern teaching activities may be the better choice for them. There are a lot of materials which can be used to create activities to raise students‟ motivation. Among of them, songs may be a good choice because of teenagers‟ characteristics on ages and interests. Music and songs have a long period of establishing and developing in human‟s history.
They have become a very essential part in our life and in every aspect of society, we cannot live without music. We are not able to deny that music gives us a lot of motivation for working and it is also a source that language teachers can use to make their lessons more interesting and helpful for students. In the past time, music was used to provide a safe environment for learning and the knowledge of a language could be absorbed unconsciously in Suggestopedia of Lazanov (1970s), a method showed its effectiveness in some ways helping learners study in relaxation. Nowadays, with the existence of technology, music in the form of songs is becoming 1 an effective tool in teaching language.
Ulate (2008) believed music could create desired mood like making us happier, more enjoyable; giving more energy and bringing us good memories. Moreover, she also stated that music with lyrics could expose learners with linguistic knowledge, culture and improve learning aspects of language and skills. With a lot of benefits, it is undeniable that using songs is very good for teaching and learning language, especially for young learners. Because of the benefits from using songs in language acquisition, a lot of studies have been conducted to justify their application on songs in different situations.
Beginning with Suggestopedia method by Lozanov (1970s), he concluded that music could help our brain relax and this is the time we can acquire a language at best. Audio-Singual Method by Kind (1980) and CMA by Anton (1980) are the combination of the use between music and lyrics in order to help recall language aspects more easily. The other authors such as Murphey (1992), Salcedo (2002) and Alipour, Gorjian, and Zafari (2012) investigated the effectiveness of using songs in recall and retention of vocabulary. Moreover, (Le, 1999), (Ulate, 2008), (Rosova, 2007), (Dagmar, 2008), (Li & Brand, 2009), (Sevik, 2011), (Sevik, 2012), (Kim & Kang, 2015) and (Dzenic, 2016) applied English songs to test their effectiveness in others aspects such as pronunciation, grammar as well as communicative skills.