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 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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 CODE: 601410 HANOI, SEPTEMBER, 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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. Aims of the study 2 3. Method of the study 2 4. Significance of the study 2 5.
Scope of the study 2 6. Design of the study 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 1. What is motivation? 4 1. Motivation and attitude 4 5 1.
Motivation in second language learning 1. Learning English through songs 6 1. Reasons for using songs in the language classroom 6 1. How can songs be used in language teaching? 7 1.
Choosing suitable songs and teaching procedure 8 1. Learning English through poems 10 1. Reasons for using poems in language classroom 10 1.2 How can poems be used in language teaching? 11 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Choosing suitable poems and teaching procedure 1.
Previous studies in ULIS and difficulties to apply the idea of teaching 14 English through songs and poems in high schools CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15 2. Setting of the study 15 16 2. Instruments to collect data 17 17 2.6 Data Collection Procedure 20 2. Methods of Data Analysis CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 21 3.
Pre – questionnaire data and analysis 21 21 3. Students’ Motivation and Attitudes to Learning English before the treatment 23 3. Students’ Attitudes towards Learning English through Songs and Poems before the treatment 24 3. Changes in Students’ Motivation and Attitudes 26 3.
Attitudes towards learning English through songs and poems after the treatment 28 3.4 Songs and poems that students like to learn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.5 The Degree of suitability of songs- and poems-based activities as ranked by the students 31 3.6 Students’ reflections on learning through songs and poems. Students’ sayings about learning through songs and poems: 32 3. Students’ collections of their favorite songs. Integration of songs in the teaching English in high schools.1 Choosing the song for the topic of the unit that the song is taught along with 36 2.2 Designing tasks for the songs 36 2.3 Procedure to teach a song 37 Integration of poems in the teaching English in high schools.
Choosing the poem for the topic of the unit or for the pronunciation or 37 grammar items in the unit that the poem is taught along with: Designing tasks for the poems: 37 Procedure to teach a poem (These steps are quite like the ones to teach a 38 song) 3. Limitation of the study 38 4. Suggestions for further study 38 REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES I Appendix 1: Tieng Anh 10 Teaching Schedule I LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii Appendix 2: English through songs and poems schedule III Appendix 3: Pre – questionnaire V Appendix 4: Post – questionnaire VI Appendix 5: Examples of poems in the English textbook at Lower Secondary VIII School Appendix 6a-j: 10 worksheets of teaching English through songs and poems IX – XXVIII Appendix 7: List of Internet links to learning English through songs and XXIX poems in Vietnam Appendix 8: Students’ reflections: (extract from some of students’ song XXXII books): Thu Huyen’s diary XXXI Nguyen Thi Tu Linh’s song book XXXIII Nguyen Thi Phuong’s song book XXXVII LIST OF TABLES LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com viii Table 1: Students’ motivation and attitude to learning English before the treatment Table 2: Attitude towards learning English through songs and poems before the treatment Table 3: Students’ motivation and attitude to learning English after the treatment compared with those before the treatment Table 4: Attitude towards learning English through songs and poems after the treatment: Class 10B only Table 5: Songs and poems that students preferred and their ranking Table 6: Learning relevance towards the English through songs and poems activities LIST OF ABBREAVIATIONS LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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 topic.
It is clear that students‟ low motivation is common problem in schools, not only at Van Noi High School. Various ways have been tried to motivate their students to learn English such as using folktales, songs, language games, visual aids, examination taking strategy training, etc. And they got the certain results. There are two things that make humans different from all other animals.
They are language and music (Tieng Anh 10,2006:124). Music, along with the other arts, invites the imagination to work, and provides learners with opportunities to make choices, both collaboratively, and alone. Music enhances our students' motivation to learn, and improves upon their engagement and retention. In fact, teenagers and music are inseparable.
Therefore, songs have been widely used in language teaching. Songs relax and get rid of negative emotion. Many songs are poems in themselves or the lyrics of the songs are very rich in poetry. Both songs and poems are authentic materials which are written with the writers‟ real emotion and the words are chosen for their beauty and sounds are carefully arranged.
According to Murphey (1992:3) songs are highly memorable and motivating in language learning and “its motivational appeal is present to many different types of learners.” Although poems are not as popular to students as songs, LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 poetry promotes language acquisition. For the above reasons, a quasi-experimental research was conducted in Van Noi High School to test the hypothesis of using songs and poems to motivate students to learn English. Aims of the research The research aimed: - To find out how the use of songs and poems in teaching English enhances the students‟ motivation in learning English. - To find out what kind of songs and poems can make high school students motivated - To find out which class activities are suitable for using songs and poems at a high school.
Method of the study With the aim to investigate the extent to which the use of songs and poems help to motivate the grade 10th 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.
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. Scope of the study With the scope of a quasi-experimental using two 10th 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 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. 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.
Design of the study The study is organized around three parts with three chapters: Part A- Introduction- consists of the rationale of the study, aims of the study, scope of the study, significance of the study, research methodology and design of the study. Part B- Development- is divided into three following chapters: Chapter 1 – Literature Review - provides a review of related literature, in which the definition of motivation, the role of motivation in language learning are discussed first. It then deals with the reasons and the way to use songs and poems in EFL class. Chapter 2 – Methodology - presents the situation of learning English through songs and poems in Vietnam, the research questions, the research methodology, the participants, the instruments and method of analyzing data.
Chapter 3 – Findings and Discussions - provides the findings and discussions through an analysis of all data collected by means of pre and post – questionnaires and students‟ reflections Part C- Conclusion - summarizes the main findings in the study, and made some recommendations on how to use songs and poems in class to motivate students. It also discusses the limitations of the study and makes some suggestions for further research. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents a review of related literature, in which the definition of motivation and motivation in language learning are discussed first. It then deals with the reasons for and the ways of using songs and poems in EFL class.
What is motivation? There is always a drive or need for one to know what is happening around oneself. What motivates someone‟s drive or intention to satisfy one‟s needs is a topic of interest in motivational psychology.