Journal of Community Medicine & Public Health Care Category: Medical Type: Research Article

The Effectiveness of using Children Songs on Developing the Sixth Grader’s English Vocabulary and Pronunciation in Syrian Refugees Governmental Schools

Heba M.N. Alefeshat1*
1 Doctor at faculty of education, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan

*Corresponding Author(s):
Heba M.N. Alefeshat
Doctor At Faculty Of Education, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan
Tel:+962 0772044057,
Email:hebbahmansoor@yahoo.com

Received Date: Oct 09, 2019
Accepted Date: Oct 21, 2019
Published Date: Oct 28, 2019

Abstract

The main aim of the study is to develop the pronunciation and vocabulary skills of the students while learning English as a foreign language. For the development of particular skill, a teacher must set some goals to teach properly. This research also includes nursery rhymes and songs. These songs are used in teaching methods precisely and how learner quickly picks up the language because music is used to develop language skills in the children. It also includes impacts of songs on the learner. By reviewing some past events and well-organized details, the researcher noticed that most studies are defining the concept of vocabulary and pronunciation separately in other articles. Therefore, specific reviews on educational purposes by using songs along with the learner’s effect in both vocabulary and development of pronunciation in the current literature are used.  Moreover, use of songs in the English learning classes in the elementary school is also depicted. Furthermore these chapters explained the procedures followed in the research. It explained every detail of the participant, data collections, sources and instrumentation of the study. It also showed the formation, and reliability of used instruments. After that, it showed how the data were analyzed. Finally it explained in detailed the procedure of conducting the study.

Keywords

6th Grade; Pronunciation; Songs; Syrian refugees; Vocabulary

INTRODUCTION

There are about (2) millions Syrian refugees in Jordan, and almost all of their boys are studying in the Jordanian governmental schools. Not only that, but they also taught the Jordanian curricula in Jordanian evening schools separately, as well as, there are taught by the Jordanian teachers who teaches in the main stream Jordanian morning schools. Part of the Arab nation, in the country of Jordan, the language of English has gained much importance and English is taught as a Foreign Language. Due to its so much importance, it has become a compulsory subject in the Jordanian School’s syllabus and English is studied in their schools from grade one to grade twelve (Tawjihi). The major aim of making English compulsory in all schools of Jordan is that all the students that are graduating from their schools must be speaking fluent English and having full command in English and by learning English they can deal with the universal developments [1].

By making English subject compulsory in all elementary schools of Jordan we can make the students more confident and we can encourage them to take part in different English speech competitions so that they will have complete command on English. In the elementary schools, we select the Basic English for the students so that they can pronounce easily and they can easily learn the vocabulary of the words because it is a beginning for them to learn English as a language so we should develop their basics first regarding the English language [2].

Teachers play an important role in developing their English Learning skills, because if a teacher is motivated and wants to learn a new language then he/she can also motivate and encourage his/her students to learn the English Language. A teacher should have some aims and goals to achieve only then he/she can motivate the students [3].

Teachers are responsible to take care of every child and to see if anyone find difficulty in learning the vocabulary of the English words or he/she can pronounce the words properly or not. It is her responsibility to teach every student and cope up with every problem that occurs during her teaching session [2].

Every teacher should plan different techniques or develop some strategies to attain his/her goals. But the techniques should be according to the objectives and it should be a basic level for the students and the teaching style should be easy so that the students can understand it easily. A teacher should think before teaching that he/she is teaching it to the elementary classes because there is a wide difference in teaching to secondary learners and the basic learners [4].

While teaching on a basic level a teacher should be creative and should use some innovative ideas to teach the children because in this way they can learn more easily [5].

Music is an important part of human life nowadays. Music is used in different fields including films, radio, advertisements, and restaurants, etc. Music is available in different forms and on different devices. Many devices are used to play music including; iPod, iPad, television, radio, MP3 player and are easily available on the internet. You can listen to your favorite songs and you can enjoy anytime by using music all the different devices [6].

Problem statement

The problem statement is that we have to teach English as a foreign language to the students of Jordan and it requires many techniques and methods to teach the English language properly to the students. To teach them English properly music is used to which is very helpful to teach a language more effectively because it improves their pronunciation and vocabularies and develop some skills of English learning in the students [7]. The syllabus which is studied in Jordan has very limited number of the English rhymes and songs. The main aim of this study is to teach the students of the sixth grade the vocabulary and pronunciation of the English Language.

Significance of the study

Most of the teachers don’t know that what methods and what techniques are to be used in class while teaching them English. The basic aim of this study is to use songs in the English teaching class that will be helpful to the students and they will learn English more quickly. And the teacher’s who have no idea about the techniques to be used in English lesson they will also be guided in this way.

LITERATURE REVIEW

An effective an easy way to teach a language to the students is by using music and songs of that language in the class because students can easily learn longs and in this way, they can easily learn the language. In the 1950’s and 1970’s Audion, Lingual Method was used in which songs and audios are played in classrooms to add a fun element in the class and to make the students active during the class. To create a peaceful environment in the class Suggest opedia methodology was used in which classical instruments were played in the class [8]. In the classrooms where the language learning sessions are going on some approaches like Tasked Based Learning and Communicative Language Teaching observed that some song instruments are required in the class [9]. Bu playing songs and music in the class it will be easier to teach the English language more quickly because it will develop their pronunciation skills [10]. And by the use of music and songs and audio in the class, this will be more effective because it will improve their grammar and reading, writing and pronunciation skills [11]. Songs help to add a fun element in the class and it will create an interesting atmosphere. Songs encourage the students to learn the language more quickly [12]. Playing songs in the class will help them to recognize the words more easily because the words are repeated in the songs and if you do some actions and show some pictures to the students it will help them to learn more [13].

During English learning lesson singing activities and singing the nursery rhymes and songs help to develop some skills in the students including; words pronunciation and syllabification [14]. Performing some actions during a song gains the attention of the students and they will be more enthusiastic to learn the language. When learning a song we can relate the words with meanings [15]. Classes should be conduct in those areas where students will be more motivated and learning depends on how motivated a student is [16]. This study is conducted to develop the skills of the English language and its pronunciation and vocabulary to the Syrian Refugees Governmental Schools.

Children’s song

The song is a music piece that can be sung by humans, birds or animals and which sounds melodious and peaceful and relaxing (http://www.allwords.com). The rhymes which are singed in the class by the students and they are invented by the student by using different words and phrases are defined as children’s song (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children’s_song). Songs know no boundaries and cultures and discrimination they are just purely signed by the heart [17]. Songs are a combination of things like rhythm, melody, harmony, and expressions [18].

Advantages of the use of songs in the English class

Many researchers including [2,19-22] observe that using songs in their English lesson class will be very beneficial in learning English. And if there will be a variety of songs available in the class then the students can select their favorite songs and they will be more encouraged to learn the English language.

Songs help the students to improve their vocabulary, their English learning skills and develop the habit of learning the English language with more passion [23].

Music is a relaxation for mind and it involves different parts of the brain including the right hemisphere of the brain and by engaging different parts of the brain it will be a more relaxing and comprehensive behavior [24]. To include a fun element in the class and to make the class more entertaining and to involve students in different activities music and songs is used in the class.

Including songs in the English class has many advantages because it enhances the vocabulary of a person and improves their grammar skills and pronunciation. Playing music in class helps improve your speaking skills and these are the views of [25].

Functions of songs in English language teaching

Songs are a mixture of lyrics, composition, melody and the sounds and this combination make a melodious song that attract the people towards it. This mixture of language and music in the song makes it a good source for the teachers to use these songs in their English learning lesson and this music is also used as a therapy to relax [26]. If we use songs in the English learning lessons this will be beneficial for the students to learn English more effectively [21].

Criteria for choosing a song

Selecting a song is a very difficult task because while selecting a song a teacher should take care that the song should be appropriate for the students and it is fulfilling the requirement and needs of the students [27]. Many researchers and scholars defined many different methods and criteria’s for the selection of the song. Songs should be appropriate for being used in the class and they should contain limited words so that the students can understand it easily [28]. Song duration should be precise so that the words will be less and teacher can repeat the songs again and again in the class [29]. Students should select their favorite songs and bring them in the class so in this way they will take more interest in the class [30].

The use of song procedures and techniques for presenting songs

Before presenting a song in the class we should know the interest of the students, their age that what songs they like to play more and the grammar level and how tough a grammar they can understand [31]. A teacher should give the lecture orally by explaining it to the students and should use the songs with short period so that the students can concentrate both on the explanation and as well as the song [32]. While playing song on the first day with the video it should be played without lyrics and allow the students to understand the lyrics from their perception and write grammar regarding to the song and the very next day you should play the songs with the lyrics and allow the students to improve their grammatical mistakes [33].

Some suggested activities when using educational songs in the classroom

Some researchers suggest and advised some techniques while playing songs in the class. Teachers can allow the students to do some activities in the class when the song is playing, they can sing with the song, or they can tap their fingers or they can talk about that who is the singer of the song, who is the writer of the song and if you want to write and perform a song you can do it.

VOCABULARY

If you know the vocabulary of a word you can understand it easily so vocabulary is an important factor while learning any language. By knowing the vocabulary of the words we can also find synonyms, we can improve our knowledge regarding English learning. Vocabulary is essential to read and write any language or any work and some students have poor vocabulary and they cannot understand any language and cannot able to comprehend it [34-38].

Principles of selecting vocabulary

Before teaching English language to the students a teacher should be selective with words, she should select words that are useful in their future and can be used in most of the fields in their life. Vocabulary is a very important factor in learning any language [39,40].

PRONUNCIATION

Pronunciation is an important factor as well because if you cannot pronounce the words properly. If the students have pronunciation skills then they will not find difficulty in communication with other persons [41].

According to Cook, “Pronunciation is a set of habits of producing sounds. The habit of producing a sound is acquired by repeating it over and over again and by being corrected when it is pronounced wrongly. Learning to produce a second language means building up new pronunciation habits and overcoming the bias of the first language” [42-44].

We can see find that pronunciation is defined as the production of sounds that are spoken to offer meaning, contains specific sounds of a language (segments), forms of speech beyond the individual sounds (super segmental aspects), the way voice is projected (voice quality), and the expression and gesture which attribute the spoken language.

Importance of pronunciation

According to James Learner’s goal of leaning pronunciation is to perfect themselves in imitation of native English. But the most essential goal is what James (2010) called, ‘acceptable pronunciation’ to make the learner to pronounce words which are easily understood by the other speakers [45,46].

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objectives of this study are:

  1. To use the songs in the elementary classes to improve their vocabulary.
  2. To use the songs in the elementary classes to improve their pronunciation.
  3. The significant difference for the group’s achievement in the post test due to gender.
  4. How the attitude of teacher is while using songs in the English learning lesson.

Question of the study

  1. What are the significant effects that can occur while using the songs in the class for improving the vocabulary of the students?
  2. What are the significant effects that can occur while using songs in the class for improving the pronunciation of the students?
  3. Is there any visible difference for the group’s achievements in the post test due to gender?
  4. What is the behavior of the teacher and attitude towards the use of songs in the English learning lesson?

Hypothesis of the study

  1. The test scores of the vocabulary are different regarding each of the experimental group and the post group performance and the result of the test was in the favor of the experimental group.
  2. The test scores of the pronunciation are different regarding each of the experimental group and the post group performance and the result of the test was in the favor of the experimental group.
  3. There is a significant difference for the group’s achievement in the post test due to gender.
  4. Teachers are responding positively on the use of songs in the English learning lesson.

Limitations of the study

This study is basically limited to the vocabulary and pronunciation while learning English language. This study is restricted to a limited population of the six grade students studying in the Jerash elementary school for girls and boys in Jordan.

DEFINITION OF THE TERMS

Effectiveness: It is basically the outcomes of the goals that are achieved through observation, inspection etc.

Children’s song: It is basically a nursery rhyme that is made by the students in their own different words and is used for different purposes like education and cultural.

Developing: The main aim of this study is to develop the vocabulary and pronunciation of the students.

Sixth graders: Six graders or class six are basically the students aging between 11-12 years.

English vocabulary: This study aims on developing the vocabulary of the students

English pronunciation: This study aims on developing the pronunciation skills of the students.

METHODOLOGY

Participants

The study is conducted on (72) females and (51) males. The participants are the Syrian refugee students of grade sixth. The students’ native language is Arabic and the groups are from four Government school in Jordan. There are two groups for boys and two groups for girls. For experimental group, one girls’ and one boys’ groups were chosen and for the control group, the other girls’ and boys’ groups were chosen. The experimental group was chosen on the basis of low results in the pre-test than the control group. The table below explains the grouping of participants based on their group, gender, school and grade (Table 1). 

Group

School

Gender

Grade

Number

Total

Experimental

Jerash Girl’s

Female

sixth

29

58

Jerash  Boy’s

Male

sixth

29

Control

Jerash  Girl’s

Female

sixth

43

65

Jerash Boy’s

Male

sixth

22

Total

123

Table 1: Distribution of participants.

Experimental group

The study was conducted in two government schools in Jerash after getting permission from Directorate of Education in Jerash and General Administrations of schools. The total number of girls and boys is (58) selected from two school; Jerash Elementary for girls and Jerash Elementary for Boys.

Jerash elementary for Girl’s school

The first school was Jerash Elementary for Girl’s School. The researcher was welcomed warmly when reached at school and met school authorities. School administration understood and supported the idea and allowed the researcher to conduct to conduct the experiment. The researcher wanted to use songs in teaching method to improve teaching methodologies and find if the method really effects students’ learning. The participants of the study were in section one of sixth grade and they had been studying English from the first grade. After having met with school authorities, the researcher met with the principal and teacher to guide them about the purpose of the research and they welcomed the idea. The researcher provided material and songs to the teachers.

Jerash elementary for Boy’s school

The second school was Jerash Elementary for Boy’s School. The participants of the study were in section one of sixth grade and they had been studying English from the first grade. The researcher met with principal and briefed the purpose of research and was warmly welcomed. Then he met with the English supervisor and English language teacher. The researcher provided them material with the permit from Yarmouk University.

The researcher guided and explained the objectives and purpose of research. He explained the procedures, what are the goals and provided them with the songs that the teacher would use during her\his lessons. The researcher also explained the basic requirements. The principal and teacher agreed on the teacher’s role to observe the improvement in student’s learning after every lesson. The staff enthusiastically gave some song suggestions to be more closed with the curriculum. The researcher welcomed their suggestions, changed the songs and started the experiment.

Control group

The researcher closed two schools: The first school was Jerash Elementary for Girl’s School, and the second one was Jerash Elementary for Boy’s School. There were (22) male and (43) female participants. The participants of control group were chosen on the basis of gender, school, level, and curriculum of the schools. The aim of choosing these schools was research for the control group in trying to balance the number of males and females. The researcher took permission from the Directorate of Education in Jerash and the general administration of these schools. Then the researcher talked to the principal and three English language teachers in both of the schools and explained the reasons of choosing these schools, aims of the research and what role the researcher needs of teachers. It was observed that English language teachers taught in a very simple way without using any extra material or songs. The participants of control group studied English from first grade.

Jerash elementary for Girl’s school

The participants from Jerash Elementary for Girl’s School were selected from two classes and they were (42) in number. The principal and English teachers appreciated the purpose of the research and accepted to take part in taking the study pre-posttests.

Jerash elementary for Boy’s school

By following the guidance of the researcher, the English teachers took the pre-posttests to make sure that the two groups (experimental and control) had similar competency in both pronunciation and vocabulary. The table given below shows the results (Table 2). 

Group Statistics

Independent Samples Test

 

Group

N

M

SD

T

d.f

Sig.

Total results

Experimental

58

20.7500

4.51630

-1.839

-1.826

121

0.068

Control

65

22.1615

3.99815

Vocabulary

Experimental

58

9.3534

3.12040

-1.319

-1.320

121

0.190

Control

65

10.1000

3.14518

Pronunciation

Experimental

58

11.3966

2.60189

-1.599

-1.575

121

0.112

Control

65

12.0615

1.99904

Table 2: t-test for equality of means due to groups (pre-tests results).

The above table shows that competency of experimental and control groups in vocabulary and pronunciation is almost same. The table point outs that there is no clear difference at (α ≤ 0.05). So after the results, the researcher found out that the two groups had almost the same linguistic level relating pronunciation and vocabulary.

INSTRUMENTATION: PROCEDURE AND DATA COLLECTION

The researcher used the following instruments in the research: Vocabulary test, Pronunciation test, Teacher’s book and Questionnaire.

Vocabulary test

The researcher prepared a vocabulary test to judge student’s vocabulary. The test was sent to Yarmouk University and Jearch University where it was reviewed by four experts. The aim of the test was to know student’s knowledge about certain English words and study the process of children’s songs in improving participant’s vocabulary.

The researcher prepared the draft of the test, in which there six questions of forty points. In question one, students were told to fill in the blanks with words given in the boxes. In question two, students were told to differentiate words into food, places and colors, in third question, students were told to write the missing letter in each word. In question four, students were asked to match the words with the given picture and write in the space provided. Question five asked to re-order four sentences. In question six, students with told to match the words with their opposite. Only 40 minutes were given for the test.

Pronunciation test

The researcher conducted a pre-test to assess participant’s pronunciation. In the test, students were provided some words and told to read them that they may know and will hear in the songs. The research conducted the pre-test for the help in posttest of the students that would be based on the student’s memorization of the correct pronunciation of the given words. The researcher gave five questions of twenty-five points. Question one demanded students the find out the words that do not rhyme. In question two, the participants were asked to circle the correct word. In question three, students were told to select the right answer that show the word the researcher had read. In question four, participants were asked to circle the silent letter and in the last question, students were to classify words according to specific pronunciation.

Teacher’s book

The English teachers were provided a book prepared by the researcher which contained all the material needed to be used in the experiment. The book contained all the lesson plans, songs, objectives and resources for the lesson. The researcher suggested English teachers to plan a song that could be modeled for using children songs in practicing pronunciation and vocabulary. The lesson plan contained: aims, learning objectives, sources, and methodologies for presenting songs and worksheets related to the lesson plan.

Songs

For the lesson plans, the researcher first studied the curriculum of the sixth grade, and then selected the songs depending on the major themes the researcher selected to work on and also the availability of the songs. The songs were related to Unit 2 (How long is the bridge), Unit 3 (Jordan is not as dry as Egypt), Unit 5 (We are going to the bird park) and also included four little Monkeys as an external song.  The research found some songs using external sources like YouTube and some songs were selected from the book.

Attitudes questionnaire development and content validation

The researcher prepared questionnaire to find the quantitative data. The questionnaire was aimed to find out Sixth grade English teacher’s views, attitude and inclination towards using the songs in the classes and their observations regarding the effectiveness of songs. The first draft of the research was adapted and followed from many resources: [47,48]. The questionnaire had three sections in which participants were asked to tick the preferred choice that explains their preference. Section one; included personal information about participants: education, gender, teaching diploma and years of working experience. In section two; participants were told to give information regarding their school information: i.e. grades, class, size, public or private and curriculum. In section three, there were subsections. The researcher designed (25) statements for quantitative analysis depending on Likert scale format which assess teacher’s attitude towards their views from the pedagogical values of using songs, their attitude towards using songs in English, their observations of using songs in teaching English and also the availability to songs. The researcher added few lines to have comments of teachers. Teacher’s responses were scaled of: 1 “Strongly Disagree”, 2 “Disagree”, 3 “Neutral”, 4 “Agree”, and 5 “Strongly Agree”.

The researcher sent the first draft to the four experts from Yarmouk University and Jearsh University. The second draft was prepared in the after keeping the feedback of experts in mind. The research noted their comments and suggestions and modified in accordance. The final copy of the questionnaire consisted of three parts:

Part one

The first part included demographic data with (4) items including participant’s education, teaching diploma, gender and years of experience. These were analyzed as additional variables on the literature review. The table given below shows the items related to personal information data (Table 3).

Part One: Personal Information:

Kindly put (x) next to the choice that fits with you.

1.       Gender:                           a) male      b) female

2.       Education:                       a) Diploma        b) Bachelor       c) Master

3.       Teaching diploma:          a) yes         b) no

4.       Years of experience:       a) 1-5 years    b) 6-10 years     c)11-15 years    d) more than 15 years

Table 3: Teacher’s questionnaire: personal information data part one: personal information.

Part two

Part two of questionnaire contained information relation to school, classes, grades teacher taught, class size and English curriculum (Table 4).

Part Two: School Information:

1.       School:                                          a) private    b) public

2.       Grades you teach (this year):     a) 1    b) 2    c) 3     d) 4     e) 5       f) 6

3.       Your average class size:              a) less than 12    b) 12-20      c) 21-28    d) 29-35

4.       Curriculum you teach:                a) English for Syrian     b) Other…

Table 4: Teacher’s questionnaire: School Information.

Part three

Part three contained 25 items. A five-point Likert scale was used for rating the respondents from 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree (5= strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=neutral, 2=disagree, and 1= strongly disagree). These items dealt with the participants’ inclination and attitude towards using songs in classrooms. These items were divided into two dimensions:

  1. Pedagogical value of using songs: It included (17) items which assessed the attitude of the participants towards the use of songs in teaching. The table has been given below (Table 5). 

#

Statements

1

2

3

4

5

Pedagogical value of using songs

I believe that

1

Songs are considered a valuable pedagogical tool in learning English.

 

 

 

 

 

2

Songs help develop language acquisition.

 

 

 

 

 

3

Songs can be used to illustrate themes or topics.

 

 

 

 

 

4

Songs help learners become familiar with word stress, intonation and rhythm.

 

 

 

 

 

5

Songs enable learners to remember chunks of language.

 

 

 

 

 

6

Songs provide students with opportunity for great exposure to improve vocabulary acquisition.

 

 

 

 

 

7

Songs help improve student’s speaking skills.

 

 

 

 

 

8

Songs help students to better understanding of the culture of the target language.

 

 

 

 

 

9

Songs are useful in the teaching of sentence structure.

 

 

 

 

 

10

Songs help learners improve their listening and

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pronunciation skills.

 

 

 

 

 

11

Songs increase student’s enjoyment of learning English.

 

 

 

 

 

12

Songs add interest to the classroom routine.

 

 

 

 

 

13

Songs improve student’s motivation.

 

 

 

 

 

14

Songs help create a relaxed and non-threatening environment of learning.

 

 

 

 

 

15

Songs can be used to practice the four skills.

 

 

 

 

 

16

Songs help create more student’s participation.

 

 

 

 

 

17

Songs lower student’s anxiety        toward learning English.

 

 

 

 

 

Table 5: Teacher’s Questionnaire: Pedagogical value of using songs. 

  1. Frequency of using songs: It consisted of (8) items starting from (18) till (25). These items assessed that how often participants used songs and knew when to use it. The following table shows the related items (Table 6). 

Frequency of using songs

 

 

Always 100%

Often 80%

Sometimes 50%

Rarely 40%

Never 0%

18

I use songs in my English classes on many occasions.

 

 

 

 

 

19

Songs stimulate my students to learn real English.

 

 

 

 

 

20

I use songs to introduce the theme.

 

 

 

 

 

21

I use authentic English songs.

 

 

 

 

 

22

I use different activities when using songs.

 

 

 

 

 

23

Using songs is very flexible.

 

 

 

 

 

24

I enjoy using songs in my English language classes as a warm up activity.

 

 

 

 

 

25

I use educational songs that suit my students’ level, needs, and interest

 

 

 

 

 

Table 6: Frequency of using songs.

The researcher also gave space for additional comments and suggestions of participants and also to mention their own observations regarding the use of songs in the class and its effect on the students’ learning process.

Questionnaire reliability

Cronbach α formula is used in this study to measure the internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire. The higher the value of α, the more reliable the questionnaire is, according to the internal consistency (George & Mallery, 2003). George and Mallery (2003) provided the following scale for the value of α: (α > 0.9) excellent, (α > 0.8 good), (α > 0.7) acceptable, (α > 0.6) questionable, (α > 0.5) poor, and (α < 0.5) unacceptable. The researcher assessed the reliability statistics for the questionnaire by using Cronbach Alppha Coefficient (Table 7). 

Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha

N of Items

0.834

25

Table 7: The Reliability Statistics for the Questionnaire.

Data analysis

The researcher collected the data from student’s exam and teacher’s attitude questionnaire. After conducting experiments and getting the data, it was keenly analyzed, reported and investigated. The researcher used T-test to experimental and control group’s exams by using SPSS Program (version 19). Scores were used to report the results of Likert-type statements for the teacher’s attitude questionnaire. The researcher, after analyzing the results, interpreted, described and synthesized with the quantitative results. The results were then recorded and reported.

The Vocabulary was taught to experimental groups via flashcards or reading. The researcher would play the song, students would hear without pause and they would repeat and sing the stanza with the record. After practicing again and again with the record, the students would finally sing the song with needing the record. At the end, a post vocabulary and pronunciation test was taken of all groups.

The research also prepared a questionnaire for teacher which he distributed after getting permission from Yarmouk University and then from Directorate of Education in Jersh. The research gave the questionnaires to teachers who taught English from first to sixth grade. The researcher distributed (80) questionnaires during August and September 2019 to Jordanian public schools in Jersh.

CONCLUSION

Teaching English in our school for many years has been categorized by using the traditional approach. Recently, the teachers start to apply teaching aids. However, the limited availability of the sources in schools makes the teaching vocabulary classes frequently use posters and flashcards, while speaking and listening activities are nearly neglected, and resulted with the difficulty for the students in pronouncing some words. Due to the demands of modification in teaching and the development of technology, music and songs have been confirmed as the effective performance in teaching English, specifically for young students.

The skills such as vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation improved by adding songs in teaching English. Moreover, the listening and speaking skills of students are also getting enhanced by using songs. Furthermore, the use of songs would motivate the learners for learning English and also enjoying the English class as well.

The goals of song usage in English classes could be achieved if the teachers would apply different techniques in using songs that depend on the level of students, the interests, class schedule, and also textbook. However, prompting education is hated by the students and they prefer to learn by action or other modern approaches.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the study’s result that presents the efficiency of songs usage in teaching English, the following recommendations have proposed by the researcher:

  • The Ministry of education along with the curriculum creators and decision-makers for Jordanian curriculum should enrich English with songs that suitable for the different themes and language skills.
  • The supervisors should give emphasis to the class and the teachers on the important role of using songs. To help them in their own development and also come with different techniques and activities, they should perform different training sequences to help them in using songs.
  • Different approaches to teaching language should be aware by the English teachers. In their classes, they should be creative and suitable environment should be created for the students by applying the up-to-date techniques i.e. the student’s level of songs, the interest, and enjoyment of students, and also motivate them to interact and participate in various activities.

Recommendations for further research

The researcher has noticed after conducting this study that the Jordanian education is still required to study more. Therefore, there are recommendations from the researcher such as, the research that explores the influence of using songs in speaking skills development for the learners. Also, research could analyze the benefit of using songs in writing development. Another research could investigate the perceptions of teachers about language teaching by using songs for teenagers or elder graders. Moreover, potential research also could be conducted to investigate the attitudes of learners to language learning which using songs.

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Citation: Alefeshat HMN (2019) The Effectiveness of using Children Songs on Developing the Sixth Grader’s English Vocabulary and Pronunciation in Syrian Refugees Governmental Schools. J Community Med Public Health Care 6: 056.

Copyright: © 2019  Heba M.N. Alefeshat, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.


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