The Effect of Using Songs on Learning Vocabulary BY EFL Students

Using music and songs has always been considered a popular strategy among both teachers and learners. These tools are a great deal of help to achieving diverse goals in various areas of language teaching. It is currently a common practice to use songs in the classroom to support second language acquisition. Moreover, The literature abounds with the positive statements regarding the efficacy of music as a vehicle for first and second language acquisition. (Jalongo and Bromley, 1984; McCarthey, 1985; Martin, 1983; Mitchell, 1983; Jolly, 1975). Teachers of English as a second or foreign language enthusiastically report about their successful use of music and associated song lyrics with their students. For example, Huy Le (2007), a Vietnamese ESL teacher, observed that music is highly valued by both students and teachers in learning and teaching speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Other reports by teachers from the United States (Baez, 1993), Taiwan (Katchen, 1988), Canada (Magahay-Johnson, 1984), Japan (Moriya, 1988), Mexico (Domoney and Harris, 1993), and South Africa (Puhl, 1989) support the importance and usefulness of music and music activities in the teaching ESL learners. Indeed, teachers recognize that music animates their teaching and changes their classroom into cheerful atmosphere. Since most of the reported enthusiasm for using music in teaching language skills and components come from individual teacher’s experiences, classroom anecdotes, and action research, it is important to carefully examine this effect in an empirical study. For this reason the present paper attempts to examine the effect of using songs on learning English vocabulary by EFL learners. TO do so, two intact classes including participants with intermediate level of language proficiency were randomly assigned to control (n=21) and experimental groups (n=25). The level of language proficiency was assessed through using Cambridge language proficiency test (PET). In this study pretest-posttest design was used and during the treatment which lasted for 6 sessions, participants in the experimental group received new vocabulary items through the use of songs, while the control class learned the same items through studying the vocabulary lists provided in their textbooks. Results of independent t-test revealed no significant difference between the two groups. These findings can make a contribution to the body of research on vocabulary learning by Iranian EFL learners.

کلیدواژه ها:

English songs ، Vocabulary ، Textbook ، Memorization