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Music, movement and memory: Pedagogical songs as mnemonic aids
Abstract
This article proposes a theoretical foundation and practical strategies for incorporating pedagogical songs and corresponding gestures into the language classroom. Music and movement are connected to verbal memory, which is a key component of language learning. Music and language are processed in the same areas of the brain, and recent empirical studies conducted with pre‐K‐12 learners around the world have found a range of benefits when music is integrated into language classrooms. In addition, neuroscientific research has found that presenting text through music can lead to increased recall. Verbal recall can be further enhanced by the incorporation of gesture. Pedagogical songs—created for classroom use and designed to target specific linguistic items—can harness the memory benefits of music for language learning. When teachers create these songs themselves, they can have full control over the songs’ linguistic content. This article outlines three approaches to the creation of pedagogical songs with accompanying examples, so teachers can create lyrics that fit the content they are teaching. Research‐based strategies for incorporating gestures and teaching songs are also presented.
... However, despite the previous studies acknowledging the benefits of music in young EFL learners' attainment of lexical gains, the effectiveness of music for boosting language learning in young learners has been questioned (e.g., Racette & Peretz, 2007;Winter, 2010), and it is still submitted to test (Chen, 2020). Among those who found music as a powerful tool in EFL teaching, Shin (2017) and Werner (2018) have pointed out the need of providing practical guides to implement it into the classroom, for example, by proposing guidelines for creating songs for learning purposes addressing school and pre-school students. In this line, useful resources can be found on the web, for example, to look into techniques on how to teach songs to children (e.g., Booth, n.d.) or to revise a selection of some catchy and engaging songs for incorporation into the English language classroom (e.g., Britishcouncil.org; ...
... Concomitantly, Werner (2018) concurs that chants can include gestures paired with the selected target words, considering movements in accord with the words and distinct gestures for each lexical item. In the same way, Shin (2017) asserts that teachers should carefully prepare the appropriate gestures according to the song. ...
Songs and chants in EFL education are both artistic and pedagogical acts belonging to the same family of musical expressions, whose practical use in the classroom is not unfamiliar among teachers. Nevertheless, little effort has been made to distinguish between each other. In this sense, the popularity of songs in the context of EFL/ESL education is well-manifested in research, especially in the context of young learners' teaching, yet little has been said regarding chants on formal studies. The nature of chants entails a less complex musical composition, which lends itself to favoring language development both receptively and productively. While both singing and chanting as pedagogical resources are found positive in learning a new language in aspects such as phonological awareness, pronunciation, word retrieval, and other linguistic functions; it seems that chanting works exceptionally well for stimulating young learners' vocabulary retention, which is a capacity associated with long-term memory. The ease and novelty of conveying language in an unconventional fashion allowed by chanting, afford for simplified and fun repetitions and production of the target language, which may represent the virtues responsible for its positive impact on the young learners' vocabulary learning. Practical recommendations for composing chants and guiding teaching activities based on them are explained.
... There is growing evidence linking songs with the development of vocabulary. In this study, familiar melodies refer to the pedagogical songs [4], which used children"s nursery rhymes as tunes for the songs in learning the target vocabulary. Wallace [3] maintains that melody aids memorability, i.e., "melody can chunk the text into melodic phrases and link textual phrases with similar melodic contours" (p.1482). ...
... Wallace [3] maintains that melody aids memorability, i.e., "melody can chunk the text into melodic phrases and link textual phrases with similar melodic contours" (p.1482). Moreover, melodies provide an information-rich context that is critically connected to the text [3], represent thoughts, e.g., cultural values linked to social significance of education [9] (p.83) and symbolize feelings [4], [5], and possess rhythmic patterns for text recall [2], [3]. ...
Studies show the role of songs in enhancing brain development. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of familiar melodies in the vocabulary development of the kindergarten learners. Using a two-group pretest-posttest design, the experimental group (N=25) was taught using familiar melodies and the control group (N=25) was taught using conventional method. The results showed that the experimental group had significant improvement in their vocabulary performance. The study provides evidence that songs with familiar melodies are effective in developing the vocabulary of kindergarten learners.
... Music is one tool to engage students and provide a pathway for connections and deeper understanding. Werner (2018) asserted that songs created for classroom use and designed to target specific linguistic items could harness the memory benefits of music for language learning. These songs are essentially poems that pack much meaning into a few words. ...
People are increasingly aware that metacognition can help us solve problems more effectively. Scholars believe that students’ metacognition can be facilitated by promoting the interplay between the unlimited long work memory for holding schemas and limited work memory for processing ongoing activities. In this study, a workshop designed teacher mediation method between English language teachers and students is implemented that focuses on instructional talk supported by a visualized thinking framework in learning English grammar. Consequent to student’s automation from retrieving schemas to engage in the self-regulatory process of English grammar problem-solving, this section involves three English language teachers and students in their taught classes in a secondary school in China. The teachers were equipped with an explicit approach to teacher mediation through researcher-designed workshops. As the teacher mediation approach was implemented in English language classrooms, the researchers made meaning of their experiences through the dialogue and interaction between teachers and students by revealing the essence in the mediation process: dialogic assessment, cognitive scheme construction, automated schema retrieval, and metacognitive schema construction. Through teachers’ English pedagogical grammar practice in the three example cases, metacognitive teachers and learners are expected to be cultivated in an interdisciplinary view.
... Music's positive effect on the verbatim recall of text are well documented [23] and have been used by foreign language educators for decades to teach grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, and to promote a positive atmosphere in classrooms [24]. Music and song are also used for memorizing sequences of words in other disciplines [25]. ...
Millions of people worldwide are taking up foreign languages with logographic writing systems, such as Japanese or Chinese. Learning thousands of characters necessary for literacy in those languages is a unique challenge to those coming from alphabetic backgrounds, and sustaining motivation in the face of such a momentous task is a struggle for many students. Many games exist for this purpose, but few offer production memory practice such as writing, and the vast majority are thinly veiled flashcards. To address this gap, we created Radical Tunes—a musical kanji-writing game—which combines production practice with musical mnemonic by assigning a melody to each element of a character. We chose to utilize music as it is a powerful tool that can be employed to enhance learning and memory. In this article, we explore whether incorporating melodies into a kanji learning game can positively affect the memorization of the stroke order/direction and overall shape of several Japanese characters, similar to the mnemonic effect of adding music to text. Specifically, we conducted two experimental studies, finding that (1) music improved immersion—an important factor related to learning; and (2) there was a positive correlation between melody presence and character production, particularly for more complex characters.
Ini adalah penelitian interdisiplin yang membahas fakta bahasa, sosial, dan fenomena pertunjukan Didi Kempot. Tinjauan sosiolinguistik pertunjukan digunakan sebagai paradigm kajian untuk melihat karya panggung Didi Kempot. Penelitian ini melihat bahwa terdapat hubungan yang menarik antara panggung pertunjukan Didi Kempot dengan bahasa pertunjukan. Penelitian ini memandang, panggung pertunjukan Didi Kempot tidak hanya bertindak sebagai tempat penelitian sosiolinguistik pertunjukan, tetapi juga secara bersamaan menjadi alat dan kerangka kerja bagi penelitian sosiolinguistik, sehingga kajian ini memiliki manfaat yang cukup signifikan dalam kajian interdisiplin, yakni hubungan antara musik, fenomena social, dan fenomena berbahasa. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk melihat konektivitas masa lalu ke sekarang melalui lagu dalam tinjauan sosiolinguistik pertunjukan pada karya-karya panggung pertunjukan Didi Kempot. Penelitian kualitatif ini menggunakan metode etnografi virtual. Data dikumpulkan dengan teknik observasi lapangan dan terlibat dalam ruang virtual internet dengan masuk ke grup-grup “Sobat Ambyar Didi Kempot” yang ada di telegram, Instagram, dan facebook. Sedang pengamatan atas pertunjukan Didi Kemepot dilakukan dengan menggunakan platform youtube. Analisis dilakukan dengan mengidentifikasi terlebihdahulu indeksikalitas bahasa yang berpadu dengan pertunjukan musik, gerakan dan respon penonton terhadap penampilan Didi Kempot di panggung pertunjukan. Hasil penelitian ini menemukan bahwa, transmisi nilai-nilai budaya, dan makna konseptual bahasa pertunjukan menjadi ruang ekspresi bagi “Sobat Ambyar Didi Kempot,” kami juga melihat bagaimana sosiolinguistik pertunjukan mampu menunjukkan berbagi ragam budaya berbahasa dalam panggung pertunjukan, seperti munculnya istilah sobat ambyar, cendol dawet, raja campursari, Godfather of Broken Heart, Lord Didi, patah hati tanpa harus merasakan cinta, sebagai ekspresi berbahasa dalam panggung pertunjukan Didi Kempot.
There is currently little information about the kinds of foreign language pop music, songs and activities used by language learners in informal learning contexts. This systematic analysis provides an overview of research from 2010–2020 in an attempt to describe how foreign language learners find, listen to, and engage with pop songs from another country or culture and how this can lead to increased informal language learning, using qualitative observations and interview responses found in published articles to conduct thematic analysis using grounded theory. Thematic analysis resulted in six themes within the peer-reviewed qualitative journal articles, and we argue that more research is needed into learner perspectives and about how learners engage autonomously with L2 pop music in informal language learning.
In the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Senegalese musicians produced a large body of songs addressing the coronavirus. These songs engage with prophylaxes, symptoms, instructions in case of infection, and metaphysical conceptions about the origin and meaning of the pandemic. These songs are part of a national strategy aimed at containing and eradicating the coronavirus by developing “COVID-literacy”: knowledge about the pandemic which is spread through music. In this article, we examine a socio-local history of music’s use during health crises, its place in local religious communities, and how its use interlaces linguistic, traditional, and metaphysical tenets.
Commercially successful pop lyrics are an important part of students’ lives, represent authentic language material, are easily accessible, and may thus constitute a helpful starting point for various aspects of foreign language education. Despite this, they seem to be underexploited,especially when topics such as grammar instruction are tackled. This may be due to their (traditionally ascribed) “low culture” status and the undesired presence of allegedly ungrammatical content, notably in terms of non-standard features. Based on a corpus of c. 550,000 words, this paper will present an analysis of the salience of such features in Englishpop lyrics. The results suggest that the material studied actually features a rich array of nonstandard grammatical phenomena, such as multiple negation, ain’t as auxiliary, me instead of I, copula deletion, etc. (as commonly proscribed in English language education). From a pedagogical perspective, it is therefore argued that using lyrics in the classroom may offer students a welcome opportunity to engage with various types of grammaticality, introducing them to authentic language in a naturalistic way. More specific issues to be addressed with the eventual aim of raising students’ language awareness through working with pop lyrics are that assessments of grammaticality are (i) very much context-dependent, for instance in terms of acceptability of certain structures and variants in different registers (e.g. lyrics vs. conversation vs. formal writing) and (ii) may also differ across varieties of English represented in the lyrics (e.g. various British dialects and sociolects, African American English as represented in rap, Jamaican Creoleas represented in reggae, etc.).
How to help English learners learn the language as a foreign language effectively is an essential issue which needs to be concerned having a correct pronunciation is also very important .This study intended to explore the examines weather using the English songs can increase students motivation on learning English and it also can used to improve the EFL learners' pronunciation. They have the opportunity of speaking in English about their favorite songs. And the different kinds of English songs worked for experimental group and the effect of English songs on EFL learners' pronunciation was investigated. This paper report the result of two groups with pretest and posttest experimental design which was done in an English institute of Mazandaran province in the year 2012. The study, which held over eight sessions was to determine the effect of English songs on language learners pronunciation. In this project which was done on 30 students at intermediate level were assigned to two groups. First the pre-test measure of reading and pronunciation ability was performed for both groups. The pre-test was some words out of the song, and the English song was thought to the experimental group in 8 sessions, about 15 minutes each session. The findings showed that use of English songs had impact on language learners' pronunciation, and it improved their oral production.
This article explains why songs and movement are effective components of English language classes for young learners and presents lyrics, suggested movements, and options for a number of songs.
Songs have been part of the human experience for as long as we can remember. As Gugliemino (1986) stated, adults sing at religious services, bars, in the shower, and listening to the car radio. Songs have become an integral part of our language experience, and if used in coordination with a language lesson they can be of great value. Fortunately, with the expanding prevalence of the Internet and specifically the World Wide Web into both the classrooms and lives of students, access to music and lyrics has been made easier. This paper will focus on the reasons for using songs by demonstrating their effectiveness as a learning tool.
The major aim of this research is to determine the effectiveness of using songs in teaching English language to primary school students. This research will specifically investigate to what extent songs can contribute to the development of students' language proficiency. The research is designed to find out whether using songs can be an effective way in creating positive attitude and motivation in language learners. The research will be carried out through the use of questionnaire. The data will be analyzed using the SPSS software to determine the best statistical technique to be used to test the hypotheses and to interpret the result. This is a preliminary survey research and it is hoped that this research will give an opportunity to teachers to realize songs help improve students' language proficiency. From the survey, it has been discovered that the use of song not only helps the understanding, it also stimulates and increases the students' interest to learn, enjoy and engage in the learning process. Furthermore, it accelerates students' confidence, learning ability and skill when activities are highly motivated and memorable. Future researchers should extend this research to other samples in other localities and cultures.
Foreign language education in the twenty-first century still teaches vocabulary mainly through reading and listening activities. This is due to the link between teaching practice and traditional philosophy of language, where language is considered to be an abstract phenomenon of the mind. However, a number of studies have shown that accompanying words or phrases of a foreign language with gestures leads to better memory results. In this paper, I review behavioral research on the positive effects of gestures on memory. Then I move to the factors that have been addressed as contributing to the effect, and I embed the reviewed evidence in the theoretical framework of embodiment. Finally, I argue that gestures accompanying foreign language vocabulary learning create embodied representations of those words. I conclude by advocating the use of gestures in future language education as a learning tool that enhances the mind.
Increasing evidence suggests that musical expertise influences brain organization and brain functions. Moreover, results at the behavioral and neurophysiological levels reveal that musical expertise positively influences several aspects of speech processing, from auditory perception to speech production. In this review, we focus on the main results of the literature that led to the idea that musical expertise may benefit second language acquisition. We discuss several interpretations that may account for the influence of musical expertise on speech processing in native and foreign languages, and we propose new directions for future research.
This study presents the first experimental evidence that singing can facilitate short-term paired-associate phrase learning in an unfamiliar language (Hungarian). Sixty adult participants were randomly assigned to one of three "listen-and-repeat" learning conditions: speaking, rhythmic speaking, or singing. Participants in the singing condition showed superior overall performance on a collection of Hungarian language tests after a 15-min learning period, as compared with participants in the speaking and rhythmic speaking conditions. This superior performance was statistically significant (p < .05) for the two tests that required participants to recall and produce spoken Hungarian phrases. The differences in performance were not explained by potentially influencing factors such as age, gender, mood, phonological working memory ability, or musical ability and training. These results suggest that a "listen-and-sing" learning method can facilitate verbatim memory for spoken foreign language phrases.
In an effort to understand how children's literacy is affected by their life experiences, this article analyses the natural disposition of children to engage in musical activities that connect them to previous experiences and allow them to build new thoughts. Music is inherent to children's experiences and is related to sounds heard everyday, which facilitate mental imagery. This article focuses on the use of music as a tool that is instrumental in engaging children in thinking activities that promote literacy development. The author shows evidence of how music serves as a scaffold to foster thinking, self‐expression and cultural awareness in children, including second‐language learners, based on findings from an action research project conducted with pre‐kindergarten to second‐grade children and their teachers. The project used their explorations with music and soundscapes (sounds that characterise the environment) to promote thinking and enhance their creative writing.
The unique magic of music in the English language learning classroom is explored, with emphasis on research, learning objectives, and rewards that come from using music regularly.
This hypothesis raising article deals with the relationship between four phenomena: (1) involuntary verbal rehearsal, also called the “Din in the head”, (2) Piaget's egocentric speech, (3) Vygotsky's inner speech, and (4) the song-stuck-in-my-head (SSIMH) phenomena. The similarity of the Din to the SSIMH phenomenon is suggested based on a tentative pilot questionnaire, the database concerning the Din, a few insights from sources not yet considered in the Din literature (sports, neurology, and subvocalization studies), and parallel phenomena in visual and kinaesthetic rehearsal. It is hypothesized that song may act as a LAD activator, or be a strategy of the LAD in the ontogenetic development of language.
Language learners need to feel secure and to be free of stress so they can focus on language tasks (Ellis, 1994). A language teacher should use different tools to encourage students and make them involved in learning process. Humor and song are effective tools, as they develop creativity and make the class environment an appropriate setting for language learning. This paper examines the effects that humorous songs may have on listening comprehension and on immediate and delayed recall by a group of EFL learners. To achieve this aim, an experimental research study was conducted in Iranian English Institutes. A pre-post design was applied to explore whether humorous songs could enhance listening comprehension in EFL learners. The findings show that the experimental group outperformed the control group in a listening comprehension test, but humorous songs' effect does not make much difference between immediate and delayed recall test scores.
The present experiment was designed to localize the neural substrates that process music-syntactic incongruities, using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Electrically, such processing has been proposed to be indicated by early right-anterior negativity (ERAN), which is elicited by harmonically inappropriate chords occurring within a major-minor tonal context. In the present experiment, such chords elicited an early effect, taken as the magnetic equivalent of the ERAN (termed mERAN). The source of mERAN activity was localized in Broca's area and its right-hemisphere homologue, areas involved in syntactic analysis during auditory language comprehension. We find that these areas are also responsible for an analysis of incoming harmonic sequences, indicating that these regions process syntactic information that is less language-specific than previously believed.
The hypothesis that music training can improve verbal memory was tested in children. The results showed that children with music training demonstrated better verbal but not visual memory than did their counterparts without such training. When these children were followed up after a year, those who had begun or continued music training demonstrated significant verbal memory improvement. Students who discontinued the training did not show any improvement. Contrary to the differences in verbal memory between the groups, their changes in visual memory were not significantly different. Consistent with previous findings for adults (A. S. Chan, Y. Ho, & M. Cheung, 1998), the results suggest that music training systematically affects memory processing in accordance with possible neuroanatomical modifications in the left temporal lobe.
Vocabulary acquisition is a crucial step in acquiring a language. The acquisition may require strenuous effort especially to young, low proficiency ESL learners. The purpose of this action research is to investigate an effective way in helping low proficiency primary school ESL learners in rural area to widen and master their English vocabulary. The research focuses on studying the effect of using action songs in teaching action words to young ESL learners. A total of 35 nine-year-old children from a primary school in the East Coast of Malaysia participated in this study. A mixed-method research approach was employed for almost three weeks/12 hours to find out the effect of English action songs and rhymes on the teaching and learning of action words. Three instruments were used; vocabulary test, self-assessment forms regarding the participants’ feelings towards the integration of action songs and group interviews. The results revealed that using action songs help the children to learn action words. The integration of action songs is an ingenious way to facilitate the young, low proficiency ESL learners in comprehending action words.
This article contains the procedures and findings of an investigation carried out by a team of teachers with the purpose of motivating students to speak English. We observed students' lack confidence to talk and that they had little motivation toward learning English. Thus, we used songs as a main resource in conjunction with different kind of activities thus giving students the opportunity to learn in a fun way during their first years of learning a foreign language. As a result of this research project, we found that learners could pronounce many words freely and accurately in a non-threatening environment. Students acquired new vocabulary and, the most important aspect, they were motivated to learn English.
This paper reports an empirical study that examined the widespread practice of using songs in language teaching for young learners. The study may represent the first methodologically rigorous assessment of vocabulary acquisition through songs as used in language teaching. Over a seven-week period including fifteen 40-minute classes, three groups of students from two private kindergartens in Beijing were taught five short English phrases of 4-8 words through each of three conditions (songs, choral repetition, control) in a within-subject repeated measures design. Vocabulary acquisition was measured by the number of meaningful morphemes produced by the students in a picture description task administered before and after the teaching period. Results indicated significant acquisition for items learned through songs and choral repetition, but not for control items. The implication is that songs may indeed contain ünportant pedagogical value.
The use of music and song in the English language-learning classroom is not new. While many teachers intuitively feel that music is beneficial in teaching English language, there is sometimes a lack of the theoretical underpinnings that support such a choice. There are examples in the literature to argue the strong relationship between music and language that are substantiated by research in the fields of cognitive science, anthropology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, First Language Acquisition (FLA) and Second Language Acquisition (SLA).
In the first comprehensive study of the relationship between music and language from the standpoint of cognitive neuroscience, the author challenges the widespread belief that music and language are processed independently. Since Plato's time, the relationship between music and language has attracted interest and debate from a wide range of thinkers. Recently, scientific research on this topic has been growing rapidly, as scholars from diverse disciplines including linguistics, cognitive science, music cognition, and neuroscience are drawn to the music-language interface as one way to explore the extent to which different mental abilities are processed by separate brain mechanisms. Accordingly, the relevant data and theories have been spread across a range of disciplines. This book provides the first synthesis, arguing that music and language share deep and critical connections, and that comparative research provides a powerful way to study the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying these uniquely human abilities.
Foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) has been the subject of several studies aimed to optimize learning of a foreign language in the classroom. However, few studies provide specific curriculum-based methodological strategies to be used in the classroom in order to lower the anxiety level. In this article, two experimental classes of 8th-grade students participated in a 5-week intervention program aimed to teach French as a foreign language through music during the regular French classes. One class had a higher anxiety average (ExpHi) compared with the other (ExpLo). The self-reported level of anxiety of the two experimental classes was compared after the intervention program with the self-reported level of anxiety of two control classes with similar levels of anxiety (CtrHi and CtrLo). The study also compared the opinions of students from the experimental classes regarding their overall experience of the foreign language classes. Findings indicated that teaching songs during FL classes was perceived as an enjoyable experience by students from classes with both high and low anxiety; however, this teaching method decreased the FLCA average of classes of students with rather high anxiety, but not of the ones with a rather low anxiety.
The purpose of this study was to determine (a) if music affected the number of words learned when paired with a teaching activity using gestures, and (b) if it also affected the ability to transfer those words learned. Subjects were 60 first graders divided into three groups. Results revealed a significant increase in the number of words learned and transferred for the music-gesture treatment group over the gesture only treatment group and the control group.
The melody of a song, in some situations, can facilitate learning and recall. The experiments in this article demonstrate that text is better recalled when it is heard as a song rather than as speech, provided the music repeats so that it is easily learned. When Ss heard 3 verses of a text sung with the same melody, they had better recall than when the same text was spoken. However, the opposite occurred when Ss heard a single verse of a text sung or when Ss heard different melodies for each verse of a song; in these instances, Ss had better recall when the text was spoken. Furthermore, the experiments indicate that the melody contributes more than just rhythmical information. Music is a rich structure that chunks words and phrases, identifies line lengths, identifieds stress patterns, and adds emphasis as well as focuses listeners on surface characteristics. The musical structure can assist in learning, in retrieving, and if necessary, in reconstructing a text.
This study uses conversation analysis (CA) to investigate the coupling of specific linguistic items with specific gestures in second language (L2) learning over time. In particular, we are interested in how gestures accompany learning of new vocabulary. CA-informed studies of gesture have previously shown the importance of embodiment in L2 use and situated learning, substantiating the idea that gestures are ingrained in the ongoing work to achieve and maintain intersubjectivity. We investigate how the relation between talk and related embodied activities develops over time and indicates learning processes. Specifically, we show how gesture-talk combinations that the co-participants deploy at a certain point in time to display understanding are reused at later occasions. Examples investigated here are the prepositions under and across, and our data indicate that at least these specific linguistic constructions are deeply embodied in ways that change slowly over time around an iconic core, as the linguistic items are being learned, suggesting a strong link between L2 vocabulary learning and gestures.
This article looks at the effects of a teaching sequence of song-based activities on the L2 vocabulary acquisition of a group of five-year-old Spanish child EFL learners. Twenty-five preschool children received three 30-minute lessons organized around the presentation and practice of a well-known children's song. Vocabulary picture tests were administered to each child immediately before and after the teaching sessions, followed by a delayed post-test five weeks later. The findings of this small piece of research seem to provide some evidence to show that teaching new language through a song can lead to the development of children's receptive knowledge of vocabulary. However, exposure to the song input was insufficient to develop productive knowledge in the majority of the children. Some implications for learning English in preschool are discussed. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press; All rights reserved.
This study investigated the extent to which word games and culturally relevant songs and stories could motivate senior secondary school students in Nigeria, thereby enhancing their performance in English. A pre-test/post-test control group design was used. The sample consisted of 100 senior secondary school II students randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. Four instru-ments were designed, validated, and used for data collection. Four hypotheses were formulated and tested. The findings revealed that the use of word games and culturally relevant instructional activities was beneficial for these students, as they served as an effective motivational strategy that contributed to better perfor-mance in English-language learning at the senior secondary school level. Cette étude a porté sur la mesure dans laquelle l'emploi des jeux de mots et des chansons culturellement significatives pouvait motiver des élèves du secondaire au Nigeria, et donc améliorer leurs compétences en anglais. La méthodologie retenue reposait sur l'emploi d'un prétest et d'un posttest avec un groupe témoin. L'échantillon était composé de 100 élèves du secondaire II assignés au hasard à un groupe expérimental ou à un groupe témoin. La cueillette de données s'est effectuée avec quatre instruments qui avaient été conçus et validés à cette fin. Les résultats indiquent que les élèves ont profité des jeux de mots et des activités pédagogiques culturellement significatives et que l'emploi de ces outils servait de stratégie motivationnelle efficace pour améliorer leur performance dans l'appren-tissage de l'anglais au niveau secondaire.
Using songs in a language class takes advantage of the natural connection between students and music. This article describes a project that develops writing and speaking through song, using technology to help build students' knowledge of U.S. culture as well as their ability to communicate using descriptive, narrative, and expository rhetorical styles. The project consists of a series of assignments designed for a class of English as a second language students at the intermediate proficiency level in a university academic preparation program. The project has a humanities focus, involving students in connecting songs with social and historical issues in U.S. culture. Teachers can easily expand or adapt the project in regard to content and concepts, language proficiency levels, targeted language skills, and age group to support any textbook or curriculum.
In Taiwan, English was only officially taught at the secondary and tertiary levels before 2001. Since 2001, English courses have been formally incorporated into the curriculum in primary schools. Research on teaching and assessing English in primary school education is relatively new compared with research on other levels of education in Taiwan. The present study investigated the degree to which games, songs, and stories helped increase primary school pupils’ English vocabulary size and encouraged learning in an intensive English course. It also explored how different test techniques influenced pupils’ performance on a vocabulary test. Seventy-two primary school pupils participated in the study. The results showed that games, songs, and stories had a positive effect on learning and increasing the pupils’ English vocabulary. In the vocabulary test, the pupils in higher grades outperformed those in lower grades and performed differently in terms of test techniques.
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RDRUSQYNYCU2RGDH5FWD/full?target=10.1080/03004279.2012.680899
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to my Lord for giving me strength and for directing me to the guidance,I needed. I would like to express my appreciation to my family whose,love and encouragement have made my efforts worthwhile. Loving thanks go to Rebeca, Samuel, and Sharon for believing in me and for their assistance in completing this task. I thank Rebeca for helping with research, Samuel for the initial recordings used in conducting the pilot studies, and Sharon for her indispensable help on the domestic front. Thanks go to my husband,Carlos for time spent retrieving articles and making copies. I also thank my parents, Claude
In two experiments we tested the hypothesis that music, in the form of a familiar melody, can serve as an effective mnemonic device. Prior research has provided very little support for this commonly held belief. In both studies, participants learned a list of names that they heard either spoken or sung to a familiar tune. In Experiment 1, the melody was "Pop Goes the Weasel"; in Experiment 2, the melody was "Yankee Doodle." We measured the number of trials to learn the list initially and the number of trials to relearn the list a week later. In both studies, there was no advantage in initial learning for those who learned the names to the musical accompaniment. However, in both studies, participants who heard the sung version required fewer trials to relearn the list of names a week later than did participants who heard the spoken version.
A number of studies suggest a link between musical training and general cognitive abilities. Despite some positive results, there is disagreement about which abilities are improved. One line of research leads to the hypothesis that verbal abilities in general, and verbal memory in particular, are related to musical training. In the present article, we review this line of research and present newly collected data comparing trained musicians to non-musicians on a number of tasks that recruit verbal memory. The results showed an advantage for musicians' long-term verbal memory that disappeared when articulatory suppression was introduced. In addition, we found evidence for a greater verbal working memory span in musicians. Together, these results show that musical training may influence verbal working memory and long-term memory, and they suggest that these improved abilities are due to enhanced verbal rehearsal mechanisms in musicians.
Offers practical suggestions for incorporating music activities into the adult English-as-a-Second-or- Other-Language (ESOL) classroom. Focuses on reasons for using music, guidelines for selecting songs, categories of music activities, guidelines for structuring classroom music activities, and ways to use music in adult ESOL classes. (Author/VWL)
In recent years there has been considerable public interest in the extra-musical effects of music education, but this has been accompanied by sustained scholarly investigation only to some extent. Research findings have tentatively suggested, however, that a relationship exists between
musical learning and language development. This empirical study attempts to explore that relationship by asking whether music, employed as a teaching tool in the modern foreign languages (MFL) classroom, can help to accelerate pupils’ language learning. 56 pupils at a large secondary
school in the UK were the subjects of the study: these were divided between experimental and control groups. An intervention based on a song was found to be significantly more effective than conventional methods in the short term in helping subjects to memorise vocabulary items. The implications
for this finding are discussed, in the context of the current debate about extrinsic justification of the arts.
The intent of this study was to explore the use of music as a strategy to promote better memory for manual signs with children
with autism, who have been exposed to simultaneous communication. The 10 children tested were taught a total of 14 signs under
two conditions. One condition involved signs taught in conjunction with music and speech. The other condition involved signs
taught in conjunction with rhythm and speech. The number of correctly imitated signed words and correcly imitated spoken words
out of 7 total, were measured under both conditions. Results from 2 factorial ANOVAs indicated significant main effects for
condition type (music vs. rhythm) for both the number of imitated signed words (F = 6.54, p < .05) and the number of imitated spoken words (F = 6.33, p < .02). In each case, correct imitation favored music condition training over rhythm condition training. The results are
discussed in terms of representing a potential first step in using music within a simultaneous communication context to promote
better pragmatic skills with children with autism.
The melody of a song, in some situations, can facilitate learning and recall. The experiments in this article demonstrate that text is better recalled when it is heard as a song rather than as speech, provided the music repeats so that it is easily learned. When Ss heard 3 verses of a text sung with the same melody, they had better recall than when the same text was spoken. However, the opposite occurred when Ss heard a single verse of a text sung or when Ss heard different melodies for each verse of a song; in these instances, Ss had better recall when the text was spoken. Furthermore, the experiments indicate that the melody contributes more than just rhythmic information. Music is a rich structure that chunks words and phrases, identifies line lengths, identifies stress patterns, and adds emphasis as well as focuses listeners on surface characteristics. The musical structure can assist in learning, in retrieving, and if necessary, in reconstructing a text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
It has previously been demonstrated that enactment (i.e., performing representative gestures during encoding) enhances memory for concrete words, in particular action words. Here, we investigate the impact of enactment on abstract word learning in a foreign language. We further ask if learning novel words with gestures facilitates sentence production. In a within-subjects paradigm, participants first learned 32 abstract sentences from an artificial corpus conforming with Italian phonotactics. Sixteen sentences were encoded audiovisually. Another set of 16 sentences was also encoded audiovisually, but, in addition, each single word was accompanied by a symbolic gesture. Participants were trained for 6 days. Memory performance was assessed daily using different tests. The overall results support the prediction that learners have better memory for words encoded with gestures. In a transfer test, participants produced new sentences with the words they had acquired. Items encoded through gestures were used more frequently, demonstrating their enhanced accessibility in memory. The results are interpreted in terms of embodied cognition. Implications for teaching and learning are suggested.
The work of Paul Broca has been of pivotal importance in the localization of some higher cognitive brain functions. He first reported that lesions to the caudal part of the inferior frontal gyrus were associated with expressive deficits. Although most of his claims are still true today, the emergence of novel techniques as well as the use of comparative analyses prompts modern research for a revision of the role played by Broca's area. Here we review current research showing that the inferior frontal gyrus and the ventral premotor cortex are activated for tasks other than language production. Specifically, a growing number of studies report the involvement of these two regions in language comprehension, action execution and observation, and music execution and listening. Recently, the critical involvement of the same areas in representing abstract hierarchical structures has also been demonstrated. Indeed, language, action, and music share a common syntactic-like structure. We propose that these areas are tuned to detect and represent complex hierarchical dependencies, regardless of modality and use. We speculate that this capacity evolved from motor and premotor functions associated with action execution and understanding, such as those characterizing the mirror-neuron system.
Integrating experiences with music in the early childhood classroom supports English language learners’ literacy development
(Peregoy and Boyle, Reading, writing, and learning in ESL. Pearson, Boston, 2008; Saricoban and Metin, Songs, verse and games
for teaching grammar. Internet TESL J, 2000). This article describes the benefits of incorporating musical experiences into
daily instruction and provides practical activities for classroom implementation, e.g., reading, writing, and singing songs
for language skill development, reading fluency, and writing progress. Despite a teacher’s level of aesthetic appreciation
and musical training, the value of fostering creativity and enhancing literacy instruction through music is vital in today’s
diverse early childhood classrooms. Music can transform classrooms into positive learning environments where children thrive
academically, socially, and emotionally. Providing children with structured and open-ended musical activities, creating an
atmosphere of mutual trust and respect, and sharing the joy of creativity with each other all are foundational to bases for
the growth and development of the early childhood learner.
Chants and songs have long been recognised as fun and child-friendly tools in both First and Second Language Acquisition. This article proposes that this pedagogic recourse has a strong linguistic justification based on recent neurological studies on how the brain processes and produces speech. However, the main focus of the article is looking at the why and how of using songs and chants in the young learner classroom. Canciones y trozos de lenguaje rítmico (es decir chants) han ganado un lugar merecido en la enseñanza de una lengua, primera o segunda. Este artículo propone que este recurso pedagógico tiene probada justificación lingüística basada en estudios neurológicos que investigan como el cerebro procesa y produce el habla. El énfasis principal de este artículo será examinar como mejor aprovechar este recurso pedagógica con alumnos en los primeros años de primaria.
How can ELT be made enjoyable and effective? One feasible pedagogical application is to integrate English songs into ELT. Song, a combination of music and lyrics, possesses many intrinsic merits, such as a kaleidoscope of culture, expressiveness, recitability and therapeutic functions, which render it an invaluable source for language teaching. This paper provides theoretical arguments and practical support for using English songs in ELT.
The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of singing paired with signing on receptive vocabulary skills of elementary English as a Second Language (ESL) students. Eighty children attended language sessions in one of the following rehearsal conditions: sung text paired with signs, spoken text paired with signs, sung text, and a control group of spoken text only. Pretest and posttest data were analyzed to determine gains in receptive vocabulary identification. Results from this study indicate that all four groups made significant pretest to posttest gains. Children in the sung text paired with sign and the spoken text paired with sign conditions, however, made significantly greater gains in vocabulary recognition than those in the control condition of spoken text only. These findings suggest the benefits of integrating signs into second language rehearsal to provide visual cues and to engage students in meaningful physical participation. The condition yielding the highest mean gain score was that in which signing was paired with singing, indicating there may be advantages to using a combination of the two for language acquisition.
Previous research has suggested that the use of song can facilitate recall of text. This study examined the effect of repetition of a melody across verses, familiarity with the melody, rhythm, and other structural processing hypotheses to explain this phenomenon. Two experiments were conducted, each with 100 participants recruited from undergraduate Psychology programs (44 men, 156 women, M age = 28.5 yr., SD = 9.4). In Exp. 1, participants learned a four-verse ballad in one of five encoding conditions (familiar melody, unfamiliar melody, unknown rhythm, known rhythm, and spoken). Exp. 2 assessed the effect of familiarity in rhythm-only conditions and of pre-exposure with a previously unfamiliar melody. Measures taken were number of verbatim words recalled and number of lines produced with correct syllabic structure. Analysis indicated that rhythm, with or without musical accompaniment, can facilitate recall of text, suggesting that rhythm may provide a schematic frame to which text can be attached. Similarly, familiarity with the rhythm or melody facilitated recall. Findings are discussed in terms of integration and dual-processing theories.
The comparative study of music and language is drawing an increasing amount of research interest. Like language, music is a human universal involving perceptually discrete elements organized into hierarchically structured sequences. Music and language can thus serve as foils for each other in the study of brain mechanisms underlying complex sound processing, and comparative research can provide novel insights into the functional and neural architecture of both domains. This review focuses on syntax, using recent neuroimaging data and cognitive theory to propose a specific point of convergence between syntactic processing in language and music. This leads to testable predictions, including the prediction that that syntactic comprehension problems in Broca's aphasia are not selective to language but influence music perception as well.
The neuroanatomical correlates of musical structure were investigated using functional magnetic neuroimaging (fMRI) and a unique stimulus manipulation involving scrambled music. The experiment compared brain responses while participants listened to classical music and scrambled versions of that same music. Specifically, the scrambled versions disrupted musical structure while holding low-level musical attributes constant, including the psychoacoustic features of the music such as pitch, loudness, and timbre. Comparing music to its scrambled counterpart, we found focal activation in the pars orbitalis region (Brodmann Area 47) of the left inferior frontal cortex, a region that has been previously closely associated with the processing of linguistic structure in spoken and signed language, and its right hemisphere homologue. We speculate that this particular region of inferior frontal cortex may be more generally responsible for processing fine-structured stimuli that evolve over time, not merely those that are linguistic.
Rhymes, stories and songs in the ESL classroom
- Brown
Brown, J. L. (2006). Rhymes, stories and songs in the ESL classroom. Internet TESL Journal, 12(4).