The effects of songs on EFL learners' vocabulary recall ... - CiteSeerX

Advances in Digital Multimedia (ADMM) Vol. 1, No. 3, 2012, ISSN 2166-2916 Copyright © World Science Publisher, United States www.worldsciencepublisher.org

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The effects of songs on EFL learners' vocabulary recall and retention: The case of gender 1

Mohammad Alipour, 2Bahman Gorjian*, 3Iman Zafari

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Department of TEFL, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University (IAU), Khouzestan, Iran 2 Department of TEFL, Abadan Branch, Islamic Azad University (IAU), Abadan, Iran 3 Department of TEFL, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University (IAU), Khouzestan, Iran Email: [email protected] *[email protected] Abstract- The present study attempted to investigate the effects of songs on vocabulary learning of upper-level language learners based on their gender. To achieve these purposes, a language proficiency test was administered to 105 male and female students attending English in Ahvaz, Iran in form of multiple-choice items on vocabulary and structure and ultimately 60 upper-level language learners were selected and randomly divided into two homogenous groups as musical and non-musical mode groups. The participants were examined based on a multiple-choice post test which probed into the learners' vocabulary learning through songs of three different music genres, i.e. pop, country, and rap. The results of a series of t-tests showed that the musical- mode group performed better on both vocabulary recall and retention. The results also indicated better performance of the male learners than the females. The findings suggested that songs are not merely an entertaining tool and they can be utilized as a pedagogic material particularly when it comes to teaching vocabulary. Keywords- Song; gender; vocabulary learning; recall; retention

1. INTRODUCTION Music is a great language package that bundles culture, vocabulary, listening, grammar and a host of other language components in just a few rhymes, and for many people from all around the world, the first exposure to English is through popular song lyrics, moreover, the use of music in language classes puts students at ease, makes them more attentive and can increase their desire to learn a language (Medina, 1993; Mishan, 2005; Murphey, 1992). According to Medina (1993), a wide variety of useful vocabulary items can be acquired through popular songs. Using students' favorite songs to teach vocabulary creates endless opportunities for revision which is fundamental for storing the information in long term memory (Murphey, 1992). Murphey believes that music may help learners to overcome the problem of retaining vocabularies since it has the quality of sticking in one's head (Zhang & Wu, 2011 b) He calls this ability "thesong-stuck-in-my-head-phenomenon" which stands for "the echoing in our minds of the last song we heard" (p. 7).

2. BACKGROUND The literature also indicates that a rhythmic presentation benefits memorization, particularly when the verbal

information is meaningful (Jones, 2010; Salcedo, 2002). It is believed that the learners' productive use of vocabulary is normally restricted (Thornbury, 2004) and there is a need to focus on the students' retention ability, the ability of remembering things. Several studies have illustrated that teaching different aspects of a language utilizing songs might facilitate the process of language learning in the classroom (Ayotte, 2004; Fischler, 2006; Fisher, 2001; Neumam, 2004; Ransdell & Gilroy, 2001; Schon, Magne & Besson, 2008; Sloboda, 1990). Moreover, several researches have been conducted on the impacts of music and songs on the process of brain activities (Zhang, Wang, & Wu, 2011) during the learning process and the results have revealed that melody and songs can project the process of language learning in particular and learning in general (Jones, 2010; Ozment & Gurgen, 2010; Peterson & Thaut, 2006; Wallace, 1994). Eventually, some works have been conducted on the gender differences in music education (Gaab, Keenan & Sclaug, 2003; Ho, 2008). However, to the best of the present researchers' knowledge, no analysis (at least in Iran) has focused on music in terms of its effectiveness on vocabulary retention and its effectiveness on male and female EFL learners. There is therefore a need to study this aspect in order to see whether vocabulary recall and retention of EFL learners would be influenced by songs and their lyrics. Consequently, this study pursues to provide answers to the following questions :(1) Is there any

Mohammad Alipour, et al., ADMM, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 140-143, 2012

difference between musical-mode class and non-musicalmode class in English vocabulary recall and retention? (2) Is there a difference between males and females in terms of the effects of music on Iranian EFL learners' vocabulary recall and retention?

2. METHODOLOGY 2.1. Participants The participants of this study were 60 males and females aged from 20 to 32, who were selected through a sample TOEFL proficiency test (Sharpe, 2005). These participants had no exposure to an English speaking community and had no contact with native speakers of English. In order to specify different proficiency levels, participants were ranked from the highest to the lowest scores. The researchers selected only the first 60 top participants, including 30 males and 30 females as the higher level learners. They were randomly assigned into two groups, each included 15 males and 15 females as the musical-mode group and the rest were in the nonmusical-mode group.

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2.2.2. Survey To select the learners' most preferred genres and the most popular and well-known singers, a survey was administered. The survey included five questions regarding the learners' musical interest. In the first question, the learners were asked to make a list of their top ten favorite singers and groups, and in the second sections, they were asked to make a list of their top ten favorite songs. The third and fourth parts dealt with the learners' most and least favorite musical genres. The last question was there to find out how often the learners listened to their favorite music. Figure 3.1 shows the results of this survey. Accordingly, the most preferred music genres were pop (45%), country (23%), and rap (17%), while about 15% of the participants mentioned other genres of music such as, heavy-metal, rock, classical, opera, jazz, funk, and punk which were dismissed due to their low percentages. Furthermore, the learners' favorite singers and groups of different genres were selected according to their popularities among them.

2.2.3. Songs 2.2. Instruments and materials Through this study, the collection of the data and the instructions were generally conducted through a number of instruments and materials which are as follows:

2.2.1. Tests A sample Barron's TOEFL proficiency test (Sharpe, 2005) was administered to select two homogeneous groups in terms of the participants' language proficiency. The reliability of the test was 0.79 based on the KR-21 formula. The test comprised 50 multiplechoice items on English grammar and vocabulary. There were 25 items related to English grammar and 25 items related to English vocabulary. The time allocated to this test was 45 minutes. The total score was 0-100, each item worthing two points. Furthermore, three vocabulary tests on the three music genres were developed. Each five session, one music genre was applied and practiced. A multiple-choice item test on vocabulary was administered in the end. There was one test for each genre. There were 30 items in each test that learners were asked to answer in 20 minutes. The vocabularies for the test items were selected from the practiced songs and lyrics of each genre, and the tests were designed by the researchers using the British National Corpus to write the stems. The total score for each test was 30, each item worthing one point. The reliability of each test was met through the KR-21 formula. The reliability of each test was as follow: the pop songs test (0.78), the country songs test (0.87), and the rap songs test (0.81). Each test was administered again at the end of each ninth session which was after two weeks to test the learners' vocabulary retention as well.

The results of the survey gave the researchers the opportunity to select the learners' most favorite singers and groups of the three most favorite music genres. Considering 20 sessions for classes at the institute, the teacher was able to select five singers or groups of each genre. The time of each class was one hour and a half and the time of each song was typically about three to five minutes. Therefore, the teacher could apply three songs of each singer or group during one session. The selected songs had to meet a number of criteria. The first criterion was vocabulary frequency and unfamiliarity. That is to say, we opted for those vocabulary items which were less frequently encountered by the learners, and thus, appeared to be less familiar to them so that they could have been exposed to more new items to learn from the songs. Secondly, we attempted to take heed of the participants' social and religious norms and values as far as the contents of the songs were concerned. They were judged to have been appropriate in this regard. For instance, the song "Seduce Me" by Celine Dion (1998) which describes the sexual relationship of a man and a woman was not appropriate to be listened to in a class environment. In addition, many rap songs included a lot of taboo words, such as the "f" words that were inappropriate for English classes and the researchers had to dispense with such songs. Therefore, those songs which had less inappropriate vocabulary items were selected. Moreover, the lyrics had to be more or less compatible with the learners' English knowledge; hence, the ones which could shed light on new cultural issues for classroom discussion were chosen. To be more specific about the cultural matters, the song "Speak Now" by Taylor Swift (2006) is an appropriate example since the song describes some marriage customs in a foreign


country. Last but not least, the songs selection was carried out with regard to the popularity of each singer or group. Based on the preferred music genres by the participants, the albums of five singers or groups of each genre were selected and three songs of each singer or group were downloaded. All the songs and their lyrics were compiled in a multimedia DVD which was distributed among the participants in order to give them a chance to practice the songs after each session on their own.

2.3. Procedure During each session, for each song, there was a listening activity at the beginning. The song was played for them to listen to while a copy of the lyric with some deleted new words was handed to the learners in order to fill in the gaps. The song was played for the second time and the words were checked by asking the students to give the words that they had filled in. Finally, the words were written on the board for those learners who might have missed some. Some writing activities in which the learners had to use the new words were added to activate the language, activities such as giving synonyms and definitions for words, making sentences and writing a summary of the story of the song using new learned vocabularies. After practicing and revising the new vocabulary items, a discussion was held with the learners about the topic of the song. The whole activities for each song lasted for 15 minutes, and then the teacher moved to the second and the third songs. The same activities were conducted for other genres as well. Each Recall Musical Non-musical Retention Musical Non-musical

session, three songs of one singer or group were practiced. The time of each song was about three to five minutes and the time of the class was about one and a half hours. There were 20 sessions in one term which made the instruction last for nearly two months. For the non-musical class, the lyric of a song was handed to the learners. The teacher read the first part of the lyric while the learners were trying to give the meaning of the part which the teacher was reading. Learners tried to guess the meaning of some words and their relation to the story of the song. Consequently, after practicing the new vocabulary items and revising them through giving definitions and synonyms, a discussion was held with the learners about the topic of the song, but no song was played. At the end of each five sessions, a multiple-choice item test was administered to evaluate the learners' vocabulary recall. In order to investigate the learners' vocabulary retention, the same test was administered again after each ninth session.

3. RESULTS Having collected the data through the tests, the researchers applied the t-test formula to measure the differences, if any, between the musical-mode group and the non-musical-mode group. It is important to note that the researcher employed all the formulas with the level of significance set at 0.05 in all their applications. Table 4.1 illustrates the results of the t-test.

Table 1. Results of the comparison between the musical and non-musical groups N Mean SD 30 25.60 3.43 30 20.70 5.93 30 30

All the tests which were conducted separately were combined and considered as one single test. As represented in Table 4.1, the computed significance equals to .000 which is smaller than the significance level set for the study (0.05). This substantiated the fact that there was a statistically significant difference between the musical-mode group and non-musical-mode group confirming the effect of musical instruction on improving the learners' vocabulary recall. Moreover, to obtain the results of the comparison between the musical mode group and the non-musical Recall Female Male Retention Female Male

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25.55 22.88

3.72 5.09

.001

mode group in terms of the learners' vocabulary retention, another t-test was applied on the data collected by considering the same three vocabulary tests of the three different music genres as one test. All the tests, which were conducted separately after two weeks, were combined and considered as one single test. This analysis shown above represents that there was a significant difference (.001) between the two groups with regard to the learners' vocabulary retention. Another independent sample t-test was employed twice to find out whether gender impacted on the learners' vocabulary recall and retention, the results of which are depicted in table 4.2.

Table2. Results of the comparison between the learners' gender and vocabulary recall and retention N Mean SD 15 25.02 3.91 15 26.13 3.34 15 15

Sig. .000

25.91 26.93

3.55 2.72

Sig .018

.049


Based on the results presented above, regarding the effect of the learners' gender on vocabulary recall, the significance is calculated as .018. Statistically speaking, therefore, there was a significant difference between males and females. This is indicative of the fact that the learners' gender can influence their vocabulary recall. Furthermore, the results pertaining to the effect of gender on vocabulary retention reveal the fact that learners' gender also plays a role in retaining the learned vocabulary item through songs showing that males outperformed females.

4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Employing music and songs in English class is not a replacement to other methods, however, they can be considered as an acceptable material for classroom instruction (Salcedo, 2002). We can employ a song with enough resilience to stick in mind long enough for students to experience success with certain language structures, learn features of the target culture, or achieve listening enjoyment, as Salcedo (2002) states. This method brought several positive aspects to the class. First, the environment of the class was much better during the experiment than during applying the usual activities. The learners were more focused on the lyrics in order to catch the new vocabulary and they were more interested to the lesson. Some learners mentioned that they realized they could learn new words (Zhang, Wu, Wei & Wang, 2011) through songs too and not just through movies and books and suggested to work on more songs even after the experiment. Learners realized that this method for vocabulary learning added new dimensions (Zhang & Wu, 2011 a) to their language learning process. In general, learning vocabulary items became the fun and effective part of the language learning. Second, learning and memorizing vocabularies (Gorjian, Pazhakh & Parang, 2012) were not an unwanted, difficult activity. Third, the learners became familiar with a big number of cultural and social matters through the songs (Gorjian, Alipour & Saffarian, 2012) which made the class more fulfilling for them. Finally, the learners' attendance in the class was noticeable and the learners seemed more motivated in learning vocabulary items through song (Gorjian, Pazhakh & Naghizadeh, 2012) in particular, and improving their language skills in general.

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Bahman Gorjian obtained his PhD in TEFL from Research and Science Center of Khurasgan University in Isfahan Province. In 2006, he was appointed Assistant Professor at TEFL Department, Abadan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abadan, Khouzestan Province, Iran. He is currently working within several research areas covering TEFL, applied linguistics, psycholinguistics, individual differences and teaching and testing EFL. He can be reached at: [email protected] Cell phone: 00989161310917