Today it is generally agreed that any person who wants to be successful, find a prestigious job, make his/her life more interesting and richer, make friends and just keep up with the times, need knowledge of the English language. The process of learning English is difficult, but learning it through songs, makes it more exciting, useful and easier. I love English. Also, I’ m interested in music. I always try to listen to the text of English songs and, in addition to my will, I often remember the words. Thus, I came up with the idea to write a scientific work on this problem, to investigate it in order to further effective use in practice. My research work is called “Listen and learn English”.
The relevance of the chosen topic is that most of today's teenagers enjoy listening to English songs, so they can be usefully used for the development of language skills.
The hypothesis of the work is that the use of English songs can increase motivation to learn the language, ensure the successful assimilation of lexical and grammatical material and maintain interest in learning English.
Aim of the work is to learn English through listening, grammar analysis and translation of songs.
Work objectives: to explore and highlight the role of song material in language learning; to study the role of the song in the study of English pronunciation, expanding the vocabulary of students, the development of memory and speech; to conduct a survey among English teachers on the use of songs in foreign language lessons; to conduct a survey among students to identify opinions on the effectiveness of the use of songs in the study of English; on the basis of the findings to conduct this experiment with the use of English songs; on the basis of my own experiment to conclude about the effectiveness of the use of English songs in the classroom and conduct an additional experiment with other students; to analyse English songs of different genres for successful mastering of language skills.
Good songs contain a lot of useful words and phrases that can be used in everyday conversation. Listening to the songs and singing them (preferably aloud) develop conversational skills. Of course, the auditory skill is developing and a person begins to better understand foreign speech. When a person listens to an unfamiliar text, the brain receives new information, new neural connections are formed, which can be compared with “bridges”. If you listened to the text once, such “bridges” are formed in your head, but they are still fragile and fragile. In additional listening to the same text “bridges” become stronger and the text doesn't freighted by its complexity.
Learning English by songs is effective because you can:
1. Increase your vocabulary. Using songs you have an opportunity to replenish your own vocabulary: write down unknown words and phrases, learn them and surprise your English teacher. By the way, thanks to the rhymed lines of the song lyrics, the words from this song will be remembered more easily than the vocabulary from the textbook.
2. Improve your understanding of English by ear. If you listen to any material in English, you work on listening. And the songs are no exception: your favourite hits will help you to get used to the sound of English speech.
3. Improve your pronunciation. Listening to a good pronunciation, we involuntarily copy it and transfer it into own speech.
4. Learn English anywhere. Songs and lyrics are easy to find on the Internet in the public domain. You can easily save on your phone or a tablet and work with them on the road in the car.
5. Get acquainted with foreign culture. Songs always reflect the mentality, certain events in the country, people's moods, etc. Music in English can tell you about the reigning order in the country, people's views on lives and problems of society.
Thus, after analyzing scientific literature and Internet resources, I found out that songs really play an important role in the study of spoken English. But, as they say, until you try it on yourself, you cannot give an exact answer, whether this method is effective in practice or not, so the next stage of my work will be the practical application of English songs in learning a foreign language.
After previous study of the theory I decided, first of all, to conduct a survey among teachers in order to find out whether the teachers themselves consider this method of learning a foreign language by songs effective and whether it is used in practice? The survey was attended by the teachers from my own school and teachers from abroad. During the survey it was found that teachers use this method in the class, but very rarely, mainly they use only listening within the educational material.
Questionnaire for teachers of school#4 of Tuimazy and foreigners teachers
For a more visual picture of the real using of this method, I decided to find out directly from the children themselves. To this end, I decided to conduct a survey among children. The survey included some questions.
Questionnaire for students of school №4 of Tuimazy
1. Хотели бы вы изучать языки (английский), используя метод изучения иностранного языка по песням?
2.Применяли ли вы данный метод в своей практике?
3.Как часто в вашей школе проводятся уроки с использованием иностранных песен?
4.Считаете ли вы, что метод песен хорошо помогает ученикам в изучении иностранных языков? Или же он хорош в качестве дополнительного источника?
Questionnaire for foreigner students
Name: Age: Country:
1. What kind of methods do you use to learn English ? (watch films, listen to music, read books or magazines etc.)
2. Do you think if English music can help students to learn English? Why do you think so?
3. How can English songs help students to learn English
4. Do you use English songs in your studying in your country?
It was attended by students from school # 4 and students from other countries. The survey showed that among 137 respondents of school №4 to the question “Would you like to learn languages (English), using the method of learning a foreign language on songs?” 94% answered in the affirmative. The question “Have you used this method in practice?” more than half of the respondents – 72% said “Yes” again. The next question is “How often do you have lessons at your school using foreign songs?” almost all answered that this method is not used (98%). The last question “Do you think that the method of songs helps students to learn foreign languages? Or is it good as an additional material?” basically, all responded as additional material (91%).
As for foreigners, the situation is a little different. The first question is “What kind of methods do you use to learn English?” there were basically such answers as communication with a native speaker, reading books, watching films. 78% of respondents also wrote that they use songs as a way of learning the language. The second question is “Do you think if English music can help students to learn English? Why do you think so?” the answers were different, mainly answered in the affirmative – 87%, but there were those who are categorically against this method. “How can English songs help students to learn English” in this question were answers such as: the motivation of interest in the language, improving memory and perception of foreign words by ear, vocabulary, pronunciation of foreign words. One last question “Do you use English songs in your studying in your country?” opinions are almost equally divided, a little more than half answered in the affirmative (67%), others responded either negatively or very rarely used this method.
After the survey and questioning, I decided to conduct a small experiment, which in the future, perhaps, will allow me to make a more accurate conclusion on the research about the need to learn the language by listening to English songs, as well as to identify the “+” and “-” of this method.
To begin with, I developed a plan to work with songs.
1. You should choose the right song. First of all, you need to choose the song that you want to work with, as it will have to listen to several times in a row. For a good example, I took the song “Money, money, money” by ABBA, I think this song is quite well-known, the pace of performance of this song is slow, respectively, it will be easier to perceive.
2. Try to understand the text. You need to listen to the song, trying to understand the maximum words. At the same time, you need to listen not only to the text, but also to the intonation of the artist — this will also help to catch the meaning of the song. If necessary, listen to it as many times as you need to catch the essence. As for me, I listened to the chosen song 2 times for the study. Since I have not quite a musical ear, I was not immediately able to make out every word of the artist, but as for the translation, here, on the contrary, no problems.
3. Listen and read the text. Listen to the song and read its text, try to understand speech by every word. The words that the performer uses in the song are simple, so there were no questions as to the pronunciation.
4. Write out unknown words. Are there any new words and expressions in the text? Write them down in a specially created for this purpose notebook, which will always be at hand. It is very important not to be lazy, always write and repeat these words every day. From the song “Money, money, money” I wrote such words as to pay the bills, a single penny, fool around, to get somebody off, to bet, to fancy, a fortune.
5. Listen to the song without the reference text. Listen to the song again and without looking at the text, trying to make out by ear every word of the artist and remember what the new words mean. At this point, you should already fully understand the text. It remains only to periodically listen to it, examining all the words by ear and remembering what they mean. Therefore, during my working with this method I want to advise, to work with someone, much more interesting.
After such work, I have noticed how interesting and effective is the way to learn English by listening to songs. But, as people say, how many men, so many minds. To do this, I decided to conduct a similar experiment with a group of people in our class in order to confirm or refute the hypothesis of my scientific research.
For this work, I chose a song by no less famous artist Robbie Williams-Feel and again made a plan of work on the song:
1. The first stage was to listen to the song;
2. At the second stage I distributed the text, and listening to the song, everyone spoke words to himself/herself;
3. In the third stage we tried to translate the song and understand its meaning. After that, I handed out a sheet with a translation from the Internet, we have identified errors in its version. Then I gathered all the sheets of paper;
4. In the fourth stage, the guys were given the task, which was that in the English version of the song were missing some words. After listening to the song 2 times, had to fill in the gaps. For self-examination, I gave them the original version.
5. At the fifth stage, I collected the English version and distributed the Russian one. The task of the guys was to translate the Russian text into English and write it down. And just like in the fourth stage, I handed out the English version of the song for testing;
6. As a result, I conducted a reflection, where the guys expressed their opinion on this type of activity. The presentation of the work contains some interesting comments.
Thus, the result of these experiments was the confirmation of my hypothesis that through the songs to learn English is more quickly and easily, because by definition, many scientists, the human brain has different areas for speech and music. The musical centre of the brain is located in the left, creative hemisphere, and therefore works faster and remembers better than the speech centre located in the right. Therefore, songs, combining the work of both hemispheres, are better remembered poems, and the alphabet is easier to sing than to say.
After studying the theory and methodology for working with song material, I have identified the stages of work on the content of the songs, conducted a survey, questioning, two experiments, and developed exercises for the development of listening skills, summed up.
As a result, it was revealed that there is a need to work with song material in English lessons or after school hours, because songs help to develop spoken English, and the ability to speak well in the target language is very important in modern society. Returning to the hypothesis, based on the study, it can be concluded that learning spoken English through songs is not only easy, but also effective.
However, in the course of the work, I still found a few nuances when working with songs that at first glance seem easy and simple, in fact, require careful attention. So I would like to dispel a few myths when working with songs:
1. Learning English by songs is very simple and I don't even have to do anything! I can just listen to music as often as possible and my English will get much better!
It should be remembered that any work on the development of the English language requires time and efforts on our part! Listening to English songs is easy, it's true, but learning English by songs is the same as working with a textbook, audio podcast, film in English, etc. If you really want to benefit from listening to music in English, then you need to allocate time and approach the process responsibly and correctly. Of course, a beautiful melody is very bright and impressive for the human mind, so if we like the melody, we begin to listen to the words, try to understand the meaning of the song, and after a few auditions we can easily reproduce the lyrics. It should be noted that this phenomenon concerns only songs in our native language. The method of learning English with the help of songs will be effective only when we know what we sing in them.
The second important point is that the human ear is set to distinguish only familiar sounds. Therefore, to learn a foreign language through songs, in addition to listening to audio recordings, it is desirable to have before your eyes the text of an English song, as well as its translation, and passive listening to songs is only partially useful, and it will never bring real results.
2. Any of the songs develop my English!
Songs for learning English is better to choose from British or other artists for whom this language is native. A native English speaker is likely to have the right accent and pronunciation, which is not always possible to say about musicians from other countries. If your level is already so high that you can feel deviations from the pronunciation norms of British or American English, listening to music can be a source of interesting observations of the peculiarities of pronunciation of a particular person.
It is important to know that not every song is suitable for proper learning English. In the lyrics of many modern songs with English lyrics, especially in rap, there are a huge number of slang words and phrases, and sometimes the lyrics, there is a great deviation from the rules of grammar. To enrich your vocabulary, you need ordinary everyday speech, so for learning you need to choose songs from areas such as Blues, Jazz, Country and Folk.
I have created a collection of all these foreign songs that can be used by teachers of English for the formation of phonetic, lexical, grammatical and linguistic skills in children. The songs that are presented in the collection — authentic material, and they are performed mainly by native speakers. Full analysis of the songs is given in my collection.
So, having done a lot of work first on the study of the theory of working with songs, identifying the real picture of using songs in practice, conducting a lesson using the songs of British artists, I was convinced that the method of learning foreign languages on songs is really interesting for teenagers. For the purpose of self-development and consolidation of the method of working with songs, I decided to develop my collection of songs with a detailed description of the need for a particular song. I think my work will not only be of interest to students, but in the future may be used as one of the ways to learn English.
Songs play an important role in learning English. Now songs in a foreign language are very widespread and relevant among young people. We love listening to them. We like them, so we enjoy singing them ourselves, thus learning to pronounce foreign words well, we begin to understand the meaning of the songs, if something is unclear, we look into dictionaries, thereby enriching our vocabulary. Listening to songs in a foreign language is not just fun, music develops all kinds of memory: auditory, motor, imaginative and visual. Therefore, this process is very useful.
The hypothesis about the role of the song material in the study of the English language was confirmed. Songs, as one of the types of speech communication, contribute to the improvement of skills of foreign pronunciation. In addition, the songs in English reflect the peculiarities of life, culture and lives of other people of the country of the studied language.