Effective Use of Music in Language-Learning: A Needs Analysis
Dwayne Engh, U.K.
Dwayne Engh was born in Vancouver, Canada and currently lives in London, England where he works as an English teacher and musician. He completed an MA in ELT & Applied Linguistics at King's College London in 2010. He has taught in Canada, China and the U.K. E-mail:dwayneengh@shaw.ca
Menu
Abstract
Introduction
Proposed research
Methodology
Data analysis
Findings and discussion
Teacher beliefs and attitudes
Stated challenges to implementation in the classroom
Challenges - global educational issues
Challenges - suitability of song lyrics
Challenges - additional time
Challenges - comfort level
Challenges - appropriateness for adult classes
A potentially limited view on music use
Suggestions for increased music use in language learning
Brief discussion of materials
Summary and conclusion
References
The purpose of this article is to examine current teacher attitudes and practices towards music use in the language classroom and to state a case for more extensive use of music and song in English language learning. There is a growing body of literature that indicates music is a legitimate alternative to traditional classroom tasks, but research exploring the needs of teen or adult learners is underrepresented. Additionally, although strong connections between music and language are discussed in the literature, there appears to be a disparity between theoretical support and practical application in the classroom. From an educational standpoint, music and language not only may be, but also should be utilized concurrently.
Use of music and song in the language-learning classroom has been recommended as an effective method to stimulate motivation, enhance student relaxation and increase language acquisition for over fifty years (i.e. Bartle, 1962). As early as 1975, Jolly argued both language and music have commonalities that address the communicative aspects of language:
I feel that language teachers may be missing a great deal by not exploiting songs and other rhythmic language compositions as classroom teaching aids. The close relationship between language and music is an easily recognizable one. (Jolly ibid: 11)
I share Jolly’s opinion and argue that, over thirty-five years later, music continues to be underutilized and its potential benefits not fully exploited by language teachers.
Use of songs can be of benefit to any classroom to increase lexical, grammatical, phonological, sociolinguistic and cultural competencies, regardless of individual teaching approach, style or musical training and without sacrificing core competencies. The question to ask is not whether teachers should teach core competencies and skill sets, as it is clear that those are necessary, but to expand the scope to include more beyond that (McLaren and Lankshear, 1994). Music use in language teaching can assist in addressing that incongruence and in expanding the scope of teaching to include more than core competencies. Practical experience in the language classroom, as well as the empirical and theoretical literature, suggests that music and language not only can, but also should be studied together.
The use of music and song in the English language-learning classroom is not new. As early as Bartle (1962), scholars have been arguing for use of music in a language acquisition context for both its linguistic benefits and for the motivational interest it generates in language learners. 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 and Second Language Acquisition.
However, literature on this topic is still rare when compared with other pedagogical approaches - and what does exist relates principally to primary education. To address that concern, the focus of this research was on secondary and post-secondary teachers who teach teen and adult learners. A needs analysis of teacher attitudes and present practice regarding the use of music in the language classroom was conducted. From that analysis, the researcher intended to determine if the perceived disconnect between hypothetical support of and actual use of music in the classroom is misconstrued.
Of the 56 respondents who participated in the online survey questionnaire, six were unusable and therefore removed, leaving a sample size of 50. The selection of subjects occurred by approaching a network of professional contacts and by posting an invitation to participate in the survey on a variety of English Language Teacher websites. Ten potential interview subjects volunteered by indicating a willingness to participate at the end of the online questionnaire - of those, eight were approached to participate in the interview and seven were completed.
I would argue posting the survey on website teacher forums both increased and varied the sample size. However, it is possible that only people who had strong opinions about the topic were inclined to take the time to complete the survey, thereby making the sample less random and representative, causing a potential limitation to the study.
No statistically significant differences were found in cross tabulation of gender, age, region, number of years teaching or teaching context variables. Gender distribution of participants was 32 female respondents and 14 male respondents, with four respondents who did not identity their gender. Age distribution of subjects ranged from 20 to over 70, with the majority response count of 20 respondents (or 42.6 per cent) occurring in the ‘30-39’-age bracket.
In alphabetical order, countries of birth represented in the teacher sample include: Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Scotland, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey, UK, USA and Viet Nam. When grouped into world regions, the majority of subjects, at 37.8 per cent, originated in North America, with the next closest group being the European Region at 24.4 per cent, closely followed by Asia-Pacific at 20 per cent.
Although a mixed method approach was utilised, the researcher recognises his natural tendency and bias to find more insightful information in the qualitative written aspects present in the interviews and open questionnaire written comments. Definite key themes arose from the descriptive written data and because of that, little statistical analysis beyond mean and mode was done with each data set.
While discussing the literature and the key findings in the research, I also recognise my bias that music use seems to effectively encourage language-learning instruction and is not simply a fun reward for students. I openly write as not only an objective researcher aiming at scientific rigor, but also as an English language teacher and a practising musician.
Based on the data from the needs analysis, four themes have been identified relating to language teacher attitude and present practice of music use in the language-learning classroom:
- Teacher Beliefs and Attitudes
- Stated Challenges of Implementation in the Classroom
- Teacher’s Practices and a Potentially Limited View on Music Use
- Suggestions for Increased Music Use in Language Learning
There appears to be a high level of hypothetical support for the use of music in the language classroom. This discussion will focus on pedagogical beliefs of teachers, as well as discuss some of the outliers who present the opposite perspective.
Teacher attitudes towards music use in the language classroom showed a strong level of support, with data deviating from a normal distribution pattern skewed towards ‘Completely Agree’ or ‘Agree’ responses. This is confirmed by more in-depth comments from teacher interviews, such as “students at all levels enjoy music. It is an essential part of a human being’s life - no matter what culture, race, etc.”, or the affirmation, “I firmly believe we would have better speakers, more confident speakers and more enjoyable classes with more music in the classroom”.
Teacher attitude responses seem to concur with empirical literature throughout, all rating very high in terms of support. There is strong support for use of music to teach the culture of English speaking communities; to break barriers between institutional and informal learning environments; as a motivating factor for students; to lower stress levels or affective filters; and to build community in the classroom.
Although there is generally a high level of support exhibited, there were a few respondents who appear cautious of or opposed to the use of music in language learning. Note that with a sample size of 50, this indicates only one person or two people. This perspective is supported by interview and written comments, such as one respondent who stated, “in my first years of teaching, I tried a variety of activities involving music but I found that, for me at least, there was no great benefit to be had from it”. Another interview participant confirms this:
Music is definitely a good tool to use in class to help the students learn English as a second language, but at the same time, I feel it can’t be used too much. After all, music is music; the key points of learning a language are listening, reading, speaking, and writing… How the teachers use music is very important.
Although I agree with the reservations, I find the responses of the respondents that argue against music use in language teaching puzzling, and wonder if there is perhaps a limited view of the potential uses of music in the classroom.
One respondent argues “there is a huge disconnect between the proven theoretical basis for using music in the classroom and the actual use of music”. The following data seems to confirm this lack of crossover between stated teacher attitudes and stated teacher present classroom practice. Five themes have been identified in this section: questions of global educational issues, suitability of song lyrics, additional time, comfort level and appropriateness for adult classes.
The findings suggest that many of the stated reasons for the apparent disconnect between support and actual use of music in language learning are because of factors outside of teacher’s control. There may be validity to these factors, and it is indeed worthwhile to note how English language teaching fits into global educational and sociological trends.
Based on the data, an area of concern is that the curriculum tends to be too full already, not leaving room for extra materials, supported by teacher comments such as “Few contact hours and a tight syllabus make it difficult to use music in class”.
Drawing on interviews and additional written comments, another concern is the current international focus on testing and accountability. While accountability and being able to have definable reputable benchmarks is clearly positive, it sometimes appears to straightjacket many teachers to simply teach to the test. One questionnaire comment coyly asserts that their classes are generally preparing for exams and that “Cambridge, so far, have not added a singing paper”. An interview participant accurately defines the situation:
However, if testing is the overall determining factor on how a student rates for schooling, and how a teacher rates in their teaching level, then teaching for tests will take priority over creative teaching using music as a tool.
A concern for the appropriateness of some song lyrics emerges, specifically in rap as it relates to concerns about violence, sexism, poor grammar and slang ranking high, with strong support noted in the written comments. “I don't think teaching students how to talk about violence and sexual acts is necessary.”
This is a valid concern and while I agree it is essential to be cautious, I am interested in the apparent anxiety expressed in the data set regarding poor grammar and use of slang. I have two concerns: the first being that when using this argument, some teachers may not be taking into account academic arguments of using songs as poetry or literature and are therefore limiting the potential use of songs and lyrics. Neither are teachers taking into account the numerous examples of Hip-Hop and rap that do not contain the ‘questionable content’ some appear to find disagreeable. I would suggest the argument is flawed from the beginning, in that it seems to suggest removing a whole genre of music and text simply because a portion of that genre does not meet certain criteria. Plays or novels that contain offensive language, poor grammar or slang, violence or sexism do not negate every play or novel written. Surely, we cannot accept the same flawed argument when it is applied to song text.
Secondly, I am concerned about what I am viewing as a potentially prescriptive didactic approach that may neglect the links to issues of identity, World Englishes and our responsibility as teachers to wider sociolinguistic concerns. Connections can be made to anti-Critical Pedagogical debates such as Hammond and Macken-Horarik (1999), who argue that the goal should be for all students to master the dominant cultural and linguistic norms of power so as to improve their standing within current societal institutions. This potentially ignores identity attached to a particular English variety and postpones the exploration of critical thought until target linguistic and cultural norms are acquired (see Pennycook, 1999 for counter argument). Auerbach and Burgess (1987), although concurring with Pennycook, question how such sociolinguistic issues can be realistically addressed through Freirean transformative critical skills along with essential specific job readiness and linguistic survival skills that learners require. To extend the argument from academic writing to use of music, if we, as linguists and educators, argue for recognition of World Englishes and the importance of identity attached to English variations throughout the world, the validity of English used in Hip-Hop and rap lyrics should therefore also be recognised.
There are suggestions that additional preparation time in developing materials or setting up the technology for a lesson may be a factor that limits the use of music in the language classroom. One teacher stated:
I suspect that the issue may be more general than just using music. It’s likely that a lot of teachers don’t use any outside materials in the classroom, since they would require a great deal more preparation than using book materials, without offering much prospect of being superior (to the book) in any way. Of course, a lot of teachers are theoretically in support of—that is to say, open-minded regarding—just about any technique or medium, but the realities of time and pay restrict them.
The findings appear to suggest that close to 50 per cent of teachers are not comfortable leading singing, creating music or encouraging students to sing in the classroom. Some teachers appear to be very comfortable, with comments such as “assume that singing is something we do, and the class usually follows” or “I'm used to standing in front of a group, and I expect enthusiastic response and get it”. However, the majority of comments appear to suggest that teachers “tend to use something that is safe and doesn’t require a great talent or risk to pull off”.
When one questions why there may be a lack of comfort using music, three potential reasons arise:
- There are clearly musical activities that trained musicians would be more effective at, such as playing a guitar or a piano. Although that skill set can be used effectively in a regular language classroom, effective music use certainly does not require such skills.
- There are also clearly a number of other conscious teacher choices that should always be considered, including matters of personal preference, how extroverted the practioners may be as a person and teacher, or how appropriate it may be for the particular country and class context.
- The possibility that some teachers may have a narrow view of the uses of music or a lack of theoretical understanding regarding use of music in a language classroom becomes a central point.
Griffee (2010) makes an interesting argument, suggesting:
I think the problem, however, goes deeper than songs and music. I think the lack of theoretical grounding is present in many of the pedagogical approaches we as ESL/EFL classroom teachers use. In the case of songs, it strikes me that they would have at least two uses: listening input and conversation output. Those two functions would suggest two avenues of theory, but ESL teachers do not seem inclined to investigate.
Drawing on interviews and written comments, a number of strong opinions appear regarding the appropriate use of music for adults. In particular, when considering English for Academic Purposes or Business English classes, many teachers feel strongly that the use of music would not be a beneficial element because “business classes often have a lot of serious people in them, all afraid of losing face”. A different interviewee stated:
These courses deal with work and getting a job and better pay. Don't play. Can’t even look like play. I’d expect students to grumble about something that doesn’t look like it will pay off…
However, other interviewees contradicted that sentiment and argued:
… ‘NO’ with capital letters. Yeah, it certainly takes adults a while to warm up to it and sometimes a little longer for them to buy in, you know, but I use music a lot for adults in ESL… I think everyone is affected by and responds well to music, so why shouldn’t people learning English as well?
A further person claimed “I have and will continue to use basic and very simple music in ALL levels of classes that I have the opportunity to teach”, and another argued, ”With my experience of teaching young learners and college students, I feel that music is applicable for all levels”.
This topic of age appropriateness may be worth further study in the future, in particular conducting research on subjects of various age levels to establish whether the influence of music is greater at any one particular developmental period over another.
With various degrees of explicitness, a central theme arising throughout the statistical data and written comments appears to suggest that some practicing teachers have a restricted view on what music can and should accomplish in a classroom, thereby confining the practical use. Music in English language teaching appears to focus around use as a listening activity, closely followed by vocabulary and then simply for fun, with the top five preferences for future material development being listening, vocabulary, pronunciation, speaking and grammar.
When this apparent trend was discussed with interview participants, the majority of responses indicated support, however one of the interview participants had a different perspective, claiming that teachers tend to drill vocabulary and pronunciation, then do a quiz and:
By that time, all the fun is gone, and who cares... For goodness sake, music is fun. It's a special part of the brain, you know? It's not a chore or the excuse for vocabulary drill. Enjoy! Learning should be a pleasure.
It is important to consider that the choice to not use music or to only utilise music in a limited manner may be an empirically grounded decision based on reading of the literature and a reflective recognition of context. However, I suggest that music applied to the language-learning classroom is currently being vastly underutilised and can greatly benefit the language acquisition of the learners.
Of the many suggestions from practicing teachers as to how to address the potential gap that may exist between stated theoretical support of music and how it is actually used in language teaching, two appeared most often:
- Many teachers wish for a more theoretical grounding of the possible uses of music in the classroom - whether in the form of a book, website or the inclusion of music as a common additional teaching technique in teacher training courses.
- Teachers also appear to be interested in resources to assist with the use of music in language teaching, and are willing to expand the music use to a wider extent when provided with practical materials.
Multiple respondents expressed a concern that rap and Hip-Hop were not appropriate for the English language classroom. In an effort to address this, two example activities were designed to provide illustrations of effective Hip-Hop and rap use. Although activities are not included because of copyright and lack of space, two popular (but now dated) songs were utilised:
Union - Black Eyed Peas, with Sting (2005)
- Exploring issues of creating change in the world and societal pressures
Love the Way You Lie – Eminem, featuring Rihanna (2010)
- The principal topic explored is domestic violence with subthemes of violence against women, gender roles and stereotypes
Although both song texts use slang and fragmented sentence structure, this occurs either in poetic metaphorical language or by providing examples of authentic conversational discourse. Both sets of activities addressed language specific issues, including vocabulary and verb tenses, while providing authentic materials that will engage adult and teen learners at an appropriate emotional and cognitive level. There is also concern for critical thinking, inner reflection, sociocultural awareness and challenging of preconceived stereotypes as the serious themes of domestic violence and the individual’s responsibility in changing the world are addressed in creative ways.
The purpose of this study was to examine current teacher attitudes and practices towards music use in the language classroom and to state a case for more extensive use of music and song in English language learning. There is a growing body of literature that indicates music is a legitimate alternative to traditional classroom tasks, suggesting that learning language through music is as effective, or perhaps more effective, than conventional methods (Kanel, 2000). However, a number of voids were noted in the literature, of which three became important in development of the research instrument and methodology. First, research exploring the needs of teen or adult learners is underrepresented. Next, although strong connections between music and language are discussed in the literature, there appears to be a disparity between theoretical support and practical application in the classroom. Finally, the majority of the empirical literature and practical resource books appear to argue for music use in a limited manner, focusing predominantly on grammar, phonetics and vocabulary. Based on these gaps, research was conducted to explore teacher attitudes and current practices of teachers of teen and adult students.
Material development occurred, following a rationale for materials that included aspects of Critical Pedagogy; authentic use of song text at an appropriate cognitive level; addressed specific language learning issues in the context of the activity; and engaged learners affectively while encouraging inner reflection and developing critical thinking.
Overall, I would contend the results are clear in suggesting use of music and song in the language-learning classroom is both supported theoretically by practicing teachers and grounded in the empirical literature as a benefit to increase linguistic, sociocultural and communicative competencies.
Auerbach, E. and D. Burgess. 1987. ‘The Hidden Curriculum of Survival ESL’ in Shor, I. (ed.). Freire for the Classroom: A Sourcebook of Liberatory Teaching. New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook Publishers: 150-169.
Bartle, G. 1962. Music in the language classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review, Fall: 11-14.
Griffee, D. 2010. Personal communication with the author.
Hammond, J. and M. Macken-Horarik. 1999. ‘Critical Literacy: Challenges and Questions for our ESL Classrooms’. TESOL Quarterly 33/3: 528-544.
Jolly, Y. 1975. The Use of Songs in Teaching Foreign Languages. The Modern Language Journal, 59/1,2: 11-14.
Kanel, K. 2000. “Songs in Language Teaching: Theory and Practice”. Paper presented at The Proceedings of the JALT (Japan Association for Language Teaching) 25th Annual International Conference on Language Teaching & Learning and Educational Materials Expo: 69-75.
McLaren, P. and C. Lankshear. 1994. Politics of Liberation: Paths from Freire. London: Routledge.
Pennycook, A. 1999. ‘Critical Approaches to TESOL’. TESOL Quarterly 33/3: 329-348.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching through Music and Visual Art course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching English Through Multiple Intelligences course at Pilgrims website.
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