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1 UNIVERSIDAD DE ZARAGOZA. GRADO EN EDUCACIÓN PRIMARIA ABOUT SONGS AS A RESOURCE FOR EDUCATION Author: Raquel Joven Lahoz Director: Carmen Forns Martínez University: Facultad de Educación (Zaragoza) 2 INDEX - Abstract…………………………………………………………………….……………3 - Justification:………………………………………………..……………………………4 - Songs and audiovisual resources throughout history………...………………………….5 - Songs: a communicative perspective………………………………………..…….…….7 - Advantages and disadvantages of the use of songs in language teaching……………...9 - Lesson plan with the song as a main component……………………….……………...13 - Results obtained from the lesson proposed……………………………..……………...16 - How the advantages of songs have been observed in the lesson……….………………18 - How the disadvantages of songs have been observed in the lesson……………………19 - Are songs useful for teaching?.......................................................................................21 - Conclusion: ...................................................................................................................22 - Bibliography………………………………………………………...…………………..24 - Appendix……………………………………………………………………….……….25 3 Abstract This project consists on the selection of songs as one of the many resources that can be used in the classroom when it comes to teach a foreign language. However, we are not referring to the kind of songs that are found in the text books, but in real songs, the ones that surround us all the time on the media. In order to know whether this kind of songs are beneficial or not in the classroom we will considerate first of all the opinion that some experts have on the matter. After that we will design a class in which its activities are based on a song and we will obtain our own conclusions. Finally, we will evaluate the results and compare them with the theories previously mentioned. As a result we will have an idea about the positive and negative implications of songs in the classroom that will help us as teachers to improve our intervention on the Educative System. Key words: Songs Resources Classroom Foreign language Beneficial Design 4 Justification The objective of this project is to analyze the songs, one of the many resources that can be used in the English classroom. However we are not going to focus on the kind of songs that we find on the text books, but the real songs we hear on the radio, TV, internet and the media in general. Songs are very frequent in language teaching. Medina says: "It is currently a common practice to use songs in the classroom to support second language acquisition."(Medina,1993, p.1). But we have to make a wider use of songs. Due to reasons that we will examine later, the language and slang that real songs offer have a positive influence on language learning and have results that adapted songs from the text books don´t have. This is the key point we want to highlight: how real songs can be helpful in the classroom. In order to prove that real songs are essential in teaching and learning, we have selected a group of students and we have designed a lesson based on a song that doesn´t belong to a text book. Since we have to give accreditation to our project and provide a solid foundation, we have selected some of the advantages and disadvantages that, according to the knowledge some authors and experts have on the matter, songs have. Finally we have put into practice the designed lesson by making note of the results obtained and identifying the advantages and disadvantages of songs that, according to those experts mentioned before, were reflected in our lesson. The final aim is to have a general idea of the positive and negative points that songs have on the teaching and learning process. This will help us as teachers to be concerned about putting into practice real songs as a resource in a teaching reality in which a lot of teachers base all their classes exclusively on the use of the text book and give little attention to the real songs, the ones this projects tries to defend. 5 Songs and audiovisual resources throughout history Before we address the songs as a resource we consider that is fitting to make a brief review of the evolution that audiovisual resources in general have experienced. Since songs are part of audiovisual resources they are also included in the following explanation. In fact as the time passes by the use of songs has been affected by the evolution of new technologies. For example, some decades ago it was no possible to listen to a message and at the same time see an image. In contrast, now we have a wider variety of sounds and images and the combinations among them are almost infinite. The invention of different machines has made possible for songs, as we know them now, to exist. This is the evolution that we have seen along the years: For decades humankind has been able to see the evolution and changes reflected on the media: from the invention of the radio to the new efficient and complex computers that are getting a more important role in our lives each day. Along the years the media has been expanded to more than just some few uses such us engineering and technological advancement for medicine, etc. Nowadays the media is seen as essential in the teaching field as well. Audiovisual resources are the vehicles used by the people to have access to information that is shared through images and sounds. These resources appeared around 1930 in the States and they were only known by the people with this name because it was by that time when the audiovisual resources became global and commercialized. This means that audiovisual resources already existed before that date but in a more rudimentary way. Now we are going to see in a wide scope how these resources became to existence. The radio was one of the first technological inventions related with audio resources. It is based on the communication through electromagnetic waves and it makes possible for sounds to travel from one place to another independently of the distance between to places. The radio appeared between the mid 1850´s and the end of the century and it´s difficult to attribute the invention to just a single man because there were many the people who made trials and investigations about the electromagnetic waves and its use. One of these men was the Scottish James Clerk Maxwell who formulated the electromagnetic waves theory. At the end of the 30´s the radio was commercialized and widely used by most people. Right after the arrival of this new tool, communication began to flow quickly by means of programs, news, etc. that kept the listeners informed about all the events that were taking place at that time. Today the radio keeps on being one of the most important ways to share information and promote communication. Another important invention that appeared some decades ago and still has an important role in our days today is the cinema or video. This resource is mainly related to the images but the working together of both images and sounds was something still to achieve. 6 The cinema appeared in the nineteen century as a result of the large sequence of inventions related to the photography that had been took place before that time. At the beginning the cinema was supposed to be an improvement in the scientific field and it was far to have a commercial application. After a long list of video devices that were getting more and more approximated to what would be the actual cinematographic film, the cinema, video and movie became a new way of communication. When the image was available for everyone, there was the need to unify the sound transmission, previously existent with the radio, and the image transmission that came about with the cinema. Both together gave birth to the sounding cinema which implied a revolution in audiovisual evolution because at last these two important elements of communication had become one. By the early 30´s the images of the movies were combined with dialogues. With the pass of the years both resources continued improving and spreading throughout many countries. In fact, the spread and improvement of the technological advancements were so rapid that few decades after appeared the computer, a device that went a step further, it aimed to make possible not only existence of the image and sound, but the interaction between the machine and the person using it. This new advancement implied another way of communication. All of these inventions: the sound system, the images and the combination of both of them along with the computers have made possible that now in the classrooms at school the teaching and learning process speed up. 7 Songs: a communicative perspective After the brief analysis of the audiovisual resources evolution, it is remarkable the fact that all the inventions have something very important in common and that is communication. Communication is the last aim that humans have tried to enable and here is where we find the connection between audiovisual resources and its application in education. This leads us to the school, the classroom and the teaching reality. What is ‘communication’? According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary the word means “the act of imparting, especially news’, or ‘the science and practice of transmitting information”. Traditionally, teaching has been based on a drilling and repetitive way of learning in which real communication was never present in the classroom. In fact, even with the arrival of new resources and technologies, drilling activities have still been presented in the classrooms and as a result little advancement has been made. An example of this is the use that it has been given to the songs. The way to practice listening and learn vocabulary with a song has always been by filling the gaps, but there are many activities that can be used to make the most of this motivating resource. In addition, the songs used have always been adapted to the students´ level and in few situations students have been exposed to the language that real songs provide. But, what does communication pursues in the teaching and learning process? According to Brown (1994) some of the ideas that summarize communicative goals are the following: - Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes. Organizational language forms are not the central focus, but rather aspects of language that enable the learner to accomplish those purposes. - Students in a communicative class ultimately have to use the language, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts outside the classroom. Classroom tasks must therefore equip students with the necessary skills for communication in those contexts. - The role of the teacher is that of facilitator and guide, not an all-knowing bestower of knowledge. - Students are therefore encouraged to construct meaning through genuine linguistic interaction with others. Communication in the teaching field aims to reach communicative activities. These activities and tasks are those that only can be implemented or carried out with the use of the target language. This factor promotes the use of the language that will lead to learning. We are tired of seeing lots of activities that consist on drills or that can be made with the use of the mother tongue. That doesn´t lead to learning. On the contrary, when students find 8 themselves in situations in which they are forced to use the target language there is advancement in their learning. We consider songs as a vehicle, along with many other resources, to make our lessons more communicative. Some of the reasons that convince us about songs being a communicative resource are the following: - Students can learn to make a meaningful use of the language with songs if we as teachers design activities that lead to a use of the Target Language to complete activities related to a song. - As we will analyze later, activities with songs contribute to a better memorization and acquisition of structures and expressions that can be very useful in other contexts or communicative scenarios out of the classroom. - When working with songs the teacher stops being the one who is in possession of all the knowledge and delegates this role to a song that is a source of real language used in the culture from which the song is taken. These are some of the communicative principles that are reflected on songs. Along the following pages we will design a lesson in which activities are aimed for the target language to be used and this way promote communication in the classroom. But firstly we will focus our attention on the benefits and drawbacks that song can present 9 Advantages and disadvantages of the use of songs in language teaching Before we give attention to the lesson we are designed and the results of it we consider that is very important to know first the advantages and disadvantages of songs and the role they play. In order to give credit and trustworthiness to the advantages and disadvantages of songs we are going to analyze the opinion that some important authors have on them. The first advantage, related to the communicative teaching method, has been explained in the previous section and claims that songs are useful tools to put into practice communicative activities in the classroom. Although songs in themselves are not communication because in a first instance we just can listen to them, they make easy the design of communicative activities that will lead to a better learning and acquisition of the Target Language. According to (T. Murphey, 1992), these are some other advantages of the use of songs in the classroom: “In our time, it is hard to escape music and song as it occupies ever more of the world around us: in operating theatres, restaurants and cafés, shopping malls at sports events, in our cars, and literally everywhere. It would seem that the only place music and song is slow to catch on is in schools” (T. Murphey, 1992, p. 774). As we can see, one of the benefits of songs is that they are everywhere. They are part of our lives and as a result they are familiar to us enabling a comfortable atmosphere when it comes to learn a language. “They provide variety and fun” (T. Murphey, 1992, p. 774) When we are in a relaxing setting it is natural to add some music to feel even better. We have fun with music and we use it to enjoy ourselves. It seems that live is better with music and some even say that the world couldn´t exist without this resource. This is the case of Nietzsche who though that life without music would be an error. (F.Nietzsche, 1987) It is also needed to have fun in the classroom and make of learning an enjoyable experience and we think that songs have a remarkable role on it. “Songs may strongly activate the repetition mechanism of the language acquisition device” (T. Murphey, 1992, p.774) Repetition helps us to remember information. Sometimes we don´t stop to think and meditate on what we are repeating, but at a certain point we might find ourselves in a situation in which a determinate feature of a language appears and suddenly we remember something we repeated and that helps us to understand that feature. Chomsky is one of the pioneers in the developing innatist theories. He talked about the LAD (Language Acquisition Device). This is an endowment that all humans have that enables 16 Results obtained from the lesson proposed During the class with a group of the sixth year of Primary School we could put into practice the lesson designed around a song. Here we could see the real pros and cons of songs as a resource in this classroom. Before we proceed to the analysis of the results we have to say that the level of the class wasn´t in accord with the one expected from the students at this age. This fact made difficult the development of the lesson and it made impossible to carry out all the activities proposed. In addition we had to use two hours at two different days to carry out four of the activities designed. The first lesson took place on Monday the 12th of May from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. First of all we have to mention that the whole class accepted with enthusiasm the song we selected. We were careful and chose a motivating song that all the students felt like singing it and was understood by them. After , the class was divided in groups and each group was given the words that appear in the song, their definitions and the pictures that illustrate each concept to facilitate the finding out of the word´s meaning. They worked on this task for fifteen minutes. Each group was in charge of one part of the three parts in which we had divided the song. When the students finished to give a meaning to each word we played the song for them to make sure that the word they had been working on were part of the song. We repeated this process three times so that all the groups could work on all the words making the song. By the time the students had finished this first part of the lesson there was the time to leave so we had to continue with the second activity the next day. The following day at the same time the second lesson took place. The students had an idea of the words they were to listen in the song because of the activity they did the last day with the vocabulary words. Then we proceeded to make with them the second activity consisting on filling the gaps of the song. Firstly we played the whole song without stopping so as to see whether the children were able to identify the key words. After that we played the song several times stopping it every time they had to fill in the gap with one of the vocabulary words studied the previous day. Because of the little English level and the few occasions in which students have listened to real language, this activity was slow and difficult to implement. Another factor that didn´t contribute to the understanding of the song on the children part was the inefficient sound system. The speakers didn´t work properly and some parts of the song were not as clear as we had wish. 17 However we could see a positive point in this activity regarding a similar one the students made on another occasion. Some weeks before the teacher had worked with them another song with no previous presentation of the vocabulary and the students spent two whole lessons in completing the fill in the gap activity. In contrast with our lesson, due to the previous activity consisting on a pre-listening activity with the vocabulary and the definitions, the students were able to fill in the gaps in just one lesson. Finally, in the second lesson we had some minutes to talk about the song. So although in part, at least we could work on the fourth activity designed in the lesson plan. We asked the students what they thought the song was about and if they would like to be like he person the song talks about. With some help from our part some of them were able to form some sentences and give an answer. We finished the lesson by singing all together the song. Here we could see how motivated the students were. They enjoyed a lot singing and we could notice the motivating effect a good song has on children. 18 How the advantages of songs have been observed in the lesson According to the advantages of the use of songs in the classroom stated by Murphey, here we are some of them that we have observed in our lesson: “They provide variety and fun”, (Murphey , 1992 p. 770-774) In our lesson, from the very moment we told the students we were going to work with a famous song they liked, they responded enthusiastically to it showing that they were looking forwards to stop working with the book for one day and doing something fun. So this time, instead of telling the students to open their books and as a result of it see their bored faces, we could work with them on something motivating. This was a good way to start our lesson because we could notice that almost all the students were motivated and willing to make an effort to learn and to be involved in all the activities they were about to do. Moreover we consider that is very important to start the lesson having our students highly motivated, because as the time passes by and they get more tired their motivation level might decrease, but if we start the class and they are not motivated, at the end of the lesson the motivation levels will be even lower. “Songs may strongly activate the repetition mechanism of the language acquisition device” (Murphey, 1992, p.770-774) The song we selected has a repetitive chorus easy to understand in which all the time it appears a structure consisting on a subject, a verb and a complement. The continuous repetition of this structure contributed to the students learning and acquiring of the order in which the components of sentences in English are organized. This fact helps students to produce messages with more fluency without having to stop to think about how to build a sentence because they have already integrated that structure in their minds. “Many learners are accustomed to hearing a very careful, clear pronunciation of words, such as native speakers might use when talking very emphatically or saying words in isolation” (Rixon, 1994, p. 38). In our lesson we have seen the advantage of songs mentioned by Rixon as well. At the beginning it was hard for students to understand the song because of the accent. Even though the singer is Spanish his accent sounds British, but in the end, after having listened to the song several times students were able to understand many of the words. This idea leads us to think that if students had the opportunity to work with more songs, their understanding would be affined and in time their language competence would improve even more. 19 How the disadvantages of songs have been observed in the lesson Disadvantages: by (Terhune, 1997) “As each student has a different way of learning, some students may have difficulty in studying through music”. (Terhune, 1997, p. 8-12) As we have mentioned before all our students were highly motivated when they were informed about working with a song during the whole lesson. However, as we went through the different activities designed there were some students who became distracted and didn´t make as much effort as the rest of their mates. We consider that maybe the activities leading to the understanding of the song might be boring for this group of students somehow, or maybe working with a song didn´t help them much to be motivated and improve their language skills. Here we have a chart showing the motivation and effort that students put on the lesson. First of all we show the attitude each student showed when working in the first activity in groups trying to guess the meaning and definition of each vocabulary word. Secondly, we present the attitude the students showed towards the song in itself and the enthusiasm we could see on them when listening to a different song from those ones that appear on the text books. Finally, we have added the number of words that each student was able to understand and write in the filling the gaps activity after having worked with the vocabulary words before listening to the song. The chart shows that those students who were motivated and worked hard were able to write more words than those who didn´t benefit from the activities. STUDENTS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Group collaboration A A P P A A A P A A A A A A P P A P A A P A A A Attitude towards the song p p - - p P p - p p p P P p - - p - p p - p p p Nº words identified/group 11 12 5 7 17 15 16 5 9 14 13 18 19 14 8 10 17 3 15 17 4 13 15 15 A: active P: passive p: participative -: non-participative 20 We also have to take into account the different intelligences that Gardner talked about and have clear in mind that since we as teachers didn´t know all our students preferences we only could choose one way to work with the song and this is the way of working that we put into practice with the class. However maybe some students would have preferred to read the song lyric before we listened to it, or have would preferred to listen to it while they were finding the definition of the proposed vocabulary words…etc. Whatever the case, this phenomenon helps us to understand that when we are responsible of a class and we have the opportunity to know the students and the way they learn better, we have to design lessons in which the activities can be adapted or design different activities each day, or using different resources instead of songs each day to cover all the different ways to learn that can be found in the classroom. “Inefficient sound systems in schools may cause problems while listening to songs”. (Terhune, 1997, p.8-12) This is a problem that has been present in the classrooms since the appearance of the new technologies in the teaching field. In our lesson there were some problems with the sound system. The speakers didn´t work properly and some words which were quickly pronounced in the song were very difficult to understand by the students. So to the fact that not all the students were motivated by the song or that the activities designed were not the ones all the students benefit from when studying a language, we have to add the problem of the sound system. 21 Are songs useful for teaching? After making this project we have reached the conclusion that the use of songs in the classroom has got both advantages and disadvantages and before we plan our lessons we have to think about them and balance whether is worthy to use this resource or not. In addition we have to consider the level of the class and have in mind the importance of getting to know our students so as to know what kind of learning benefits them the most. However, we have to recognize that in both the theory and the results obtained in the implementation of the lesson, we have seen more advantages than disadvantages. So this fact leads us to think that building lessons around songs is a very good way of teaching. In order to have a clearer view of the advantages and disadvantages, we proceed to the presentation of this graphics: Advantages and disadvantages of songs according to the theory: Advantages and disadvantages according to the result obtained in the lesson: SONGS IN CLASS Advantages: 6/8 Disadvantages: 2/8 SONGS IN CLASS Advantages. 3/5 Disadvantages: 2/5 22 Conclusion Our project has aimed to show what the benefits of using songs as a resource in the classroom are by analyzing the opinion some authors have on the matter and providing an example of how a lesson can be built around a song. The results have been positive even this doesn´t mean that we have to neglect important aspects such as getting to know our class level, their interests and ways of learning each student has and adapt our lessons. However when we come back to reality, to the schools, we notice that this resource is not being used very often. If we examine English text books there are a lot of adapted songs for the students. But these songs are not always motivating, they are not well known by the students, those are not the song that children hear on the radio or TV and that explains why they are not so catching. Moreover, most teachers limit their lessons to listen to the songs on the text books and don´t design motivating and communicative activities around them. And although it is said that the foreign language teachers are the ones that innovate the most, according to the newspaper 20 minutes, Mexico, under the job subheading titled: “The foreign language teachers are the ones who innovate the most in education ”, there are still some teachers that don´t change their methods. Why does this happen? Sometimes the answer to this question in found in the fact that teachers don´t have time to prepare new lessons and motivating activities. As the magazine “Teaching in focus nª2 September OECD 2012 page 3” says: “The new teachers dedicate more time to the management than more experienced teachers. In average the new teachers spend 9% of their time caring of administrative tasks, the 18% maintaining the order in the classroom and its management and the 73% in the teaching and learning process”. (Teaching in focus, 2012, nº2, p.3) Sometimes, because of the behavior of the class, it is difficult for teachers to leave for one day the routine they have established with the text book and innovate. More than the 70% of the primary and secondary school teachers in countries like Spain, Mexico and Italy consider that “the excitement in class makes difficult the teaching process”, indicates the Organization for the Cooperation and the Economic Development (OCED). 20 minutos, México, under the subheding international and the title of the new is: The bad behaviour in the classrooms prevents an efficient teaching according to the OCDE. Of course several changes have to take place to facilitate teachers the teaching and learning process such as the behavior of the class and the time they spend caring of all the responsibilities they have; but as a conclusion, something that can help teachers to improve in 23 the way they innovate in class is the following statement from (Latapí, 2003, cuaderno de discussion 6): “The essential condition for the teacher to learn is for him to have the disposition to learn. Learn implies making ourselves vulnerable, suppress securities, assume risks” Teaching will always demand time and energy from our part as teachers, as well as making mistakes and learning from them; but if we make an effort we will see the fulfilment of this proverb written by the wise king Solomon in ancient times: “There is nothing better for a man than to drink and find enjoyment in his hard work” (Ecclesiastes 2:24) 24 Bibliography Brown, H. Douglas (1994) “Principles of Languaje Learning and Teaching” Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice Hall Regents. Chomsky, Noam (1991). “Lenguaje, sociedad y cognición” México. Editorial Trillas Dale, E. (1946) Audio-visual methods in teaching. New York: The Dryden Press. Solomon (1000 BC) Ecclesiastes, Brookling, New York:Watchtower Bible and Track Society of New York, INC Gardner, H.:”Reflections on Multiple Intelligences: Myths and Messages.” Phi Delta Kappan 77, no.3 (1995):200-209 Gatbonton, E. & Segalowitz, N. (1988). Creative automatization: Principles for promoting fluency within a communicative framework. TESOL Quarterly, 22, 473-492. Latapí, P. (2003), ¿Cómo aprenden los maestros?, México, Secretaría de Educación Pública (Cuadernos de Discusión, 6). Maley, A., (1987) Poetry and song as effective language-learning activities. Interactive Language Teaching. Ed. W. M. Rivers. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,pp. 93–109. Medina, S. (1993). The effect of music on second language vocabulary acquisition. FEES News (National Network for Early Language Learning), 6(3), 1-8. Holbrook, M.(2013). Live your life. En Live your life single.[cd]. Grand Hustle, Atlantic Murphey, T. (1992). The discourse of pop songs. Tesol Quarterly, 26(4), p. 770-774. Nietzsche, F. (1887) El crepúsculo de los ídolos, capítulo 33 Oxford University Press. (2008) The Oxford Spanish dictionary. Rixon, Shelagh (1994) “SunlightSongs for English” Macmillan PUB. LTD Terhune, T., (1997). Pop songs, The English Connection, 1, pp.8-12. 20 Minutos.(2012). Los profesores de lenguas extranjeras son los que más innovan en la formación. Obtenido el día 29 de mayo de 2014 de http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/1556201/0/profesores-lenguas/extranjeras/formacion/ 20 Minutos. (2009). El mal comportamiento en clase impide una docencia eficiente, según la OCDE. Obtenida el día 29 de mayo del 2014 de http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/474293/0/comportamiento/docencia/eficiente/ 25 Appendix (Holbrook, M. 2013) “Live your life” Lyric of the song: “Live your life” Group 1 You've got the whole world in your pocket But you just don't know Everybody's smilin' at you everywhere you go It's like you've got that secret Everybody else wants to know Oh yeah Anywhere you are is just like home to you From the beaches in Manila Down to Katmandu Yeah you've got that secret Everybody else wants to know And you won't ever let it go oh Group 2 Everybody wanna hold your hand Everybody wanna shine that bright Everybody wanna say they can Everybody wanna live your life Everybody wanna talk like you Only wanna do the things you do 'Cause they always gonna turn out right Everybody wanna live your life Group 3 We take a whole room full of strangers And we make them friends We do it all around the world Just so it never ends It don't matter where we're coming from or going to You're the only one that ever turns a grey sky blue And everybody needs a friend like you 32 Secreto Saber Querer Hogar Desde Hacia abajo Dejarlo pasar Coger de la mano Decir que ellos pueden Vivir tu vida Hablar como tú Hacer las cosas que tú haces Cambiarlo a mejor Todo Habitación Extraños Hacer Amigos Alrededor del mundo Final No importa Cambiar el cielo gris en azul 33 POST ACTIVITY QUESTIONS Would you like to be the person the song is addressed to? Why? Why not? Do you think it is important to have a charismatic personality?