Junior High School English Teachers' Attitudes toward and Strategies for Teaching English Songs

• Main Authors: Liu Teh-wang, 劉得旺
• Other Authors: Liao Pen-shui
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/60802402087949261607

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 90 === ABSTRACT The main purposes of this study are to investigate junior high English teachers’ attitudes towards the use of English songs in their teaching as well as their teaching strategies. The research also focuses on the difficulties experienced by the responders when they utilize the approach. The responders of the study were 123 English teachers from 10 junior high schools in Kaohsiung. They were required to respond to the questionnaires designed by the researcher. Totally, 120 valid questionnaires were gathered and used for data analysis. In addition, the author interviewed those teachers as well as analyzed and generalized their attitudes toward teaching English songs and their strategies used in teaching English songs. The major findings of the study are listed below: 1. The results of the study show that most of the responders think highly of the singing approach. They consider this kind of activity both interesting and effective. 2. The responders maintain that the song program proves of great benefit to EFL learners, especially in the improvement of listening comprehension, translation, and understanding the cultures and literature. Besides, this technique can promote EFL/ESL students’ motivation of learning English. 3. The responders offer some strategies for the reference of EFL teachers. These strategies may inspire those who have never applied this activity but want to try. 4. The responders really encounter some difficulties when they adopt the song-teaching activity. However, they are kind enough to provide some solutions and suggestions. In view of the findings above, some suggestions for this technique are listed as follows: 1. Junior high English teachers should lay much emphasis upon the song program and adopt this method more often in the classroom. 2. Junior high English teachers have to use songs as the source materials of language competence tests, like listening comprehension tests, in order to make the learning procedure varied and challenging. 3. The Nine-year Coherent Integrated Course System will be put into effect in September, 2002 in Taiwan. Junior high English teachers, therefore, can use song activities to live up to the spirit of the new course system: to combine the language learning field with other fields, like music. 4. The English textbook editors or the authorities concerned should compile a booklet or a computer disc which gathers songs suitable for JHS teachers to adopt or build an internet web site on the computer where all the EFL/ESL teachers can download the songs they need in their teaching.