Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.92 (Education 2015), pp.41-45 http://dx.doi.org/10.14257/astl.2015.92.09
The Effects of Improving English Listening Skills of High School Students with a Lower Level through Pop Song Hunminglish Pronunciation (PSHP) Practice Jin-Sung Kim, Mun-Koo Kang Department of English Education, Kongju National University, 56 Gongjudaehak-ro, Gongju-si, Chungcheongnam-do, 314-701, Republic of Korea
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Abstract. This study aims to improve listening skills of 128 Korean high school students, who mostly have a lower level grasp of English through English Pop Song Hunminglish Pronunciation (PSHP) practice and investigate the effectiveness by before and after surveys and national English listening tests. The data for analyzing results from March through December in 2014 have been collected from before and after questionnaires, national English listening tests. The results of this study are English pop songs increased their interest and motivation, which have been turned out to be about two times more scores after 10 months. Therefore it is desirable that more English teachers have to try use more English pop song materials to improve students’ listening skills through interest and motivation. Keywords: motivation, listening skills, pop songs, below-average
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1.1
Introduction
Importance
According to Krashen’s input hypothesis, there should be enough input before one utilizes a target language. Therefore, language teachers must not force students to speak anything until they have enough input and feel ready to take the next step. During this process, teachers must make students feel comfortable (Krashen, 1985). For teaching and learning English listening skills, English pop songs have been considered as a very popular and effective way, and useful pattern practices related to the songs can be very helpful. English pop songs can help students feel more confident and enjoy learning English at home as well as in the classroom. Across the world, it is common that young students love listening to English pop songs, which also have very useful words and expressions with basic structures used in everyday routines. Even many of multicultural learners having trouble following normal English lessons at school have been reported to have improved their listening skills by listening to authentic and natural pronunciation in English pop songs.
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Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.92 (Education 2015)
1.2
The Purpose
This study aims to improve listening skills of 128 high school students in the lower level of English through English Pop Song Hunminglish Pronunciation (PSHP) practice and investigate the effects by before and after surveys and national English listening tests.
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2.1
Theoretical Background
The Concept of Listening
Many students tend to confuse the difference between ‘hearing’, a biological activity to simply receive sounds, and ‘listening’, a conscious attention, reception, perception, the assignment of meaning and response by the listener to the message that is pretended (Berko & Wolvin, 1989). That is the point that students should train their listening skills. 2.2
The Importance of Listening
Postovsky (1981) and many of other comprehension approach methodologists suggested that listening comprehension should be the focal methodology in foreign/second language instruction. He emphasized that listening skills should be trained prior to speaking and language learning should be based on understanding rather than uttering. Rivers (1981), also, emphasized the importance of listening by comparing the amounts of listening and speaking. She said that listening amounts to twice that of speaking, four times of that of reading, and five times of that writing. Therefore, developing listening skills is the most fundamental and important factor in language learning to improve other three language skills (Kim, 2014). 2.3
English Pop Song as Authentic Materials for English Education
Murphy (1981) said that pop songs are really composed of 300 to 500 words, which are just enough for the reading level of English native-speaking children after 5 years of school education or level of basic EFL readers. Authentic materials are good for increasing language skills. According to Rodgers and Medley (1988), ‘authentic’ in the sense of language means samples that reflect a natural form accompanied by appropriate cultural and situation context as if used by native speakers.
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Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.92 (Education 2015)
2.4
What’s Hunminglish?
Hunminglish (Patent Trademark No. 40-1026643) is an epoch-making linguistic combination of Hunminjeongeum and English based on the findings of contrastive analysis. Hunminjeongeum is the original name of Hangul, the Korean alphabet, in which sound and symbol correspond one-to-one and make many more human phonetic combinations. The educational outcomes of the effects of Hunminglish have been introduced by various TV shows and earned many compliments and encouragement. (Kim, J.S., 2013).
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3.1
Methodology
The Subject of the Study
This study was conducted on 128 high school students with a lower level of English in 2014. Most of the students were not able to understand basic 500 words in listening and reading. Their progress in listening ability was evaluated by the comparison between before and after surveys and national English listening tests. 3.2
Surveys for Interest
The same survey with 20 questions was conducted for investigating students’ interest in English and taken twice, before and after the experiment. The questions were closed-ended and asked in the manner of a Likert scale, ranging from item 1 (Definitely Yes) to item 5 (Definitely No). 3.3
The National English Listening Tests
The students’ progress in listening skills could be evaluated by the scores of two nation-wide English listening comprehension tests, which are composed of general understanding of dialogues between native speakers. The first one was conducted on March 17th and the second was on December 12th.. Their advance for 10 months in listening skills is shown by comparison between the two results.
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Outcomes
The 128 students’ progress in English listening ability for 10 months was evaluated by the comparison between before and after surveys and national English listening tests from March through December in 2014 as follows.
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Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.92 (Education 2015)
4.1
Before and After Surveys for Interest
Fig. 1. The Comparison with the Results of Before and After Surveys for Interest
4.2
Before and After National English Listening Tests
Fig. 2. The Improvements in the Average Scores of Each Class
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Conclusion
This study aimed to improve English listening skills of high school students with a lower level through English Pop Song Hunminglish Pronunciation (PSHP) practice and investigate the effectiveness by before and after surveys and national English listening tests. This study was conducted on 128 high school students from March through December in 2014. Most of them in March were not able to understand basic 500 words in listening and reading. Their progress in listening ability was evaluated by the comparison between before and after surveys and national English listening tests. With the meaningful improvements in outcomes above, it can be concluded that using English pop songs in the English classroom is a very effective way of teaching and learning English for below-average level of high school students by motivating them to pay comparatively more attention to the songs and lyrics, which led to two times higher scores in the national English test after 10 months.
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References 1. Kim, J. S.: Miracle Pop Song Hunminglish, pp.27--33. Edubox, Seoul, South Korea (2014) 2. Krashen, S. D.: The Natural Approach, Language Acquisition in the Classroom, pp. 27--48. Pergamon Press, New York (1983) 3. Murphey, T.: The Discourse of Pop Songs, TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 26, pp.770--774 (1992) 4. Postovsky, V. A.: The Priority of Aural Comprehension in the Language Acquisition Process, The Comprehension Approach to Foreign Language Instruction, pp.112--119 (1981) 5. Rivers, W. M.: Teaching Foreign Language Skills, 2nd Ed., pp.67--71. Chicago University Press (1981) 6. Rodgers, C. V. and Medley F. W.: Language with a Purpose, Using Authentic Materials in the Foreign Language Classroom, Foreign Language Annals 21, pp. 467--489 (1981)
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