The Effect of Pop Songs on the Retention of the Target Grammar

pop songs could facilitate junior high school students’ retention of the target grammar structure (i.e., the past subjunctive mood) in an implicit learning context. This positive result of the study seemed to confirm Lin’s study (2011) which observed positive effects of songs on learning and retention of target grammar points. Compared with the present study which was conducted in an implicit learning context, the participants in Lin’s study were first given explicit grammar instruction; then the control group practiced the target grammar points by drills while the experimental group practiced the target grammar points by drills plus songs. It seemed that in Lin’s study, songs only served as supplementary material in the grammar instruction. The present study further demonstrates that rather than just being supplementary material, songs can serve as an effective learning material for grammar by themselves.

Nevertheless, explicit grammar instruction seemed to play an important role for Taiwanese English learners. From the instructor’s observation in the present study,

nearly five participants from each group inquired about the target grammar rules once they noticed the target grammar structure was different from what they had learned.

The data from the questionnaire demonstrated that nearly twenty participants had noticed the recurring target grammar structure during the experiment, but only ten of them tried to learn the grammar rules by themselves. The questionnaire further showed that over twenty participants in the sung group thought it was important for teachers to explain grammar rules in detail in the classroom. One participant wrote,

“If there is no explanation of grammar rules in class, how do I know which item to choose in the test?” Another participant even wrote, “I hope the teacher can teach sentence by sentence.” These opinions clearly favor explicit instruction. It seems that Taiwanese learners rely on explicit instruction in the classroom setting because it is what they are accustomed to. However, since song instruction is effective in grammar learning and retention not only in the explicit learning context but also in the implicit learning context, this study provides an alternative method of song instruction in EFL classrooms.

The results of the present study run contrary to Lee’s (2013). Lee investigated the effect of songs on the learning and retention of the past subjunctive mood. Three groups were compared in her study: the control group, the spoken group, and the sung group. The result showed that there was no significant difference among groups. The different results of the two studies might be due to the motivation of the participants.

As Lee observed in her study, the participants among the control and experimental groups had low motivation for several possible reasons. First, the participants had already taken the entrance exam for high schools so that they did not have extrinsic motivation for learning and just wanted to relax. Second, the instructor in the study was a new teacher who had yet to establish a mutual trust with the students. Third,

some of the songs selected in the study failed to interest the participants and thus led to low motivation in learning the songs.

Despite the fact that the participants in the present study were also participants who had already taken the entrance exam for high schools, the present study was different from Lee’s in two notable ways. First, the instructor had already taught the participants in the control group and the spoken group for one year and taught the participants in the sung group for three years. Therefore, the participants had built mutual trust with the instructor so that they were more willing to follow the instructions and were engaged in the classroom activities. What’s more, the two activities (i.e., scramble sentences and group discussion) in the present study required group cooperation and thus could motivate the participants in the learning process.

Second and most importantly, the criteria of selecting songs in the present study were different from that of Lee’s study in some ways. The present study selected songs that was released within ten years and the albums of the songs have hit the Billboard chart “The Hot 100”. Therefore, the selected songs were popular among learners. What’s more, the selected songs were listened to by other classes of ninth graders in the same school in advance to ensure the songs were popular among the participants. As a consequence, the participants in the sung group enjoyed listening to the songs and were eager to learn the songs. According to the data from the questionnaire, nearly 90% of the participants in the sung group liked the selection of songs. The popularity of songs among the participants indicates the importance of song-selection in the instruction. When teachers intend to apply song instruction in an EFL classroom, it’s crucial to choose songs that are popular among learners. With the motivation to learn the songs, learners would be more willing to master the language, yielding better pedagogical outcomes.

5.2.2 The Effect of Different Auditory Input of Songs on the Retention of the