THE USE OF SONGS IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS BY TEACHERS AT PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HANOI

Abstract

Abstract This study investigates the use of songs in teaching English to young learners by primary school teachers of English in Hanoi. More specifically, the researcher strives to 1) explore the belief of teachers of English at primary schools in Hanoi toward the use of songs in their classes 2) examine their practice of employing songs in reality to get the whole picture of how songs are currently applied to teaching English for children. The researcher conducted a survey with the participation of fifty four teachers from twenty five primary schools in fourteen districts of Hanoi. Questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and observation schemes were used as useful instruments for data collection. The questionnaire-based survey aims to scrutinize teachers’ beliefs about the importance, advantages and disadvantages of using songs as well as how they use songs. Oral interviews and observations serve to elaborate on the information gathered from questionnaires and assure the validity of the result collected. The results of the study indicate that teachers hold strong beliefs toward the importance and advantages of using songs but do not seem to recognize the disadvantages of songs. Regarding the current situation of how songs are being used, songs are mostly used in teaching vocabulary, listening and phonics and used at warm-up and wrap-up of a lesson. The top three criteria to choose songs in teaching are songs must be easy to sing, contain targeted language and have exciting, catchy melody. The teachers mainly use songs available in the textbooks and from online sources. Almost all the surveyed teachers are satisfied with the outcome of using songs to teach in their lessons. Nevertheless, the teachers still face some difficulties in using songs, the most common ones are class time is limited and the teachers cannot find appropriate songs for every topic of their lessons. Lastly, some suggestions were made by the teachers with the hope to utilize this pedagogical tool more effectively in EFL classrooms for young learners.