USING SONGS TO IMPROVE STUDENT’S

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background

English language is the language of global or international language. In the modern era,

the English language is not a foreign language. English has become an international language.

People of different countries speak English to communicate. English is a key, which opens the

door to scientific and technological knowledge. The Indonesian government has chosen

English as the first foreign language to be taught in the schools. Many an easy way to get a

sentence translation english to Indonesian. Listening but not so easy to get it because Listening is

our understanding English in listening, either directly or through media such as music or movies.

Listening is receiving the transfer of images, impressions, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and

emotions from the speaker.Listening is an important material in English because we have to

know that people say to us. To be able to master the listening we should really - really

understand the word - a word that we hear. As for learning a foreign language, listening is very

important because it provides the input language (Rost 1994: 141-142). Without understanding

the precise feedback, learning can not get any improvement. Moreover, without listening skills,

no communication can be achieved (Cross, 1998). As for the language learners, especially those

who are learning English as a foreign language in the regulation of non-natives, find it difficult

to acquire good listening skills.

 Listening plays an important role in teaching a second language for several reasons. If

you can not hear well, you will find it difficult to communicate or may not be able to pass the

exam to listen to you, for example. In fact, students often take the wrong way when they hear

and this leads to poor results. It should be noted that the perception of students from the problem

listening to them and understanding their strategies can affect both positively and negatively.

Thus, in order to help students gain the skills enhanced by listening to them, it is necessary to

know the problems they are causing trouble to listen to them. According Yagang (1994),

accompanied by a problem in listening to the following four factors: the message, the speaker,

the listener and the physical setting. In addition, the number of studies have been conducted to

select a problem in listening. The problem was believed to be caused by the rate of speech,

vocabulary and pronunciation (Higgins, 1995). As Flowerdew & Miller (1996) assumed that the

problem of students for the speed of delivery, new terminology and concepts, difficulty in

focusing and physical environment. In listening to the VOA, the students had to face three of this

problem: the advantages, problems and solutions. First of all, the students find it difficult to

understand the exact name because they had never heard of it before. In other words, they do not

have the background knowledge of what they are listening. The second problem is believed to

rise from the alien, unattractive and too old to listen to that makes students feel strange, desperate

and tired of what they hear. The latter is assumed about the connection of sound and intonation

are spoken by native speakers with different accents.

Similarly, Richards (1985: 189) states that: "there is little direct research on second

language listening comprehension". As for that, I am doing this research not only to help

students in our universities with better listen but also to contribute a small part to enrich the
listening research that has been done so far and to get students interested in learning a second

language in their country. Habit is the best way to get quality Listening.

Many of the strategies that we can use to hone our listening ability. One of them is the

strategy to use the song. Listening to English songs felt more attractive than other activities.

English songs is a great language pack that bundles a culture, vocabulary, listening, grammar,

and a number of other language skills in just a few poems. Songs can also provide lessons boring

day relaxing in the heat. It can also be the basis for many lessons. It can be used for a wide range

of English for teaching and learning foreign languages. This can start a discussion on a topic or

even become the center of debate (Futonge, 2005). Using songs in the classroom is a great way

to live up listening activities. It can add several steps that have been used successfully to process

even to make the activities more effective listening. “Through songs, students discover the

natural stretching and compacting of the stream of English speech” (Lems, 2001). Listening to

songs has been proven to be beneficial in terms of psychology as well. “Songs add to the

curriculum the oftenneglected dimension of “rightbrain” activities, to help the learner utilize

another approach to process and internalize the meaning of new sounds and structures being

learned” (Purcell, 1992). “The most commonly applied procedure in this task is ‘fill in the

blanks’ activity. Whitaker has a threestep process for this activity that she has found successful:

(1) Students hear the entire song twice; (2) the song is played a third time with a pause after each

line to give the students time to write; and (3) the song is played a final time in its entirety to

allow students to check what they have written” (Purcell, 1992). This exploratory study aims to

find out the parameters affecting the listening comprehension in a song listening activity.

Specifically, the study aims to investigate the following issues: (1) what music genre and which

singer origin are to be selected over the others for better comprehension, (2) what is the ideal
qualitative and quantitative blanking and (3) should the song be listened with or without pauses.

Applying a strategy of using songs to hone your listening skills students can make the students

do not feel bored to train their hearing because the song is one that is preferable students.

B. Statement of the Problems

In order to make a systematic approach in solving the problems, the statement of the problem is:

how to use the song to improve the quality of listening?

C. Objective of the Study

In line with the statement of the problem, the purpose of this study was to determine whether the

use of songs is an effective way to improve student achievement in listening.

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. Listening Skill

In Indonesia, English as a foreign language has been learned at school, from elementary

school until senior high school. It has four skills that have to be mastered by students. These

skills are reading, listening, writing, and speaking. From these skills, listening is a skill that felt

difficult to be mastered, because it needs more attention and concentration to comprehend the

sounds (listening material).

1. Definition of Listening Skill

As defined by oxford (1993: 206), listening is a complex problem solving skill and it is

more than just perception of the sounds. Listening includes comprehension of meaning words,

phrases, clauses, sentences, and connected discourse. Furthermore, according to Bulletin in

Saricoban (1999), listening is one of the fundamental language skills. It is a medium through

which children, young people and adults gain a large portion of their information, their

understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their

appreciation.

Rivers in Hasyuni (2006: 8) says that listening is a creative skill. It means we

comprehend the sound falling on our ears, and take the raw material of words, arrangements of

words, and the rise and fall the voice, and from this material we creative a significance. Russel

and Russel in Hasyuni (2006:8) also say that listening skill is listening with comprehension,

attention and appreciation. Then, listening activity needs integrating skill of language, such as

pronunciation, vocabulary mastery, writing, speaking, and reading.

Listening skill can be meant as ability to pay attention or to hear something. But,

listening is not same as hearing. Hearing is essentially an automatic, passive activity. It is

possible to hear sounds without consciously engaging in the process. While, in listening the brain

doesn’t automatically translate the words into the message they are conveying. That is essentially

what listening is determining the meaning and the message of the sounds or words. It is active

process that involves much more than assigning labels to sounds or words. As mentioned in Mee

(1990), listening is a complex process in which many things happen simultaneously inside the

mind. Besides being complex, listening is far more difficult than many people can imagine.

So, we can say that listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are
saying. It is also a complex activity, and we can help students comprehend what they hear by

activating their prior knowledge. Furthermore, it will consider another way teachers can help

ease the difficulty of listening by training students in different types of listening.

2. Difficulties in Listening Skill

Listening is usually a hard skill to master by the students. The first reason is that the

students do not have the text in front of them to look at if they do not understand the information.

A second reason is the accent and intonation of the native English speaker. In addition, each

country has dialects and regional accents which can confuse the listener. All of these make

listening learning a major challenge and it is no surprise that the students can find it difficult.

Ur (1996: 111), says that there are some students difficulties in learning listening: trouble with

sounds, have to understand every word, can’t understand fast and natural native speech, need to

hear things more than once, find it difficult to keep up, and get tired.

The other problem in learning listening is the students have no control over the speed of

what they are hearing and they cannot go back or rewind to listen again. Although, in class the

listening materials are recorded and can be played again or students to listen again, it is usually

under the control. Also, because the speed at which native speakers usually speak, students feel

that the teacher asks the students to listen to the overall message and forget about what they

could not catch, which probably means what they did not understand, the teacher has no idea that

sometimes what they do not really understand can add up to 75% of what is heard (Rixon, 1986:

37).

Moreover, Underwood (1989: 17) mentions some other kinds of difficulties that are

directly related to the students themselves. One of the problems which the students have
established learning habits in the sense that they were encouraged to understand everything by

listening carefully to teachers who probably speak slowly and clearly. Hence, when they fail to

understand every word while listening, they stop listening and lose the thread, which seems to be

the reason for state of panic and worrying they usually show before and during listening.

In relation to those problems, we cannot deny that students’ motivation plays important role in

learning listening. As mentioned in Brown (2006: 1), another theme will be motivation. Because

listening is so challenging, teachers need to think carefully about making the activities successful

and the content interesting. We can create the interest activity in learning listening such as by

listening English songs. By creating of high students’ motivation, it hoped can reduce the

listening difficulties. Furthermore, the students will be stimulated and not be panic or worry

when they are learning listening.

3. Principles of Teaching Listening Skill

When teaching listening skill, the teachers have to know the principles. There are some

principles of teaching listening skill, they are:

a. Listening should receive primary attention in the early stage of ESL instruction.

b. Maximize the use of material that is relevant to students’ real life.

c. Maximize the use of authentic language.

d. Vary the materials in terms of speakers’ gender, age, dialect, accent, topic, speed, noise, level,

and genre.

e. Always ask students to listen with a purpose and allow them to show their comprehension in a

task.

f. Language material intended to be used for training listening comprehension should never be
presented visually first.

Furthermore, the teachers have to take attention the principles in teaching listening skill.

As mentioned above, one of the principles in teaching listening is the teachers always ask

students to listen with the purpose of listening. So, we can help students listen more effectively if

we spend some time teaching them about purposes for listening. One way to do that is to use a

simple dialogue in order to show how they might listen differently depending on their goals.

4. Listening Material

The material is very important for the students to improve their listening skill. A suitable

material can make the students want to learn. The material which suitable with the students have

to interesting, in the right level of students’ difficulty, and presented in various activities (Puspita

in Hasyuni 2006: 4). The interesting materials that are familiar meaningful and various should be

provided for the students. It can help them to understand more easily.

Beside of that, the material should be as natural as possible in order that students can practice

and imitate the original voice from the speakers. As mentioned by Paulston in Hasyuni (2006: 4),

listening materials should consist of sample of natural language from as many different sources

as possible, so the students will have experience with many varieties of topics and situations.

In concluding, the teachers are better to know the students’ interest in learning listening

with kind activities. If not, students will get bored and do not want to learn anymore. The use of

songs also can motivate the students to attend lesson and pay attention in class, because songs

can be used for a wide variety of learning and teaching activities.

5. Types of Listening Activities

We always have a purpose for listening. We may listen to radio in the morning to know the up to

date reports. We may listen to a song for pleasure. We listen in different ways based on our

purpose. Having a purpose helps us listen more effectively.

There are some types of activities that can be applied in learning listening. Ur (1996: 113)

provides four of listening activities as follow:

a. No overt response, the students do not have to do anything in response to the listening;

however facial expression and body language often show if they are following or not. It includes

stories, songs, and entertainment.

b. Short responses, includes obeying instructions, ticking of items, true/false, detecting mistakes,

cloze, guessing definitions, and skimming and scanning.

c. Longer responses, includes answering questions, note-taking, paraphrasing and translating,

summarizing, and long gap-filling.

d. Extended responses, here, the listening as only a ‘jump-off point’ for extended reading,

writing or speaking: in other words, there are ‘combined skills activities. It includes problem-

solving and interpretation.

B. Song

According to Hornby (1990: 1133), song is a piece of music with words that is sung.

Song is also a great language package that bundles culture, vocabulary, listening, grammar and a

host of other language skills in just a few rhymes. Songs can also provide a relaxed lesson on a

hot boring day. They can also form the basis for many lessons (Futonge, 2005).

Almost everyone loves songs. It is a part of our language and life from before birth onwards. As
a baby, we often hear our mother and father sing a song to deliver us sleep in the bedroom. When

young children, we play, sing, and dance to a rhymes. As adolescents, we are consumes by the

beat of popular songs artist in the world. As adults, we often hear song on television, movies,

theater, and even nightly news. When we work, when we play, song is there to reinforce or every

mood and emotion.

From explanation above, we are suggested to include songs in language learning as well.

Songs had heard by the people in the world since they are born until died. So, listening to the

songs has been a habitual and liked by everybody. Beside of that, by songs we can provide a

relaxed lesson on a hot boring day.

1. The Use of Song as Authentic Listening Material

The use of authentic materials is an important factor to take into consideration when

designing listening skill materials. By using such listening materials, the learner is given the

chance to develop the skills needed to comprehend and to use language that is commonly found

in real situations. Therefore, it is important to take the opportunity wherever possible to expose

students to example of real language usage to help them become more communicatively

competent.

According to Ur (1996: 107), listening activities based on simulated real life situation and

likely to be most interesting and motivating to do than contrived textbook comprehension

exercise. The following features characterize real life listening activity:

a. We listen for a purpose and with certain expecting

b. We make an immediately response to what we hear

c. We see the person we are listening to

d. There are some visual or environment clues as to the meaning of what is heard

e. Stretches of hand discourse is spontaneous and therefore differs from formal spoken prose in

the amount of redundancy, noise and colloquialism, and it is auditory character.

From the features above, song is one of the authentic listening materials. Ross (2006)

says that the example of authentic listening materials is listening to song to learn more about

well-known bands that sing in English. As we know wherever we are, songs always follow us at

home, at school, at office, at cars, and so on. So, we can directly listen to the song and also

interest to learn the value of language in it.

When designing lessons and teaching materials to further develop listening

comprehension skills, students need to be motivated and stay motivated. This is best

accomplished by determining the suitable of the listening material such as the use of song as

authentic material. The use of song stimulates and motivates students to comprehend the content

of materials.

2. Factors Contributing to Listening Comprehension of Song

The possibility of using songs in English as a foreign language class has been actively

considering for the last two decades. It is considered because songs have many value of

language. Orlova (2003), states that it is possible to suggest that among the methodological

purposes with songs are used in class, it is possible to rank the following:

a. Practicing the rhythm, stress and the intonation patterns of the English language.

b. Teaching vocabulary, especially in the vocabulary reinforcement stage

c. Teaching grammar. In this respect songs are especially favored by teachers while investigating

the use of the tenses.

d. Teaching speaking. For this purpose, songs and mainly their lyrics are employed as a stimulus

for class discussion

e. Teaching listening comprehension

f. Developing writing skills. For this purpose a song can be used in a variety of ways.

According to Lynch (2008), there are three factors that contribute to listening

comprehension of song, they are:

a. Use of new vocabulary, idioms and expressions – It needs to address the new material offered

in each song. This includes grammar, vocabulary and usage.

b. Pronunciation and accent of the singer – Every native speaker doesn’t pronounce or sing with

the same accent. Students may be exposed to an accent which is outside the realm of what they

might normally hear in context.

g. Use of new grammar and structure Song researchers and singers are notoriously “loose” when

it comes to use of grammar, structure, pronunciation, stress and other language factors applied to

songs. The teacher must prepare for this.

In additional, the use of songs in teaching and learning English as a foreign language is

felt much needed. From the songs, we can learn many things such as vocabulary, grammar,

listening, speaking, writing, and especially in listening. .

3. The Criteria of Song Selection

The important thing about choosing a song to do with a class is to make sure that the

lyrics are clear. It can be very frustrating for the students not to understand a word. The

recording should also be a good one. A studio album is probably going to be better than a live
version. Furthermore, M. Lynch (2008), provides three principal song selection criteria, they are:

a. Use songs that are popular with the students whenever possible. Unfortunately, students

frequently select songs for classroom use which are objectionable in some way making the song

unusable.

b. Songs must have clear and understandable lyrics. Nothing is worse than a song almost nobody

can understand. If you have trouble understanding the lyrics by listening, then another song

needs to be selected.

c. Songs should have an appropriate theme. There’s enough bad news, negativity and violence in

the world already. Songs with any type of negative theme should be avoided. There are plenty of

positive, upbeat, even humorous songs available.

In order hand, Orlova (2003) says that while encouraging students to choose the songs for

discussion, it needs to ask them to following criteria below:

a. The song must be an example of a particular musical trend

b. There shouldn’t be any form of violence in it.

c. The song should contain a certain artistic image.

It is realized when teaching the students; we should choose the songs that suitable level

of difficulty. The suitable of the song is a particularly important issue. It should be known

whether the students are going to like the song or not.

4. The use of Song Procedure

There are various ways of using songs in the classroom. The level of the students, the

interests and the age of the learners, the grammar point to be studied, and the song itself have

determinant roles on the procedure. Apart from them, it mainly depends on the creativity of the
teacher.

According to Saricoban and Metin (2000), at the primary level of singing the song, the

prosodic features of the language is emphasized. At the higher levels, where the practice of

grammar points is at the foreground, songs can be used with several techniques. Some examples

of these techniques are:

a. Gap fills or close texts

b. Focus questions

c. True-false statements

d. Put these lines into the correct sequence

e. Dictation

f. Add a final verse

g. Circle the antonyms/synonyms of the given words

h. Discuss

According to Yoo (2002), procedure of songs activity can be done by steps below:

a. Pre-listening

1) As a warm-up or schema building activity, ask students what they know about American pop

culture. You might also want to bring some pictures or CD's of popular actors or singers to class.

2) Pass out the cloze activity handout, and have students read the lyrics and figure out what the

missing words might be, using their knowledge in grammar. Have the students compare their

guesses with their neighbors. Ask for volunteers to share their guesses with the class.
b. While-listening

Students listen for the missing words. Play the song once, and ask students whether they need to

listen to the song again. If they do, play it one more time.

c. Post-listening

After the second listening, go over the answers with the class. If necessary, replay the parts

where students had trouble understanding the words. Go over grammar points as necessary.

However in teaching listening by songs, there are three stages; pre-listening, while-listening, and

post-listening. Beside of that, the activity can be formed gap fills or close texts, true-false

statements, and dictation.

5. Benefit of Song

By using songs in the classroom, students can practice their listening skills and increase

their cultural knowledge. Almost any song can be used in the ESL classroom. The pronunciation

and rhythm lessons are the same as for the children's songs and the lessons may help students

become more interested in different types of songs. Practicing lyric reading, studying the

vocabulary, and listening to various songs can help students become more familiar with popular

songs and make them more confident in their ability to listen and understand the world around

them (Brown, 2006).

The other benefits of using songs in the classroom are songs can be used:

a. to present a topic, a language point, lexis, etc.

b. to practice a language point, lexis, etc.

c. to focus on common learner errors in a more direct way

d. to encourage extensive and intensive listening

e. to stimulate discussion of attitudes and feelings

f. to encourage creativity and use of imagination

g. to provide a relaxed classroom atmosphere

h. to bring variety and fun to learning

From explanation above, it’s considered that songs have much benefit. Some of them are

songs can motivate the students and make them more confidence in their ability to listen the

materials.

C. Teaching listening using the song

One of the big problems we all face, whether teaching English to children or adults, is

maintaining learners’ interest throughout our lessons. Consequently, we often have to be very

creative in the techniques we use. What makes music such a great teaching tool is its universal

appeal, connecting all cultures and languages. This makes it one of the best and most motivating

resources in the classroom, regardless of the age or background of the learner.

Planning for the use of songs in class

The process of selecting a song is one of the most difficult aspects of using music in a lesson.

Here are some things you probably need to think about to ensure you get the right song.

Carefully examine what it is you want your class to learn in the lesson
Is this going to be a lesson focusing on vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, or a particular

topic? I once used ‘You’re so vain’ by Carly Simon to introduce a text that looked at vain

people. In another lesson, I used ‘In the air tonight’ as it uses the present perfect continuous

tense. Whatever your focus, remember that this doesn’t necessarily place a limit on what you can

do with the song. For instance, you might wish to use the song in question to exemplify a

particular verb tense, and structure your lesson accordingly, but you might at the same time wish

to take the opportunity to look at those interesting idioms in the lyrics!

Think about the language level of your class

The language level of your class will determine not only which songs you can use, but also what

other activities – such as games or written exercises – you will use to develop the lesson. Lower

levels will become extremely frustrated with fast-delivered lyrics, for instance, while simple

repetitive lyrics might not be interesting for more advanced-level learners.

How old are your learners?

If you’re a teacher of young learners, you will probably want to use songs that are repetitive and

very easy to understand. For teenagers, however, use contemporary or fairly recent pop and rock

songs. My advice: it’s often best to ask them ‘what’s cool’. Alternatively, for adult learners, who

will probably have a more open approach to classes, use songs that are interesting to their age

group.
Are there any specific cultural issues regarding the make-up of your class?

What kinds of things are generally unacceptable in the culture in which you teach? Whatever you

do, don’t use music solely based on your own cultural norms. Consider the audience and their

sensibilities; even better, let them choose the songs that you use.

What kind of access do you have to the song?

Let’s face it, this is the age of YouTube and you can find practically any song on this website.

Nevertheless, an mp3, which doesn’t require a connection, or even a good old-fashioned CD, can

often be a useful backup.

Six steps for making a song the focus of your class

My intention here is to provide a basic outline you can use with any song. Remember, these are

just suggestions so make sure to keep the profile of your learners in mind.

1. Listen to the song

That’s it – start things off by just listening. It’s important to remember that this is

supposed to be a fun activity; don’t make it too serious or boring.

As an alternative, you can show a video clip if you have one – in fact, I strongly recommend it,

as it will cater to more learners’ needs in terms of learning styles (visual and audible).

Ask learners if they’ve heard it before, and don’t overload them with tasks at this point; simply

let them enjoy the music.

2. Ask some questions about the title

Here are a couple of examples of the types of questions you can ask:

For John Lennon’s wonderful ‘Jealous Guy’:

‘What is a ‘jealous guy’?’

‘What are three things a jealous guy might do?’

‘What kinds of jealousy are there?’

For Queen’s classic ‘We are the champions’:

‘What is a champion?’

‘What kinds of champions are there in the world?’

‘What activities have champions?’

Such questions tend to work really well as conversation starters, so group three or four learners

together and then get feedback from each group on their thoughts. If you think it would help,

make this your first step, i.e., before the initial listening.

Alternatively, prior to having listened to the song you can teach a couple of words and

give a simple task for the first listening. My favourite strategy is to give three or four words from

the song and ask to them to listen out for the words that rhyme with them. You could also

brainstorm possible rhymes before listening.

3. Listen to the song again, this time with lyrics

This time, you should give learners the chance to read the lyrics to the song. At this point

you might do one or more of the following activities:

Learners can just read the lyrics while they listen. They can possibly highlight unknown

words for later discussion. You can make a lyric worksheet as a gap fill; learners fill in the gaps

as they listen. You can make cut-out strips of selected missing words and again make a lyric

worksheet as a gap fill; this time learners match the word strips to the gaps as they listen.

4. Focus on a particular verb tense or aspect of grammar

Virtually every song centres on a particular verb tense. This is too good an opportunity to

pass up in terms of uncovering the grammar. My suggestion is to start with questions such as

these:

How many examples can you find of the past simple in the lyrics?

Why did the writer of this song choose this verb tense?
 This acts as a springboard for discussing the function of a specific tense, as well as

examining its form. Furthermore, it often tends to raise awareness of grammatical flexibility and

‘poetic licence’ in the construction of song lyrics. Students often expect songs to obey the

grammatical rules that have been drummed into them. In a surprisingly large number of cases,

this can lead to the enlightening discovery that rules can be broken!

5. Focus on vocabulary, idioms and expressions

We’ve noted that many songs bend the rules of grammar. It’s also useful to focus on the

creative and artistic use of vocabulary we encounter in lyrics. Start with questions like these

(again, for Queen’s classic song ‘We are the champions’):

What does ‘I’ve paid my dues’ mean?

What does ‘my share of’ mean?

What does ‘I’ve taken my bows’ mean?

Go through the meanings, illustrating with other examples if necessary. Songs often serve

as really good contexts for phrases and idioms, but it’s good to make sure that the meaning is

clear. As with grammar, years of misunderstanding can come to light in this way!

6. Round things off with some creativity

Creativity is an important part of maintaining motivation but it shouldn’t be limited to the

teaching approach. Depending on the factors highlighted in the first part of this post (age,
language level, cultural specifics, etc.), you might want to try finishing things off with an activity

that stimulates creative thought. Here are a few examples of things you can do to get the creative

juices flowing:

Write another verse of lyrics, maintaining the same mood and style as the original. This

can be done individually or in groups. These new lyrics can be presented to the rest of the class.

Perhaps several groups can work on this to come up with a completely new set of lyrics for the

whole song.

A song tends to give you the perspective of the singer. Write a response (this can be a

paragraph, i.e., not necessarily in lyric form) from the point of view of the person the song is

being sung about, or any other protagonist.

Have the learners plan a music video for the song. In groups they decide the location, the

characters, and what happens. Then each group explains their idea to the rest of the class and the

learners vote on the best one. The results can be surprising, as they frequently come up with an

interpretation that hadn’t even occurred to you!

Write a diary entry for a character in the song. Get learners to examine the thoughts and

feelings that inspired the story being played out in the lyrics.
 BAB III

CONCLUSION

Based on the data analysis in chapter IV, we can conclude that the use of song in the

classroom motivates the students to attend lessons and pay attention in class. Concept of the

use authentic listening material such song embodied in the lyrics of popular songs sung by their

favorite artists that they idolize are espousing the same values and the same principle that are

taught in the authentic material, things like commitment, responsibility, love and compassion.

Getting the message through the lyrics of the songs is much more hip and cool. Songs are also

easily available, songs present new vocabulary and expression in context, through songs

students become familiar with the pronunciation of native speaker, songs provide topics for

discussion, and finally most students enjoy listening and analyzing song.
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Lynch, Larry M. (2008). Using Popular Songs to Improve Language Listening Comprehension

Skills. http://esl4free.blogspot.com/2008/02/can-music-improve-your-students.htm.

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