The Effect of English Popular Songs on Learning Motivation and ...

<strong>The</strong> <strong>Effect</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>English</strong> <strong>Popular</strong> <strong>Songs</strong> on Learning 19Motivation and Learning Performancedeveloped by Educational Bureau <strong>of</strong> TainanCity, there was a section in each lesson thatrequired students to read and spell certaintarget words. Since that most <strong>of</strong> the targetwords were from Dolch Basic Sight WordsList, students have learned the list from theirfifth grade. <strong>The</strong>refore, it was assumed thatstudents could recognize most <strong>of</strong> the wordsin the lyrics.3.3 InstrumentTo understand the improvement <strong>of</strong>students’ abilities through <strong>English</strong> songlearning, a questionnaire was designed bythe researcher herself for a further study.Besides the main survey items, there weretwo items about students’ backgroundinformation and an invitation letter to fill inthe questionnaire. A total <strong>of</strong> 17 survey itemswere designed to investigate whetherstudents were motivated to learn <strong>English</strong>through the teaching <strong>of</strong> <strong>English</strong> popularsongs. Moreover, this study also examinedhow young learners felt after learning<strong>English</strong> through popular song singing. Allitems <strong>of</strong> the survey questionnaire weresubdivided into two categories. One wasrelated to the variable <strong>of</strong> “learningmotivation”, and the other was “learningperformance”. In addition to the 16 items,the final item (Item 17) was an open-endedquestion designed for the students to expresstheir opinions about which song theyenjoyed most and why they liked thespecific song.Except Item 15, all the other surveyitems were designed in positive statements.Participants indicated the extent to whichthey felt each item was true for them on a4-point scale. <strong>The</strong> scoring system was“strongly agree (SA)” to be scored 4 points,“agree (A)” 3 points, “disagree (DA)” 2points, and “strongly disagree (SD)” 1 point.Furthermore, for collecting the qualitativedata for references, one open-ended question(Item17) designed to provide students with achance to state or express their perceptionsor opinions about the use <strong>of</strong> popular songs inthe class, was not scored by numbers.3.4 Description <strong>of</strong> the Treatment<strong>The</strong> duration <strong>of</strong> the present study lastedfor one semester. Since the four <strong>English</strong>popular songs were used as the supplementalmaterials to their <strong>English</strong> textbook, theinstructional time was intermittent. That is,each song was introduced after the end <strong>of</strong>one lesson. On average, 15 minutes perperiod were reserved for the appreciation <strong>of</strong>one <strong>English</strong> popular song and the studentshad two class periods per week. <strong>The</strong> studentswere exposed to the song 30 minutes a weekfor three continuous weeks. To sum up, therewas a total <strong>of</strong> six-hour instructional timewithin 12 weeks..Results and Discussion<strong>The</strong> collected data was analyzedthrough SPSS 10.0. In order to check if thestudents were attentive when completing thequestionnaire, Item 15 was designed as theopposite statement <strong>of</strong> Item 14. That is, Item15 describing about the difficulty <strong>of</strong> theteaching materials was separately countedand discussed. This meant there were 14survey items (Items 1-13 and 16) in the19