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55RAISING LEARNERS' MOTIVATION THROUGH SONGS IN TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES Matkarimova B.H.
Matkarimova Ba 'rno Habibullaevna - Teacher of English, DEPARTMENT OF TEACHING LANGUAGES, MANAGEMENT IN PRODUCTION FACULTY, FERGANA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, FERGANA, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: the article under discussion depicts the raising learners' motivation through songs in teaching foreign languages and suggests different interesting techniques to improve all four language skills and enhance motivation of the learners. Keywords: songs, speaking, writing, reading, listening, skills, learners, motivation, improve, relaxing, entertaining.
Songs has been used not only as an activity to help students improve their listening skills, but increasingly by many teachers to enhance learner involvement and motivate them to learn English. Teachers and learners find songs entertaining and relaxing. With the help of songs teachers can offer some change from routine classroom activities, which learners enjoy most of all. Songs help to develop students' abilities in listening, speaking, reading and even writing. Songs are used to teach vocabulary (as they cover new words and expressions), pronunciation, to raise students' awareness on stylistic devices and some grammatical patterns used in songs. Besides songs help to improve musical intelligence of students - the ability to sense rhythm, pitch, tone and melody. Good music can help students to overcome fear to speak before a teacher as they usually feel in a formal classroom setting, it creates a friendly atmosphere during the lesson.
Motivation and interest of students play the main role in learning the language. To enhance learner commitment, teachers should allow students to participate in planning a "song lesson", i.e. to give them a choice to choose a song they like (a film song, some famous pop hit or a folk song) and the
activities applied during the "song lesson". Familiar songs ("The wind of change" by "Scorpions", "Pretty woman" by Roy Orbison, "Music" by Madonna, "Crazy" by Britney Spears and others) may encourage students to learn as much as they want in the foreign language. Therefore they provoke confidence in learning and understanding not only the patterns of the language, but serve as a bridge in "feeling" the culture of the country due to authenticity of the songs, because modern and pop songs are what we all hear on the radio, in bars and even in some language show lobbies [1, p.p. 34-48].
Melody lessons are the convenient way of growing fast spiritual and imaginative reflections on the students' mind, students get much enthusiasm and enjoyment which is at the same time useful and stimulating approach in the learning process. One thing should be kept in mind: students practice with the songs not only during the lesson, but after the lesson as well as they sing them for their own enjoyment. Songs are kept in our minds in comparison with the grammar patterns learnt during the lesson, they are immediately forgotten.
Songs could be applied in achieving different aims, the activities given below can be applied during the "Song lesson" by engaging learners in meaningful task design and the efficient song exploitation :
• Students can practice with an activity of mixed up lyrics which is aimed at developing creative skills of the students. A teacher cuts up the complete lyrics into lines and let the students try to work out the logical order before listening. While listening students can compare their versions with the original one.
• "Making up your own lyrics" is a good activity for students' creativity too. To organize this activity the teacher prepares one sided gap-filling and another sided ready-made song. Students complete the song with whatever they think, no matter does it coincide the real logical meaning of the verse. At the beginning level students can be offered some nouns, adjectives adverbs, verbs to fill the gaps of the song, students fill them up to their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. After completing students read their own lyrics and compare with the original form.
Such kind of the activity helps to raise students' awareness on grammatical points of English.
• "Filling in gaps" can be applied as well during while-listening activity. Teachers give one-sided gap-filling to students which should be done while listening a song; students note down the words they hear in the song. After listening they compare with their peers and check it with the original form of the song. This is followed by the teacher asking simple questions to check the students' overall comprehension of the song.
• Students can role-play the song, they can create some play of their own and act it out in class. Besides students can be involved in creative writing tasks, which help to understand more about the song and penetrate into the scene. Students may be asked to imagine themselves as the characters of the song and are distributed tasks to fulfill, for example an excuse letter from a husband to a wife telling her what he feels. Students discuss their versions in students' session.
• "Song dictation" activity aims to sharpen students' listening ability in learning the pronunciation of shortened verb forms as well as distinction between long and short vowels (mostly applied at the beginning level). Students are handed the lyrics with these word missed. They should go through the lyrics and try to guess the words in blanks. The words can be discussed before listening or can be checked while listening the song. The teacher discusses the answers with the students and practices pronouncing the words with them.
• "Song reading" is successfully applied among advanced students. This activity helps to develop students' ability to comprehend the literal meaning of the song and at the same time analyze the hidden message. Students are given the entire lyrics with a set of comprehension questions. The teacher plays the song and gives time to the students to do the silent reading, focusing their attention on the given questions. Students may discuss their answers in groups to generate more conversation in English. The teacher discusses the answers with the students and focuses on the development of the story in the song.
At the final step of the lesson the teacher can ask several questions concerning students' personal attitude to the lesson, i.e. to give feedback. Students share their opinions in their groups and discuss in class. Several questions on feedback as follows: "How do you feel?", "What did you like at the "Song lesson"?, "What is your overall impression about the lesson?", "Did the lesson help you to improve your listening skills?" and others [2, p.p. 6-18].
The series of activities described above offer a great deal of advantages in promoting the learning of English. The greatest advantage of the "Song lesson" is stimulating students' interest and enhancing their motivation. Students show tremendous interest in learning English through songs, and listening to songs can easily help to develop listening skills and improve learners' speech. Students work on various creative tasks in pairs/groups thus increasing creativity and promoting collaboration in class. The authors of this article successfully applied the activities mentioned in their teaching practice and found them helpful to create plenty of teaching materials through teacher-student collaboration which resulted on more interesting and motivating learning.
References
1. Douglas Brown N. Teaching by principles. An interactive approach to language pedagogy. Prentice Hall Regents, 1994. P.p. 34-48.
2. Pennington M.C. New ways in teaching English. Blooming, Illinois USA, 1995. P.p. 6-18.
