小学英语词汇教学研究---英文歌曲的应用

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Chapter One Introduction

With the sustainable development of the economy, and especially, China’s entry

into WTO, English talents become more and more demanded. At the same time, the

growing importance of English has already caught enough attention it deserves: both in

academic or formal educational circles and in training institutions, English is a fairly

important topic, which seems non-stopping. The scale of English education is

expanding constantly, from general to vocation-specific. Moreover, the starting age to

learn English is becoming younger and younger in the past twenty years. As the

Department of Education declared that English courses should be gradually offered in

all the elementary schools in cities and towns since 2001, elementary English education

has become an inseparable part of China’s educational system. The purpose of it is to

prepare children with both the basic knowledge of English and the basic language skills.

According to the Basic Requirements, which is set for elementary school students,

teachers should find ways in motivating students to learn English and to foster their

positive attitude towards learning English. Therefore, the students would become

interested in learning English and gain enough self-confidence in the process of learning.

The language sense, pronunciation and intonation, vocabulary, and other basic skills are

listed in the Basic Requirements as the teaching goal.

As a matter of fact, the present situation of English teaching in elementary schools

is that teachers give lessons in the exam-oriented way to a great extent, i.e., the

teacher-centered approach is excessively utilized. Although many teachers realize the

problem and know the importance of creating a comfortable learning atmosphere and

letting the children do what they want to do, the correct adoption isn’t as applicable as is

expected, because exams are inevitable. Therefore, a balance is needed for those lovely

children so that they can enjoy the lessons happily without failing to enter their favorite

middle schools.

1.1 Stating the Problem

In this paper, the experimental objectives under discussion are children within the

proper age of schooling. All of them are from 7 to 10, before the Critical Period,

ranging from grade one to grade four. Within this scope of age, on the one hand, in

A Study on English Vocabulary Teaching for Elementary Students

terms of their physiological characteristics, children’s cognitive mechanism hasn’t

developed completely; they are not quite good at abstraction. Thus they generally are

not consciously interested in language for its own sake, for example, vocabulary, syntax

and grammar rules. They usually tend to show their interest to things that are easy for

them to understand. (Hong Qin Zhao, 2004) On the other hand, in terms of their

psychological characteristics, children are generally observed to get bored easily.

Teachers have to speak loudly to get their attention again and again so that they are not

distracted and would concentrate on study once more.

Considering the physiological and psychological aspects of children, I wonder if

we could find a proper medium to have the best of both worlds. Not surprisingly, I’ve

got music. One important reason for using music to introduce children to English is

because they love it. Music has a magic power for children. Even the shyest boy that I

have witnessed in my class can enjoy himself whispering his favorite song. Another

reason is that they understand music intrinsically and thus they can enjoy the beauty of

music without effort. So it’s quite understandable that almost all children feel

comfortable and at ease during a music lesson because singing together with their

classmates creates a joyful atmosphere. It is a non-threatening, inspiring way to have

such lessons; at that very time, school becomes a happy, friendly place, to which

everyone belongs.

But that’s not enough. We are not certain if music and language study are

scientifically correlated. So besides the affective advantage, is there any evidence which

shows music helps learning a language? The answer is definitely yes. In western

countries, especially Britain and USA, it is not a new concept to implement music in

language teaching and other language-related fields. Many teachers and researchers

have already touched upon the relationship between songs/music and language

teaching/language in general. Among them, it is widely agreed that the two systems are

closely related. For example, the head of each domain is chosen by means of

well-formedness conditions. A coherent whole of such conditions (or constraints)

indicates what is grammatical in language and which mode of perception is optimal in

music. In language for example one has to know which of two syllables in a foot is

stressed and in music which chord of a certain sequence is the most prominent in the

progression of the whole piece. In China, quite a few teachers have already integrated

music or songs in their foreign language classroom. They play classical music, foreign

Chapter One Introduction

pop songs, operas, etc to student so that the lesson will become more interesting and

attractive. Accordingly, a number of research papers about the relationship between

music and language teaching have been released. However, most of them are based on

the teachers’ experience. We can scarcely find the concrete data in those papers.

Moreover, the introduction of the theory which supports the partnership of music and

language is not sufficient enough. Thus the credibility of the researches is discounted.

Furthermore, the lack of proper song materials specifically for children is another

problem. On the one hand, although there are some materials which are suitable for

children, the number is so limited and overused. For example, we can easily get CDs or

tapes which include songs like ‘Jingle Bell’, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ etc. But

they are heard too often. As is mentioned above, children get bored easily; even music

is of no exception. I remembered that during this experiment, when I asked a boy about

one song, he said to me immediately, “Oh, Mr. Wang, I am able to sing ××× song when I

was very young. Teach me some new tricks.” Things are more or less the same when I

asked the whole class. On the other hand, the available song materials, which are

adequate and constantly updated, are mainly pop songs. English pop songs as well as

Hollywood movies and Japanese cartoons, etc. have been pouring into China in recent

years. Students of different ages have been attracted to a certain degree. It is very

common to hear college students talking about western pop stars and their favorite

singles. They can handle the meaning of the lyrics and even imitate the most difficult

rap part. However, as most of the materials include such content as love affairs, whisper

of wooing, sadness out of trivial matters, cynical mood and other typical adult behaviors

and attitudes, they are not suitable for children in terms of their age and healthy mental

development.

1.2 Main Ideas

Nowadays, most of the elementary schools in cities and towns have offered

English lessons in the curriculum. As a result, students have to spend a lot of time

learning English. Many students have been busy with the tedious homework and

auxiliary classes. Thus the heavy burden is not reduced as it should be. However,

elementary students are a special group who should be treated differently with great

caution. They are children in a broader sense and we should let them enjoy what

A Study on English Vocabulary Teaching for Elementary Students

belongs to them. They should have more play and fun. They shouldn’t be penalized for

their failure in understanding the grammar, the meaning of words, etc. we should make

the English lesson become a joyful time, where each child has a sense of belonging.

In addition, they are students after all and exams are inevitable in China. Thus

getting a high mark is necessary to enter into an ideal middle school. In this respect, we

cannot let the children blindly do what they want to do instead. We have to return to

reason. Thus how to make a balance between playing and studying is the key point. A

song can be a good medium for both. It is a combination of both music and language. It

consists of both musical and linguistic aspects. The former can create a non-threatening

and comfortable learning atmosphere. The latter is the approximation of the language

activity which includes the language elements the students have to acquire.

In this paper, the author tries to create a relaxed and cooperative learning

atmosphere for the children and investigate the concrete correlation between music and

vocabulary learning - an important aspect of language learning, with the help of the

integration of English songs. Under such circumstances, the children would have the

opportunity to enjoy their favorite songs, and at the same time, memorize the

vocabulary and other language points.

The reason why the author has chosen vocabulary learning as his research focus is

that it is one of the crucial aspects of language learning. Without vocabulary, a language

cannot survive. In this respect, children are of no exception in the process of learning a

foreign/second language. They have to remember certain amount of words in order to

get further achievement. There are many ways in remembering words. But

memorization is the basic and key factor in vocabulary learning. Since music, no matter

pure or vocal, has a great positive aid on memory, the author would rather not miss the

chance in arguing the impact of English songs on vocabulary learning.

1.3 Configuration of the Study

The present study is displayed in the following five chapters.

Chapter One introduces the problems of elementary English teaching in China, and

points out the needs and ideas about using songs in the classroom.

Chapter Two is the literature review, in which, the author endeavors to collect the

appropriate theories to support his research findings. It discusses the relationship

Chapter One Introduction

between music and language, the studies on memory and the exploration into language

teaching and learning.

Chapter Three presents a sample by using different methods to teach elementary

English. The control class was taught in a traditional method, i.e. no-music aided

normal method, while the experimental class was taught with the integration of songs. It

illustrates the research preparations, research design, and implementations. The data

collection instrument includes student interview, classroom observations and tests. The

research preparation part takes the musical elements into consideration, which is not

mentioned much before.

Chapter Four displays the findings and discussion of the study. The collected data

are compared and analyzed. Success-conductive factors and problems of the research

are summarized and some future work recommendations will be discussed in order to

make this enterprise available in practice.

The final chapter is conclusion, in which the author summarizes the

implementation of the study, points out the limitation of the research, and makes

suggestions to further research.

Chapter Two Literature Review

Music and language are two closely related systems. The earliest time during

which their relationship was recorded can be traced back to ancient Greece. Such kind

of thought about the partnership between the two had been further developed by the

18th century Enlightenment Movement. From the linguistic perspective, music is

another discipline which can be interpreted by using generative-transformational

grammar. It can help to explore the universal law of language from the standpoint of

another subject. In modern period, there is a growing interest in studying the partnership

between music and language, and Jackendoff & Lerdahl are among the researchers the

outstanding partners who aim to engage in this truly interdisciplinary enterprise. Their

famous work, A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, GTTM (1983) is the one in which

they had manifested from various examples that there are inherent links between

language and music.

2.1 Music, Language and Memory

Except for studies of the inner relationship between music and language, another

media can also be provided in order to investigate the interaction between music and

language as they often act independently in a real life situation. Memory would be such

media, for it both interacts with music and with language. Among those interactions, the

author focuses mainly on music & memory aspect, as language & memory interaction

should be comparatively noticeable.

2.1.1 Music and Language

The first part of this review looks at those studies that strongly support the close

relationship of music and language. These studies are constructed from 3 aspects: from

the structural aspect, from the behavioral aspect, and from the neurological aspect.

2.1.1.1 Structural Aspects

Language and music share a lot in structure. In general, both are organized

temporally; both have systematical structures, etc. Like the property of language, the

production of music is also linear, with relevant structures unfolding in time. Both can

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摘要：

ChapterOneIntroduction1ChapterOneIntroductionWiththesustainabledevelopmentoftheeconomy,andespecially,China’sentryintoWTO,Englishtalentsbecomemoreandmoredemanded.Atthesametime,thegrowingimportanceofEnglishhasalreadycaughtenoughattentionitdeserves:bothinacademicorformaleducationalcirclesandintrainingi...

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