Teachers'' perception of English song in teaching pronuncition at some primary school in Hue city''

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background of the study In the era of information explosion, integration and globalization, the demand for learning English and using it as a language if international communication has been dramatically increasing. As Graddol (2006, p.10) observed: ''''Despite the extraordinary changes of the last few years, one thing appears to remain the same. More people than ever want to learn English...English learners are increasing in number and decreasing in age...We have been used to the idea of English growing in the popularity across the World. Far from being news, it has become one of the few enduring facts of global modern life''''. Vietnam is not an exception. After joining in ASEAN (Association of South- East Asian Nations), and especially WTO ( World Trade Organization), English plays an important role for Vietnamese people. It has been brought into Vietnam schools as a compulsory subject and taught for students since the early age that will be better if it starts as early as possible. Therefore, on August 17, 2010, the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam made Decision 4919/BGDDT-GDTH about the directions for school year 2010-2011 applying for primary education. According to this latest regulation, all primary schools in Vietnam will start teaching an optional language from the grade three with at laest two periods per week. However, teaching English, especially teaching pronunciation for children at primary schools has caused many difficulties for teachers. Students are too young to have enough perception to acquire a second language or a foreign language easily. Therefore, beside alternative methods, teachers always try their best to find out the suitable and effective ones for their young learners. For this reason, using English songs to teach pronunciation for young learners can be seen as the most effective pedagogical tool. Teaching English as a second or a foreign language has been changing around the world. Presently, teaching English does not stop at teaching students how to read and write and the focus of teaching has been promoting oral skills in order to respond to the students'' needs for effective communication. Aside with speaking skill, pronuciation is viewed as an impotant part to help learners improve these skills and enhance students'' communicative ability. Harmer (2007, p. 248) states that “Pronunciation teaching not only makes students aware of different sounds and sound features (and what these mean), but can also improve their speaking immeasurably”. When students hear sounds properly, they can utter the sounds effectively. Harmer affirms the close relationship between pronunciation and listening. They help one another in the combination with students'' communicative ability. In terms of learner groups, teaching English for children at primary schools has proved a real challenge for teachers because students are too young to have enough perception for a second language or a foreign language acquisition. Therefore, beside alternative methods, teachers always try their best to find out the suitable and effective ones for their young learners. For this reason, using English songs to teach pronunciation for young learners can be seen as the most effective pedagogical tool. As Moon suggested, training in teaching methodology for children is necessary. Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) should include diverse communacative language teaching methods in training for teachers and encouragement of teachers to use variety of hands- on activities, such as games, songs, chants, and art ( cited Nguyen, 2007, p.171). By exposing learners'' communication through form of songs, which not only motivates learners'' interest in learning, but also creates pratical context for them to communicate. Among the main techniques, it can be seen again that the importance of songs in the recent teaching methods is paid much attention to by the researcher. Furthermore, Murphey (1992) exclaimed that songs can help young learners improve their listening skills and pronunciation. Therefore, it helps them improve their speaking skills. Songs can also be useful tools in learning of vocabulary, sentence structures, and sentence patterns, not to mention their reflectivity of mother tongue culture. Perhaps the greatest benefit of using songs in the classroom is that they can be fun. Plesure for its own sake is an important part of learning a language, something which is often overlooked by teachers, and songs can add interest to the classroom routine and potentially improve students'' motivation. And Lynch (2005, p.1) also stated the rationale of using songs for teaching in his article: ''''Songs containing authentic language, are easily obtainable, provide vocabulary, grammar, and cultural aspects and are fun for students. They can provide with valuable speaking, listening and language practice in and out of classroom''''. Beside the traditional methods, teachers always try their best to find out suitable and effective alternatives for their young learners. Using various activities in teaching pronunciation to motivate students is a need and one of the solutions is using English songs as it has been seen to be the most effective pedagogical tool (Moon, 2005). Murphey (1992) exclaimed that songs can help young learners improve their listening skills and pronunciation. Therefore, it helps them improve their speaking skills. Songs can also be useful tools in learning of vocabulary, sentence structures, and sentence patterns, not to mention their reflectivity of mother tongue culture. Perhaps the greatest benefit of using songs in the classroom is that they can be fun. Pleasure for its own sake is an important part of learning a language, something which is often overlooked by teachers, and songs can add interest to the classroom routine and potentially improve students'' motivation. Apart from common problems which might seriously hamper the process of communication such as the shortage of necessary vocabulary and a poor knowledge of grammar rule, bad pronunciation is also one of the main causes of one''s failure. Despite the important role of good pronunciation in learning English, students are either ignorant of the needed pronunciation rules or do not pay enough attention to this problem. In the Vietnamese context, most of students fail to perceive the importance of English ending sounds, ending up in pronouncing them inaccurately in their speech. For Vietnamese primary students, their errors in pronouncing ending sounds and stress are probably caused by the differences in the pronunciation mechanism of English from the Vietnamese language. Actually, the studies on using songs to teach pronunciation are abundant (e.g, Hancock, M., 2007; Moon, J., 2005; Emi, Y., 2009; Gerald, K., 2003; Hans, M., 2009; Jolly, Y., 1975). In the Vietnamese context, there are some relating studies on this field (Nguyen, 1998; Nguyen, D.N.H., 2007; Nguyen, T.T., 2006 ). However, it seems that those studies mainly focus on the use of songs in teaching pronunciation for students at secondary schools, high schools, university, and adult learners. There has been little research on the current situation of using songs in teaching pronunciation to primary children. Therefore, this topic would make an important and interested research for researchers. That is the reason why I choose '''' Teachers'' perception of English song in teaching pronuncition at some primary school in Hue city'''' as my topic.