English Vocabulary Acquisition Through Songs in Chinese Kindergarten Students

Theories of songs and memory

The relationship between music and memory has been studied from several angles. Despite the common perception among laypeople that memory for music has Special qualities (Schulkind, 2009), consensus among researchers has yet to be achieved. Rather than showing a consistent advantage for memories associated with songs and music, studies have instead displayed a range of sometimes contradictory findings, leading to difficulty in drawing any general conclusions.

Wallace’s (1994) study is often cited to support the idea that songs have Special mnemonic properties. Through a series of experiments, it was found that participants were better able to recall text when it was presented with a melody, rather than spoken normally. However, when the three verses of text were each presented with different melodies, recall was worse than when spoken. Wallace concluded that the rhythmic and structural qualities of the music facilitated retrieval and reconstruction by informing participants about the structural nature of the text (e.g., how many syllables were in the next word).

Other research casts doubt on Wallace’s hypothesis that the structural properties of songs facilitate memory recall. Kilgour, Jakobson, and Cuddy (2000) conducted a partial replication of Wallace’s (1994) methodology, with an additional manipulation of the tempo at which the texts were presented. The researchers found that in Wallace’s original experiments, the sung versions of texts were presented at a slower rate than the spoken versions; when the songs were sped up to the same rate as the spoken texts, the mnemonic advantages of the songs disappeared and instead a small but statistically significant advantage for the spoken versions emerged.

Whereas Wallace’s (1994) and Kilgour et al.’s (2000) studies examined memory of text extracted from real songs, Rainey and Larsen (2002) investigated the effects of setting unrelated texts to commonly known melodies (e.g., Pop Goes The Weasel). As many songs used in foreign language classrooms are specifically designed to put an unrelated text (with some assumed pedagogical value) to music, this latter methodology may be more generalizable to the foreign language classroom context. Rainey and Larsen found no difference in the number of trials required to learn a text sung along to a familiär melody as compared with the same text spoken normally, but the songs were more easily relearned one week later.

Some scholars have proposed that songs may exhibit mnemonic advantages through becoming “earworms” that are continuously repeated in one’s mind without conscious control (Williamson et al., 2011). Murphey (1990) observed the similarities between the song-stuck-in-my-head phenomenon and the “Din” of involuntary rehearsal that often occurs as foreign language learners feel their minds become unconsciously saturated with words and phrases in the target language, and hypothesized that songs may be able to enhance language acquisition through this pathway. If, as Rainey and Larsen’s (2002) results indicate, the mnemonic effects of songs are manifested over longer periods of time, the “earworm” phenomenon may be a contributing factor.

Although various theories regarding the interaction between songs and memory have been proposed, the irregular pattern of results obtained from experiments in this area allows for no obvious theoretical models by which songs might enhance foreign language learning. Thus, this paper will now turn to examining empirical studies of songs and language learning in an attempt to find consensus.

Previous studies

An extensive search of the literature reveals only a small number of studies that have aimed to evaluate any sort of Performance measure for language acquisition through songs. Four previous studies have focused on vocabulary acquisition, a construct that can be somewhat straightforwardly mapped onto the above discussion of songs and memory.

Medina (1990) measured L2 English vocabulary acquisition by L1 Spanish-speaking second grade primary school students in the United States by manipulating an illustrated storybook to produce four groups from two independent variables: sung or spoken audio recording; illustrations or no illustrations. Although no statistically significant findings resulted from the manipulation of the variables, scores at post-test were (descriptively) higher than scores at pre-test, suggesting that the storybook in all conditions (including the two that used songs) resulted in some acquisition of the English vocabulary.

Joyce (2011) also compared sung and spoken versions of storybooks in a study of L1 English acquisition in American kindergarten students. Joyce found similar results: acquisition through the sung and spoken versions could not be differentiated at a statistically significant level.

The authors of the two studies detailed above both concluded that sung storybooks were as effective as spoken storybooks in promoting vocabulary acquisition, thus appearing to lend support to the use of songs in language classrooms. However, both studies were undermined by poor methodology: namely, the absence of a true control group that was not exposed to the material. As any improvements from pre-test to post-test could also be attributable to general cognitive maturation over time (especially given the young age of participants), practice effects from performing the same test twice in a short period of time, exposure to similar materials in external classes, increased familiarity with researchers, or any number of other possibilities, it is also conceivable that the sung and spoken storybooks were equally ineffective.

A third relevant study was conducted by Coyle and Gömez Gracia (2014). The researchers examined English vocabulary acquisition in Spanish preschool children as measured before and after three 30-minute lessons based around the populär children’s song The Wheels on the Bus. Results showed a significant improvement in receptive vocabulary that was consistent up to five weeks later, although productive vocabulary did not show significant acquisition.

Chou (2014) also examined the effects of songs on L2 acquisition as part of an intensive English course in a Taiwanese primary school. Games, songs, and storybooks were used throughout the course, and students performed better after the teaching period on four tests of vocabulary knowledge.

Both Coyle and Gömez Gracia’s (2014) and Chou’s (2014) studies suffer from the same methodological concern as the two storybook studies: inadequate controls. Although it is indeed possible that the songs directly led to the observed vocabulary acquisition, there were no other groups against which to compare. Even if the songs indeed contained some pedagogical value, it is impossible to determine whether another teaching method might be equally or even more effective at teaching the same material. Further, in Chou’s study, the songs were integrated as part of the curriculum and so their effects could not be isolated.

Due to the weak designs of these four studies, no useful evidence can be obtained from them, leaving a bare landscape with regard to empirical knowledge about the effectiveness of songs in any language classroom. Although both public and private resources have been pouring into English education worldwide, empirical support for the use of songs in language teaching is weak at best, and little research has examined their effectiveness and how their design and implementation might affect pedagogical value. The use of songs in the foreign language classroom can thus be seen as a microcosm of the issues surrounding English education at the primary school level: there are plenty of opinions as to what should be done, but few objective attempts to compare different ideas and determine the best way forward.

Results

Participants’ responses to the vocabulary knowledge test were coded for MLU as described in the Measures section. Descriptive statistics are shown in Table 2. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 20. A repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted with time (pre-test, post-test) and condition (song, repeat, control) as independent variables.

Table 2.

Average Mean Length of Utterance Produced for Each Item

Group	N	M	SD
Pre-test
Song	43	0.60	0.59
Repeat	43	0.59	0.51
Control	43	0.58	0.48
Post-test
Song	43	1.48	1.09
Repeat	43	1.30	0.94
Control	43	0.66	0.52

Mauchly’s test revealed that the assumption of sphericity was violated for the interaction between time and condition, □²(2) = 8.27, p = .02. As such, degrees of freedom were corrected using Greenhouse-Geisser estimates of sphericity (ε = .85).

All significant effects are reported at p < .001. There was a significant main effect of time, F(1, 42) = 31.05, partial|² = .43, with post-test scores on the vocabulary acquisition measure higher than pre-test scores.

There was also a significant main effect of condition, F(2, 84) = 16.07, partial|² = .28. Contrasts revealed a non-significant difference between the song and repeat conditions, F(1, 42) = 2.22, p = .14, but significant differences between the song and control conditions, F(1, 42) = 22.29, partial|² = .35, and between the repeat and control conditions, F(1, 42) = 18.22, partial|² = .30. This reflects significantly better Performance in the song and repeat conditions than in the control condition, but no differentiation between the song and repeat conditions.

There was a significant interaction effect between time and condition, F(1.69, 71.02) = 18.72, partial|² = .31. This indicates that changes between students’ pre-test and post-test scores depended on the condition in which texts were learned. Contrasts revealed significant interactions when comparing scores from the song condition to the control condition, F(1, 42) = 25.66, partial|² = .38, and when comparing scores from the repeat condition to the control condition, F(1, 42) = 19.08, partial|² = .31. As indicated in Figure 1, these interactions reflect more positive change from pre-test to post-test (i.e., more acquisition of usable vocabulary) when texts were learned under the song or repeat condition as opposed to the control condition. Contrasts revealed no significant interaction when comparing scores from the repeat condition to the song condition, F(1, 42) = 2.64, p = .11.

Figure 1.

Average MLU for items at pre-test and post-test, grouped by condition.

Discussion and Conclusions

The results of this study suggested that songs and choral repetition were equally effective at promoting English vocabulary acquisition in Chinese kindergarten students over a period of 15 classes of 40 minutes. There did not appear to be any Special characteristics that made songs more or less effective than choral repetition, but rather both conditions led to significantly more acquisition than control items, which did not improve from pre-test to post-test.

These findings accord with previous research demonstrating no significant differences between acquisition of the target language measure through songs and through other teaching methods. This apparent equality in effecting language acquisition in children mirrors the results of other empirical studies with measures such as vocabulary acquisition through sung or spoken storybooks (Joyce, 2011; Medina, 1990) and text comprehension for sung or spoken storybooks (Kouri & Telander, 2008).

Although there was no evidence to suggest that songs were any more or less effective than choral repetition at promoting vocabulary acquisition, the present study still provides critical information. Previous studies of vocabulary acquisition through song (Chou, 2014; Coyle & Gömez Gracia, 2014; Joyce, 2011; Medina, 1990) lacked adequate controls and thus conclusions that songs directly led to vocabulary acquisition were overambitious. The key inclusion, in the present study, of control items that were not taught or shown to the children over the Intervention period and showed no improvement from pre-test to post-test allows for the preliminary (and long overdue) Statement that songs may indeed provide some value in promoting language acquisition. As control items did not lead to any acquisition over the same time period as items in the song and choral repetition conditions, alternative explanations for acquisition, such as general cognitive maturation, practice effects from performing the same test multiple times, external exposure to similar materials, and increased familiarity with researchers, can be ruled out. Thus, it can then be tentatively concluded that both songs and choral repetition do indeed have some level of positive pedagogical value beyond their observed beneficial effects on motivation (Chou, 2014; Jarvis, 2013; Jolly, 1975; Lo & Li, 1998).