Children’s songs as a means of developing lexical skills.
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Date
2023
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This research aimed to determine the incidence of children’s songs to improve the lexical
skills of 2nd-year elementary students from Unidad Educativa “Nicanor Larrea León”
from Riobamba. It was a quasi-experimental research design involving 64 children
divided into two groups: the control group and the experimental one. Data collection
instruments were the Pre-A1 Starters Speaking test as the pre-test and the post-test; and a
survey to gather information from the teachers. Results revealed that teachers were
developing traditional methodologies with children into the classroom. They were writing
on the board, using the module provided by the Ministry of Education which was a little
difficult for them and copybooks for writing some words or making pictures, using
memorization and repetition drills to develop lexical skills with second graders. In fact,
children were not motivated, they were bored on english classes, some of them had not
predisposition in learning the second language and their initial experience learning
English was challenging. At the same time, children took the pre-test, which contained a
rubric, to obtain numerical data. The results revealed that children from the two groups
did not know the vocabulary, their pronunciation was not so good, and they couldn’t use
of language to interact among them oy with the teacher. Then, the intervention was
planned. In doing this, the researcher described the process of implementing music as a
means of developing lexical skills. This process was included in class planning for the
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intervention process. A music guide to developing lexical skills in 2nd-year elementary
school students was designed. Children’s songs were carefully chosen to motivate
students to learn and be engaged in the classroom tasks taking into account their age,
interest and level of knowledge. After the whole process, students took the post-test.
Results showed that students from the experimental group improved their lexical skills
significantly; students improved vocabulary and pronunciation, while the interaction had
a great improvement and an important aspect is they felt motivated in English class. To
conclude, there is a positive incidence of children’s songs improving students’ lexical
skills because songs consisted in a special rhythm that stimulated the brain to catch the
lyrics and of course word repetition in songs is very helpful for young learners to
memorize vocabulary
Keywords
LEXICAL SKILLS, MOTIVATION, SONGS, PRONUNCIATION, VOCABULARY, INTERACTION, GAMES