Studying with background music has a soothing and motivational effect on the listener, relieves stress and facilitates memory retention. Due to these and a variety of other beneficial effects of music on learning, music has been increasingly integrated into school lessons at all educational levels, and it has also become an indispensable tool for foreign language acquisition, which has also been confirmed by the analysis represented by the current master thesis.
Since textbook materials still represent the basis of foreign language teaching and learning, I analysed songs from 7 approved textbooks for teaching English in the 4th grade of a nine-year primary school. During the analysis I determined the number of songs in the selected textbooks, the types of songs based on the origin of the latter, the type of student participation (i.e. active vs. passive) that is suggested by the instructions preceding the songs, and the types of activities accompanying the lyrics, and I also evaluated whether the poems from the selected textbooks meet the criteria for suitable songs for foreign language teaching.
The results have confirmed that the selected textbooks contain varying numbers of songs and song types (i.e. songs, poetry, chants and rhymes). Regarding the origin of the selected songs, the analysed textbooks mostly contain artificial songs which are created for the needs of English language teaching, while authentic songs and the adaptations of the latter appear in a lower degree. The instructions mostly suggest the active participation of the students via the selected sets of pre-, while- and post-listening activities. The assessment of the criteria for suitable songs for teaching has confirmed that the selected textbooks include carefully selected, educational songs, most of which, regardless of their differences, can be classified as effective and suitable songs for English language teaching. The songs from the selected textbooks might be upgraded 1. with a greater variety of the selected song types since the majority of the textbooks mostly contain songs and chants, while poetry and rhymes appear in a lower degree; 2. with a greater variety of the accompanying pre-, while- and post-listening activities, as well as 3. with more frequent inclusion of movement into the very while-listening activities since only three selected textbooks contain action songs.
I expect that the findings of the current study will facilitate the selection and the inclusion of appropriate songs into the English lessons, and that the designers of future textbooks and other teaching materials will accompany the latter with a wider variety of accompanying pre-, while- and post-listening activities that are suitable for ELT classrooms from the second triad of a nine-year primary school.
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