The Effect of Using Song on Student Motivation in Learning English

THE EFFECT OF USING SONG ON STUDENT MOTIVATION IN LEARNING ENGLISH

YULIYANTI

12220064

English Education Study Program Language and Arts Department

Sekolah Tinggi Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan (STKIP) Siliwangi

ABSTRACT

The objectives of this research entitled “The Effect of Using Song on Students Motivation in Learning English on SMK at Bandung Barat was to find out whether the use of song is effective to improve students’ writing ability. Quantitative method was used for this study. The writer took one class, as experimental group at SMK Kabupaten Bandung Barat Bandung Barat. The instruments of this research are the test using song. In this writer, the writer used pre-experimental design in one group pretest-posttest design as her writer design because in this writer only the comparator group did not exist and the writer wanted to know how effective the technique under one group. McMillan and Schumacher (2001:331). The action research through song can motivation the students in learning English. Song have great potential as an aid to motivation in learning English. When learning English is accompanied by song, it will help the young learner to remember the meaning of language (Cameron and McKay,2010).Through song, the learning process becomes more enjoyable. The students become more enthusiastic in joining the lesson.The result 10.13 indicated that there was a difference of degree as much as 10.13. The writer would say that the alternative hypothesis was accepted because the tobs 10.13was higher than the t-table : 0.5.It means that the used of song was effective applied in motivation learning English. The situation was indicated through the score that they improved after they got treatment. Almost all of the students’ score and ability were increased well. In other words, song have showed its significant influences in the progress of the students’ skill and knowledge.

Keyword : Song, Motivation

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1. INTRODUCTION

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Language is a means for communication. Languages help us to live together as people. In Indonesian, English is learnt as a foreign language at formal schools. English language was stated in education curriculum English language to develop the students’ abilities in the four language skill: reading, listening, speaking and writing. There are principles of language like structure, vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling. There are four language skills. Generally, students must learn English from elementary school up to university. It is mainly for this reason that English is taught in many places.

English is an international language that we learn as our second language. The process of learning English can be formal or non formal. Learning English in school is the formal way that we receive, and the non formal way to learn it is by joining English courses or independently learning it by ourselves. When we learn English independently we come to the system of teaching media.

According to Nunan (1991:18) “Successful listener and readers are those who can utilize both ‘inside the head’ knowledge and ‘outside the head’ knowledge to interpret what they hear and see”.

There are many reasons that cause the students feel difficult to understand and to communicate in English, most of Indonesian students have trouble to speaking skill. The writer believes that there are some people utilizing song as their media in learning English. In fact, this situation also happens in the writer’s language learning process. That is way the writer encourages to do a research entitled “The Effect of Using Song on Students Motivation in Learning English”

1. LITERATURE REVIEW

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2.1Theoretical Framework Song And Motivation

2.1.1Song

2.1.1.1Definition of Song

Cullen (1998, 1999) state that songs are significant teaching tools in teaching English foreign language because, as most teachers find out, students love learning English to music in the language classroom and they often hold strong views about music.

Claudia, S. S (2010) state that songs as a language learning tool are only recently being recognized as a methodology to be used in the foreign language classroom on all levels.

According to the arguments above, it can be conclude that song is a language learning tool in teaching English foreign language, it use to motivate students and create a relaxing with the result that the students interest with learning English song as a methodology in the language classroom. One advantage of using songs in the foreign learner classroom is their flexibility. Songs can be used for a number of purposes and there are many reasons why songs can be considered a valuable pedagogical tool.

In this research, the researcher use two songs entitle “Shadow” by Austin Mahone and “Let It Go” by Demi Lovato. The researcher choose these songs because the songs are very easy learning English, familiar, not too fast and slow. It is hoped that students will enjoy with all songs.

2.1.1.2English Songs For Language Teaching

Since the 1970s teaching language as communication has been the goal for many language teachers. In order to achieve a higher degree of language communication but has not arisen enough exploitation is teaching English through songs and accompanying activities.

In this case, it seemed hard to believe English songs could encourage student to come up with such wonderful dialogical performances. It was an enjoyable experience for the students.

Language teachers have always struggled with how to teach a language so their students learn English songs in the communicative way. A stimulating environment is the most important factor in language learning. Using English songs to accompany activities is one of workable practice that create a stimulating atmosphere for students to learn to communicate in English.

2.1.1.3The Criteria of Songs to be Used in Language Learning

Another activitythatcan beused issong poetry. The teachersgivethechildren lyrics;askthemto underlinethelinesor phrasestheylike.Theteachersalsogivethe childrensomesong,or drawings,andaskthechildrento matchthesonglinewitha picturetheyfeelappropriate.Theteacheralsoasksthechildrentosaythephrasesthat theychoose,andtelltheirfriendsthereasonchoosingit. Theboxbelowshowsas.

There are three principles in selecting the song they are:

1. Use songs that are popular with the students whenever possible. Unfortunately, students frequently select songs for classroom use which are objectionably in some way making the song unusable.
2. Song must have clear and understandable whenever possible. Nothing is worse than a song almost nobody can understand. If you have trouble understanding the lyrics by listening, then another song needs to be selected.
3. Songs should have an appropriate theme. There’s enough bad news, negativity and violence in the world already. Songs with any negative theme should be avoided. There are plenty of positive, upbeat, even humorous songs.

In conclusions, the careful selection of the songs used will determine the success of using them in reinforcing the language teaching and learning process.

2.1.1.4Learning English Using Song

In teaching foreign language learners, there is often a transfer of materials and activities from general primary practice because primary practice has some genuinely good techniques and ideas that work well with children. One of the techniques learning English is songs. Besides, songs are considered as appropriate for age related language learning and hence are referred as good practice and central to early language teaching.

In learning English process, there need readiness to prepare the material especially songs and teacher as facilitator should accommodate their students by finding out some interesting ways of teaching, in order to songs more meaningful and enjoyable. Overall, there seems to be general agreement among scholars and teachers that a three-staged approach is the most effective way to present songs. These stage are pre-teaching, while-teaching, and post-teaching.

From explanation above, teaching process will be very helpful for teacher. It is the teachers’ task to use appropriate of learning English teaching, its mean that learning English is very importance and the teacher should use appropriate technique to teach learning English, in order to motivate and help the students in learning process.

2.1.1.5Benefits of Song in Teaching English

Songs are highly motivating, especially for young learners. Therefore, songs can be used to develop speaking skills and increase the attention. Improve comprehension and memory and encourage the use of words, phrase, sentence, rhymes and images.

Griffee(1992:56)“alsostates thatthechildrenpracticesayingthewordsinthesamewaytheysingthesongs,the childrencanrepeatthewordsinrhythmicwordgroups”. Thus,theexposureandthe repeatedwordsfromthesongsmakeiteasierforthechildrentorememberthewordsas aresultthechildrencanproduceorutterthewords.Severalactivitiesthatcanbeused toenhancethechildrenspeakingskills,forexampleminimusicals.

Aminimusicalisa performancethathassomesortoftheme,andcontainssomesingingandsomespoken dialogue.Songscanbegroupedandbeperformed fortheclass.The teacher select a theme for the musical, three to five songs. The songsneedtobesing able, buttheteachercanuseonlypartofthesongs,forexample,oneortwoversesofthewholesong.

Theteachercanalsoconsiderthechildren’s songsandfolksongs.Theteachersthen write all the spoken dialogues to introduce and connect the story line, and ask the childrentoperforminfrontoftheclass.Anotheractivityisrhymeafterrhyme.This activitypracticesrhymeandgivesthechildrenachancetomakeuprhymesoftheir own.Theteachershelpthechildrenbywritingdownseveralvocabularyitemstomatch withtherhyme.Theteachersgivethechildreneveryotherlineandaskthemtofillin themissinglines.Theteachersthenaskthechildrentoreadtheirnewlyrics.Finally, thechildrenlistentotheoriginallyricstocompare.

2.2Motivation

2.2.1Definition of Motivation

Motivation has been defined in various ways and by different authors. Gareth Jones, Jennifer George and Charles Hill (2000: 427) define motivation as “psychological forces that determine the direction of a person’s behavior, a person’s level of effort, and a person’s level of persistence in the face of obstacles”. David Myers (1996: 297) defines motivation as “a need or desire that serves to energize behavior and to direct it towards a goal.”

Frank Hawkins (1993: 132-133) defines it as “what drives or induces a person to behave in a particular fashion the internal force which initiates, directs, sustains and terminates all important activities. It influences the level of performance, the efficiency achieved and the time spent on an activity.” All of the definitions refer to stimuli that trigger the motivational process.

Hawkins identifies also the properties of motivation such as it being an internal process with different roles in influencing behaviors (such as directing, initiating, sustaining or terminating it), and with different degrees of expression at the level of intensity, quality and speed in which the behavior is carried out.

All of the above definition are true, one could even summarize and create a general definition that motivating is what drives us to perform in action. Motivation is vital in English skill learning process because it determines whether the action of foreign language acquisition is undertaken by the learner and to what extent he is ready to continue this intellectual effort. This is the reason why so many scientists and researchers have devoted such a great deal of attention to motivation.

2.2.2Theories of Motivation

Second language refers to a language an individual learns that is not his/her mother tongue, but is of use in the area of the individual. It is not the same as a foreign language, which is a language learned that is not generally spoken in the individual’s area. In research on motivation, it is considered to be an internal process that gives behavior energy, direction and persistence in research (in other words, it gives behavior strength, purpose, and sustainability).

Learning a new language takes time and dedication. Once you do, being fluent in a second language offers numerous benefits and opportunities. Learning a second language is exciting and beneficial at all ages. It offers practical, intellectual and many aspirational benefits In learning a language, there can be one or more goals – such as mastery of the language or communicative competence – that vary person to person. There are a number of language learner motivation models that were developed and postulated in fields such as linguistics and sociolinguistics, with relations to second-language acquisition in a classroom setting. The different perspectives on L2 motivation can be divided into three distinct phases: the social psychological period, the cognitive-situated period and the process-oriented period. Motivation is something that supports someone to do something. Harmer reported in his book “English Language Teaching” that motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do some things in order to achieve something (Harmer,1988: 51). In other hand, Brown defines motivation based on behavioristic and cognitive definition. Based on behavioristic brown defines motivation as anticipation of reinforcement which is powerful concept for the class room. Based on cognitive definition, Brown classified motivation definition into three categories. First based on drive theory, motivation stems from basic innate drives, so motivation have been exist since we are born. Second based on hierarchy, motivation is something that comes from individual needs. Third, based on self-control theory, motivation is something that appear if there is opportunity to make some one to make own choices about what to pursue and what not to pursue (self control) (Brown, 2001:73-75). So, motivation is one of influential factor in learning that drives learners to struggle to reach their goals in learning process and can become a stimulus in learning process. It very influences the success of learning motivation. For example, a learner who is motivated to study English because he want to get a gift from his teacher will try to study hard to get the gift that is as stimulus in the learning process. Therefore, motivation is one of the most influential factor in teaching learning process.

1. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Design

According to Burns (2000:125) “writer design is essentially a plan or strategy aimed at enabling answer to be obtained to writer questions.” In this writer, the writer used pre-experimental design in one group pretest-posttest design as her writer design because in this writer only the comparator group did not exist and the writer wanted to know how effective the technique under one group. McMillan and Schumacher (2001:331) explained that:

One-Group Pretest-Posttest Design

GroupPretestTreatmentPosttest

A O X O

Time

In one-group pretest-posttest design, a single group of subjects is given a pretest (O), then the treatment (X), and then the posttest (O). The pretest and posttest are the same, just given at different times. The result that is examined is a change from pretest to posttest.

3.2Reaserch Method

In this research, the writer used quantitative research method. “Quantitative research methods are used to examine questions that can be best answered by collecting and statistically analyzing data that are in numerical form” (Crowl, 1996:10). This research meant to found out the effect of certain given to the subject of the research to discover how the effectiveness the technique.

3.3Populations and Sample

Groups of subject who are chosen as a population will simply a group that had one or more similar characteristic in common. Based on Crowl (1996:15) “population are group consisting of all people to whom a researcher wishes to apply the findings of a study”. In this case, the writer used which is consist of one class from student of SMK Kabupaten Bandung Barat as the population. The population on the definition above the population of this research was 30 students at SMK Kabupaten Bandung Barat Bandung Barat.

“Sample are student of people used to represent population” (Crowl,1996:8). In this study the sample the writer takes the sample of the First grade of SMK Kabupaten Bandung Barat were the entire population . The writer will took one class, as experimental group. and the sample of this research were students who are selected by using sample random sampling technique amount of 30 students at SMK Kabupaten Bandung Barat Bandung Barat.

3.4 Instrument of the Research

In this research, the writer used song which is not familiar to test the variable. In collecting the data, the writer used test (pre-test and post-test). The writer gave a song to be motivation. According to Hughes (1989:10) “the purpose the test is to establish how successful individual student, group student or courses themselves have been in achieving objectives”.The test based on lesson plan and the English textbook which use at the student elementary school. The test using song as motivation.

3.1Data collection Technique AndAnalysis

In gathering data, the following steps were taken: preparing and organizing lesson plan, making research instrument, the teaching phases. The writer used rubric test writing, it can be used a variety of ways either language test like activities. In this research, the writer used song and then the student described that.

The writer analyzed and computed the result of both pre-test-and post-test. The followings are the steps in analyzing and computed the results. The data analysis was last step in the procedure of experiment, in this case processing the data, (Mc Millan and Schumacher, 2001).

In this research, the writer used software SPSS 16.0 version to calculate the reliability of the data. The following steps were how to get the result data based on SPSS 16.0 for windows-statistical software:

1. Open the students test file
2. From the of SPSS, click Analyze and then click sub menu Scale.
3. From the menu click your variables, and press the narrow button.
4. From Statistics, click item and scale, at summaries; click means, and then click ok to end this process and you will see the output data of SPSS automatically.

1. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
2. Gain score for motivation

Tabel 4.3

Gain Motivation

NO / PRETEST / POSTTEST / GAIN
1 / 28 / 90 / 62
2 / 40 / 88 / 44
3 / 92 / 94 / 2
4 / 38 / 94 / 56
5 / 46 / 94 / 48
6 / 30 / 88 / 58
7 / 30 / 92 / 62
8 / 46 / 94 / 48
9 / 34 / 76 / 42
10 / 28 / 82 / 54
11 / 34 / 90 / 56
12 / 40 / 92 / 52
13 / 40 / 74 / 34
14 / 72 / 88 / 16
15 / 40 / 88 / 48
16 / 38 / 82 / 44
17 / 28 / 68 / 40
18 / 34 / 74 / 40
19 / 40 / 88 / 48
20 / 28 / 92 / 64
21 / 40 / 88 / 48
22 / 38 / 98 / 60
23 / 26 / 74 / 48
24 / 48 / 88 / 40
25 / 34 / 74 / 40
26 / 22 / 88 / 66
27 / 38 / 88 / 50
28 / 36 / 98 / 62
29 / 36 / 98 / 62
30 / 24 / 84 / 60

4.2Data Statistic

4.2.1Normality Test

The result of the normality test from the average of data pre-test and post-test is normal. For finding the data is normal or not the writer using SPSS formula.

In the below that is the table of normality data: