Using Music: An Effective Medium of Teaching Vocabulary in ESL Classroom (INTRODUCTION)

Hello, Good Readers :D

It's been a long time I had not write anything on my blog! How was your holiday? And, how are you doing today? I hope everything is great with you, because everything with me is just so amazing. 

Well, I have been thinking about my blog all this week. I mean, I wonder what else I need to write here. I do not want to leave this blog just like it was nothing. I actually like writing, so I want to do it again. Then this morning, when I woke up from my very comfortable sleeping, I got an idea! Actually, I have got an inspiration from my own story when I first learn English. Are you an English learner? Because if you are, this is going to be a very useful information for you!

Have you been curious now?

Briefly, in today's post I would like to review a Journal by Takwa Sultana Jahan entitled Using Music: An Effective Medium of Teaching Vocabulary in ESL Classroom. Yap! Just the way this post is titled. However, at this moment I would explain the parts of the journal only. Furthermore, I would explain about the Introduction of the journal.

However, before I show you the parts or the components of the journal, I would like to explain a little bit reason why I choose to review this journal. Like I've said before, I got an inspiration to write this post on my blog from my own story when I first learn English. Then, the same story would have became the reason why I choose the Journal of English Teaching by Takwa Sultana Jahan entitled Using Music: An Effective Medium of Teaching Vocabulary in ESL Classroom. Well, here's the story.

It was when I was in my last year on Junior High School (JHS), and it was the first time I was being curious about English in my life. Clearly, I never liked English before that, because there was no something I like about English, and I did not think that English would be useful for me at anything. Just for your information, I am from a small village in Indonesia and my people clearly do not speak English or even recognize that English is important. I did learn English in my formal school since elementary, but I never liked it anyway, it was just like another formal subject and I did not even understand anything at all. Then, everything had changed when I became a student of a state JHS in my city. 

You must be wonder how I suddenly liked English at that time. Well, it was not because of my English teacher, or another school stuffs. No. It was because Justin Bieber. Yep! I met him on the internet, from a fan account on Facebook to be exact. Long story short I became a belieber, and then I wanted--still want--to meet Justin and to talk to him. However, we all know that Justin is a Canadian singer, and he speaks English for sure so if I want to talk to him I have to be able to speak English as well. That is why I start loving and learning English. You  must be thinking, so what exactly the relation from all of my story with the journal? Well, the story has not finished yet. 

Music is part of my life. I had been loving music since I was a kid. Then, when I started to be a fan of Bieber, I started to listen to English songs which I did not like at all before. I remember the first song I love from Bieber was Boyfriend, and A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. Since back then, I started listening to many and many more English songs.

Of listening to many English songs, I had learned English a lot especially English vocabulary. I felt like I did not even learn anything so serious, but just listened to English songs for like everyday and I automatically got so many vocabularies in my head. Of course I did not just listen, I also searched the meaning of the lyrics of English songs in my own language, Indonesian. So that I understood the meaning of the song that I listened to. That was how I learned English at the first time. It was fun, I loved it, and I also got a lot of vocabularies in my head as the advantages. Cool, wasn't it? 

So, that is why I choose this article. To be clearer, I want to show all of my reader that learning English does not always hard. We always can find a way to learn English easily, and listening music is one of the ways. Through the article, I also want to show the effect of listening music for an English vocabularies learner scientifically, so that my personal story above will have a precise prove. Besides, I myself also really want to know the result of this research journal, so I will get an explicit explanation about the way I learned English all this time.

The Parts/Components of the Journal

After my sort of long story, now I would like to mention the parts of the Journal of English Teaching we are talking about. Let us just check this out!

1.       Title

2.       Author

3.        Abstract

4.       Keywords

5.       Introduction. The introduction consists of some subparts, such as:

·         Background of the Study,

·         Importance of Vocabulary,

·         Importance of Music and ESL,

·         Theoritical Background,

·         Krashen's Second Language Hypothesis,

·         Gardener's Theory of Multiple Intelligence, and;

·         Psychological Research on Music and Rote Memorization.

6.       Methodology. The methodology consists of two parts, including:

·         Description of the Participants, and;

·         Procedures.

7.       Analysis of the Result. This part consists of two parts, including:

·         Survey Analysis, and;

·         Data Analysis.

8.       Discussion, Pedagogical Implication, and Recommendation. And;

9.       References.

We all already have known the title of the journal is Using Music: An Effective Medium of Teaching Vocabulary in ESL Classroom, and the author is Takwa Sultana Jahan. Actually, I will just give my short explanation about the introduction of the journal in this post, so I will not really write its abstract and keywords here. However, if you want to know the abstract and the keywords of this journal, or if you want to see the complete article. You can download the real file of this article here: Download Link

Of the components of the journal, we already have known that the introduction consists of seven subparts which I would not explain fully because it is going to take a long time. However, I am going to try to make this introduction short, yet we are still able to take the point of the journal.

INTRODUCTION

The setting of the research was taken in Dhaka, Bangladesh. As we know, English has become a Second Language in India, so there is no confusion if English subject exists on every school in India. As the ESL learners, Indian have a great deal to learn English, but since English is not their mother tongue, it is not easy for them to learn it. 

Vocabulary teaching is not highly emphasized in Indian school curriculum. It is because learning vocabulary always seems unimportant so that it becomes less focused in the area of teaching and learning (Jahan, 2017). Whereas, realizing it or not, vocabulary is the most important aspect if we want to learn a new language. According to McCarthy (Jahan, 2017), “[n]o matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meaning, communication in L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way” (p.13). Therefore, we are supposed to pay more attention to vocabulary learning.

Imagining an activity of memorizing vocabulary everyday through a piece of paper and stuff always bring a desperate feeling for every English learner. Music and songs can be used to make the activity of memorizing vocabulary become easier and funnier. Why is it? It is because everyone likes music, and learning anything through something we like will always make it easier. Furthermore, some researchers said that music can enhance one's rote memorization, and in fact some studies also claim that there is a strong bond between music and verbal learning (Deutsch, 1972, cited from Jahan, 2017). Music and its sub component, have been proven to benefit rote memorization process. It was discovered that memorization was enhanced when various types of verbal information were presented simultaneously with music (Szpotowicz, Szulckurpaska 2009, cited from Jahan, 2017).

Taking all these into consideration, there are two things which the researcher tried to investigate in the study. They are:

1.       How music brings about change in language acquisition, and;

2.       How using music accelerates acquiring more vocabulary.

Well, that is all my short explanation about the introduction. I hope you are able to get the point of this journal. My next post will be about the next component of the journal, which is the Methodology. So, if you want to know more about this journal, keep following my track buddies!

Thank you for all of your supports, I really appreciate it. My next post will be probably posted in a week from now on, so see you again there!