Impact of English Songs on Young Iranian EFL Learners’ Homophone Learning: Literacy in Focus

Subject Areas : Journal of Language, Culture, and Translation

Mohammad Mahdi Jalalizand ¹ , Fatemeh Karimi ^{2 *}

1 - English Department, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
2 - English Department, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

Received: 2024-07-15 Accepted : 2025-01-30 Published : 2025-01-30

Keywords: English songs, Homophones, Language acquisition, Literacy development, Young Iranian EFL children,

Abstract :

Teaching English to children can be challenging, particularly when addressing homophones, which often create confusion in spoken and written communication. This study investigated the impact of English songs on the homophone learning of young Iranian EFL learners. a quasi-experimental pretest-treatment-posttest design, the research involved two groups of 30 children: one group from 4 to 7 (preschool group) and another from 7 to 9 years old (primary school group). The participants in both groups listened to and sang along with songs, however, visual aids with spelling were applied for the participants of the 7 to 9-year-old group. Paired and independent t-tests were utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of the songs in enhancing homophone learning. The results indicated that using songs significantly improved homophone learning of preschool and primary school learners, however, primary school students outperformed their preschool counterparts. Incorporating English songs, therefore, can be an effective strategy to improve the homophone learning of Iranian EFL children.

References:

Allen, D. W. (1992). The Oxford placement test. Oxford University Press.
Anderson-Cook, C. M. (2005). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference.
Asher, J. J. (1986). Learning another language through actions: The complete teacher’s guidebook (7th ed.). Sky Oaks Productions.
Bao, D. (2023). Exploring the impact of songs on student cognitive and emotional development. International Journal of Visual and Performing Arts, 5(2), 134-143. https://doi.org/10.31763/viperarts.v5i2.1217
Barretta, G. (2007). Dear deer: A book of homophones. Macmillan.
Bokiev, D., Aralas, D., Ismail, L., & Othman, M. (2018). Utilizing music and songs to promote student engagement in ESL classrooms. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(12). https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v8-i12/5015
Browne, K., Anand, C., & Gosse, E. (2014). Gamification and serious game approaches for adult literacy tablet software. Entertainment Computing, 5(3), 135–146.
Busse, V., Jungclaus, J., Roden, I., Russo, F., & Kreutz, G. (2018). Combining song—and speech-based language teaching: An intervention with recently migrated children. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02386
Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. C. (2015). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research. Houghton Mifflin.
Casenhiser, D. M. (2005). Children’s resistance to homonymy: An experimental study of pseudohomonyms. Journal of Child Language, 32(2), 319-343.
Chaingam, M. T., & Suriyatham, V. (2020). Enhancing primary students’ vocabulary retention by using songs (Doctoral dissertation, Thammasat University). TU Digital Collections.
Christiansen, M. H., & Chater, N. (2008). Language as shaped by the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31(5), 489-509.
Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2002). Research methods in education (8th ed.). Routledge.
Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (1986). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference.
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Dautriche, I., Swingley, D., & Christophe, A. (2015). Learning novel phonological neighbors: Syntactic category matters. Cognition, 143, 77–86.
Davis, G. M. (2017). Songs in the young learner classroom: A critical review of evidence. ELT Journal, 71(4), 445–455.
Febrina, W. (2023). A literature review on the use of songs in teaching English to young learners: benefits and difficulties. Jurnal Ilmu Pendidikan Nasional (JIPNAS), 1(2), 98-102. https://doi.org/10.59435/jipnas.v1i2.143
Gall, M. D., Gall, J. P., & Borg, W. R. (1996). Educational research: An introduction (6th ed.). Longman.
Ginsburg, H. P., Lee, J. S., & Boyd, J. S. (2008). Mathematics education for young children: What it is and how to promote it. Social Policy Report, 20(1), 1-34.
Haghverdi, H. R., & Abdpur, S. (2013). The effect of songs and movies on high school students’ language achievement. Journal of Language, Culture, and Translation, 2(1), 27–38.
Hassani, S., & Hadizadeh, S. (2021). The effect of using English songs on speaking ability of Iranian preschool students in Kerman. Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, 13(1), 77-88.
Herail, J. (2022). Introducing English vocabulary with songs and gestures (Master’s thesis, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa).
Joshi, M. (2014). Homonyms, homophones, and homographs: Vocabulary building (Vol. 3). Manik Joshi.
Kumar, T., Akhter, S., Yunus, M. M., & Shamsy, A. (2022). Use of music and songs as pedagogical tools in teaching English as a foreign language contexts. Education Research International, 2022, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/3384067
Kuo, L. J., Ku, Y. M., Chen, Z., & Gezer, M. Ü. (2020). The relationship between input and literacy and metalinguistic development: A study with Chinese–English bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism, 24(1), 26-45.
Lê, T. A. (2023). Practice beyond the classroom: Vietnamese university students’ perception of using songs to learn English. FOSTER: Journal of English Language Teaching, 4(4), 218-230. https://doi.org/10.24256/foster-jelt.v4i4.145
Lippeveld, M., & Oshima-Takane, Y. (2015). The effect of input on children’s cross-categorical use of polysemous noun-verb pairs. Language Acquisition, 22(3), 209-239.
Madani, D., & Mahmoodi Nasrabadi, M. (2017). The effect of songs on vocabulary retention of preschool young English language learners. International Journal of Research Studies in Language Learning, 6(3), 18-31.
Magnussen, E. S., & Sukying, A. (2021). The impact of songs and TPR on Thai preschoolers’ vocabulary acquisition. Thaitesol Journal, 34(1), 71-95.
Merriam-Webster. (1999). Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary (10th ed.).
Moje, E. B., Ciechanowski, K. M., Kramer, K., Ellis, L., Carrillo, R., & Collazo, T. (2004). Working toward third space in content area literacy: An examination of everyday funds of knowledge and Discourse. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(1), 38–70.
Muijs, D. (2010). Doing quantitative research in education with SPSS. SAGE Publications.
Perfetti, C. A. (2007). Reading ability: Lexical quality to comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11(4), 357-383.
Piantadosi, S. T., Tily, H., & Gibson, E. (2012). The communicative function of ambiguity in language. Cognition, 122(3), 280–291.
Rougnø, A. (2021). Teaching English through song in the primary school classroom (Master’s thesis, Hogeskolen University).
Sakuma, N., Sasanuma, S., Tatsumi, I. F., & Masaki, S. (1998). Orthography and phonology in reading Japanese kanji words: Evidence from the semantic decision task with homophones. Memory & Cognition, 26(1), 75–87.
Srinivasan, M., & Barner, D. (2013). The Amelia Bedelia effect: World knowledge and the goal bias in language acquisition. Cognition, 128(3), 431-450.
Srinivasan, M., & Rabagliati, H. (2015). How concepts and conventions structure the lexicon: Cross-linguistic evidence from polysemy. Lingua, 157, 124-152.
Storkel, H. L., & Maekawa, J. (2005). A comparison of homonym and novel word learning: The role of phonotactic probability and word frequency. Journal of Child Language, 32(4), 827.
Treiman, R., & Cassar, M. (1996). Effects of Morphology on Children’s Spelling of Final Consonant Clusters. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 63(1), 141–170.
Vygotsky, L. S., & Cole, M. (1978). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.
Wedel, A., Kaplan, A., & Jackson, S. (2013). High functional load inhibits phonological contrast loss: A corpus study. Cognition, 128(2), 179–186.
Yow, W. Q., Li, X., Lam, S., Gliga, T., Chong, Y. S., Kwek, K., & Broekman, B. F. (2017). A bilingual advantage in 54‐month‐olds’ use of referential cues in fast mapping. Developmental Science, 20(1), e12482.
Zhang, Y., Baills, F., & Prieto, P. (2023). Singing songs facilitates L2 pronunciation and vocabulary learning: A study with Chinese adolescent ESL learners. Languages, 8(3), 219.