An Experimental Study On Applying Songs,Rhymes And Chants To English Teachingin Primary Schools

According to the personal English teaching experience,the author has found the primary school students are struggling with vocabulary learning for lacking of the language environment.In the long run,students show low interests in English learning,and the learning results are not ideal.How to stimulate students' English learning interest and initiative has become a focus.Children's beloved English songs feature simple melody,happy and lively rhythm,and simple and easy lyrics.So,it is reasonable to think that using English songs,rhymes and chants in primary English classrooms may enable students to improve their interest in learning English and to master English vocabulary effectively.On the basis of Multiple Intelligences Theory,Input and Output Theory,Affective Filter Hypothesis and previous researches,this thesis conducted an experimental study on applying songs rhymes and chants to primary school English teaching.This thesis aims at solving the following questions by applying songs,rhymes and chants to primary school English teaching.First,can songs,rhymes and chants help to improve primary school students' English learning motivation and interest? Second,can songs,rhymes and chants help primary school students master English vocabulary effectively? The present experimental study involved a teaching experiment which lasted for one semester,and 44 students of Zongzhai Central Primary School in Jiuquan,Gansu Province participated in it.At the beginning,the author adopted the second term final examination in Grade 3 as the pre-test,and the first term final examination in Grade 4 as the post-test.The two tests were designed for assessing the changes of students' English vocabulary condition before and after the experiment.The same questionnaire on students' emotional attitude was handed out before and after the experiment to assess the changes of students' emotional attitude.Then,the author conducted the experiment based on the current English book of Grade 4 in the present thesis,and offered detailed description and discussion on primary English teaching principles and ways of applying songs,rhymes and chants from detailed lesson plans.At last,the author made further investigation on the changes of students' emotional attitude and English vocabulary condition through interviewing some representative students and going on another assessing test to examine students' mastering level of language points from songs rhymes and chants.The operability of this subject is further proved through the results and discussion of pre-test,post-test,questionnaire,interview and assessing test.After the study,data analysis by SPSS17.0 and Excel yielded the following results.First,the application of songs,rhymes and chants to primary English teaching could makeclass lively and stimulate students' English learning motivation and interest greatly.Second,English songs,rhymes and chants can help primary school students master English vocabulary effectively.The results supported previous researches and indicated that the application of songs,rhymes and chants is an effective way to teach English in primary school.There are six parts in this thesis.In chapter one,the author introduces background information,research purpose and significance,and thesis structure.Chapter two introduces relative concepts and the literature review on this issue on the perspectives at home and abroad.Further,chapter three is on the theoretical foundations of this thesis,including Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory,Krashen's Input Hypothesis and Affective Filter Hypothesis.In chapter four,an experimental study is presented including research questions,subjects,instruments and experimental design and procedure.Through pre-test,post-test,questionnaire,interview and assessing test,the author collected and analyzed study results in chapter five.A reasonable conclusion is drawn in chapter six,as well as implications and limitation.This thesis indicated that applying appropriate songs rhymes and chants to English teaching can help primary school students master English vocabulary effectively and promote their English proficiency to some extent.But not all the primary school teachers and students are good at singing,this approach is not universal.Owing to the limitations of research period,sample size as well as researcher's capacity,it can't be expected to get a very satisfying result.Much work still needs to be done in the future.Based on the research,it is hoped that this study can provide a reference for English teachers in primary school.