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The Impact of Musical Texts on the Text Recall of Young Learners of English in Isfahan Junior High Schools

Received: 13 July 2015    Accepted: 22 July 2015    Published: 21 August 2015
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Abstract

Although music possesses a kind of power and using it has been welcomed by many students in language classrooms, it seems that they take a non-serious image of the lesson while listening to songs and they may think that it is a matter of fun. The main objective of the present study was to investigate whether learning a foreign language through musical texts (songs) can have an impact on students’ text recall ability in junior high schools. The participants were 90 students who were divided into three groups; two experimental and one control. Three cloze tests (fill in the blanks) were made based on the song lyrics, to measure students’ text recall. All the students took the tests after listening to the songs and text passages. After four weeks of no treatment, the same tests were taken to measure students’ delayed text recall. The data were obtained by counting the total number of words that were recalled. For the analysis of data One-Way ANOVA was employed, the results of which indicated that the speech group significantly outperformed the music group for songs 1 and 2. However, delayed text recall results showed no significant difference between the two groups. This study found that music was not of much help for the students and it sometimes played a distracting role.

DOI 10.11648/j.edu.20150405.17
Published in Education Journal (Volume 4, Issue 5, September 2015)
Page(s) 232-237
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Song, Text Recall, Delayed Text Recall

References
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[5] El – Nashar N.A. (2003). ''The Effectiveness of Using Interactive Games and Songs on the Development of Listening and Speaking Skills. In EFL one classroom schools in Menia, Bani Sueif and Fayom.'' Future of Arab Education, Vol. 9, No. 30, pp.5 39.
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[10] Hébert, S., & Peretz, I. (1997). Recognition of music in long-term memory: Are melodic and temporal patterns equal partners? Memory and Cognition, 25(4).
[11] Hébert, S. & Peretz, I. (2001) Are text and tune of familiar songs separable by brain damage? Brain and cognition, 46(1-2), 169-175.
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[13] Kilgour, A. R. Jakobson, L.S., & Cuddy, L.L. (2000). Music training and rate of presentation as mediators of text and song recall. Memory & Cognition, 28(5), 700-710.
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[18] Moussard A., Bigand E., Belleville S., Peretz I. (2012). Music as an aid to learn new verbal information in Alzheimer’s disease. Music Percept. 29, 521–53110.1525/mp.2012.29.5.521.
[19] Patel, A.D. (2003). Language, music, syntax, and the brain. Nature Neuroscience, 6, 674-681.
[20] Peretz, I. (1996). Can we lose memories for music? The case of music agnosia in a nonmusician. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 8, 481–496.
[21] Peretz, I., Radeau, M., & Arguin, M. (2004). Two-way interaction between music and language: evidence from priming recognition of tune and lyrics in familiar songs. Memory and Cognition, 32(1), 142-152.
[22] Racette, A., & Peretz, I. (2007). Learning lyrics: To sing or not to sing? Memory and Cognition, 35, 242–253.
[23] Raffiee, M. (2010). The application of humorous song in EFL classrooms and its effects on listening comprehension. Journal of English Language Teaching. Vol. 3, No.4.
[24] Rainey, D. W., & Larsen, J. D. (2002). The effect of familiar melodies on initial learning and long-term memory for uncon-nected text. Music Perception, 20, 173–186.
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Author Information
  • English Language Department, Sheikhbahaee University, Isfahan, Iran

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    Morteza Azadi. (2015). The Impact of Musical Texts on the Text Recall of Young Learners of English in Isfahan Junior High Schools. Education Journal, 4(5), 232-237. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20150405.17

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    Morteza Azadi. The Impact of Musical Texts on the Text Recall of Young Learners of English in Isfahan Junior High Schools. Educ. J. 2015, 4(5), 232-237. doi: 10.11648/j.edu.20150405.17

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    AMA Style

    Morteza Azadi. The Impact of Musical Texts on the Text Recall of Young Learners of English in Isfahan Junior High Schools. Educ J. 2015;4(5):232-237. doi: 10.11648/j.edu.20150405.17

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  • @article{10.11648/j.edu.20150405.17,
      author = {Morteza Azadi},
      title = {The Impact of Musical Texts on the Text Recall of Young Learners of English in Isfahan Junior High Schools},
      journal = {Education Journal},
      volume = {4},
      number = {5},
      pages = {232-237},
      doi = {10.11648/j.edu.20150405.17},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20150405.17},
      eprint = {https://download.sciencepg.com/pdf/10.11648.j.edu.20150405.17},
      abstract = {Although music possesses a kind of power and using it has been welcomed by many students in language classrooms, it seems that they take a non-serious image of the lesson while listening to songs and they may think that it is a matter of fun. The main objective of the present study was to investigate whether learning a foreign language through musical texts (songs) can have an impact on students’ text recall ability in junior high schools. The participants were 90 students who were divided into three groups; two experimental and one control. Three cloze tests (fill in the blanks) were made based on the song lyrics, to measure students’ text recall. All the students took the tests after listening to the songs and text passages. After four weeks of no treatment, the same tests were taken to measure students’ delayed text recall. The data were obtained by counting the total number of words that were recalled. For the analysis of data One-Way ANOVA was employed, the results of which indicated that the speech group significantly outperformed the music group for songs 1 and 2. However, delayed text recall results showed no significant difference between the two groups. This study found that music was not of much help for the students and it sometimes played a distracting role.},
     year = {2015}
    }
    

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    Y1  - 2015/08/21
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    AB  - Although music possesses a kind of power and using it has been welcomed by many students in language classrooms, it seems that they take a non-serious image of the lesson while listening to songs and they may think that it is a matter of fun. The main objective of the present study was to investigate whether learning a foreign language through musical texts (songs) can have an impact on students’ text recall ability in junior high schools. The participants were 90 students who were divided into three groups; two experimental and one control. Three cloze tests (fill in the blanks) were made based on the song lyrics, to measure students’ text recall. All the students took the tests after listening to the songs and text passages. After four weeks of no treatment, the same tests were taken to measure students’ delayed text recall. The data were obtained by counting the total number of words that were recalled. For the analysis of data One-Way ANOVA was employed, the results of which indicated that the speech group significantly outperformed the music group for songs 1 and 2. However, delayed text recall results showed no significant difference between the two groups. This study found that music was not of much help for the students and it sometimes played a distracting role.
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