The English language is the most spoken one as a second language in the whole world. It has become the international language of business, science, technology, international relations and diplomacy. To be able to understand and communicate in this language gives us lots of advantages in many different situations. For instance; almost everywhere you go in the world, you will meet English speakers, so if your children start learning English as a foreign language as soon as they start pre-school, they will have more possibilities to develop themselves in their futute field of study once they have finish secondary school. Moreover, they will be better professionals and consequently more successful in this globalized world. They will also have the chance to interact in English with new people from different countries and cultures. The English language will help them open doors in the labor market. Therefore, they will be considered highly-trained professionals to get lucrative jobs in their pertaining fields.
Nowadays, there are lots of methods based on different ways of teaching English to children as a foreign language. Many of them are very difficult to apply and not easy to learn for pre-scholars. That is the reason why we have introduced the use of songs in the teaching of English as a foreign language in pre-school, emphasizing the listening skill at Santa Teresa School. This research will provide teachers another way of teaching the English language to students more efficiently and effectively.
Using songs in the classroom is a very easy tool to motivate English students. It works as an ice-breaker against the routine. Songs could be an essential part of English teaching, because it makes the students feel more receptive to the language.
No doubt, songs are a good way to teach for they incorporate all the language learning skills:
1- Listening (to songs)
2- Speaking (singing songs)
3- Reading (following the lyrics)
4- Writing (filling in the blanks)
With the action of singing and involving movement, the children will feel more confindent of begining to chant or sing as their fear fade away and later on they will be practicing the pronunciation over and over. Chanting and singing also familiarizes the students with the rhythm and intonation of the English language.
Eventually, students will increase their interest which will help them learn the language by using those activities
Teaching is based on using what children already know and the influence of music on learning is clear, therefore it seems that teachers should be motivated to incorporate songs in the classroom.
Statement of the problem
From our daily experiences, we found that the process of teaching English in primary schools in the Dominican Republic is not very successful. The educational system is sometimes too boring for the children, so they usually have more problems to learn this foreign language.
English is a tough language to learn when presenting isolated words. That is what you call a boring method. Imagine these words without any context, they would be more difficult to learn. Everybody agrees that the main objective of teaching a foreign language is to use an effectively methodology in the classroom that pre-scholars can understand and retain. However, most of the pre-scholars at Santa Teresa are presenting serious problems to learn this language. We could find many situations in which those students felt bored and did not paid attention to the teacher.
In order to thoroughly understand and study this situation, the following questions will be response in this project:
Why do pre-scholar present lots of difficulties in learning English a foreign language at Santa Teresa School in the first grade?
Which strategies do Santa Teresa School teachers use to teach a foreign language in the 1st grade?
How can we apply the use of songs as a method to teach English as a foreign language in preschool?
What percentage of students in the 1st grades have problem to learn English as a second language at Santa Teresa Schools?
How can the student at Santa Teresa School develop the communication skill by using songs?
How can the students improve the communication skill by listening to songs?
Which difficulties do teachers and students encounter when listening to songs in the teaching and learning interaction?
Which are the benefits that pre-scholars obtain in the process of learning English as a foreign language?
How do the pre-scholars can develop fluency of the target language by using songs?
How can the teachers promote and encourage the communication skill by the use of songs?
General Objective
The general objective of this proposal is to determine the importance of using of songs to teach English as a foreign language in 1st grade emphasizing the listening skill at Santa Teresa School. In order to accomplish this general objective, the following specific objectives will be formulated:
To identify the strategies to teach songs to pre-school students emphasizing the listening skill.
Establish the amount of opportunities that Pre-scholars have while learning English lessons in the classroom by using songs as a learning method.
OBJECTIVES
1-To identify if the use of songs is a good strategy in the process of teaching English in first graders in pre-school
2-To establish what kinds of resources are efficient during the process of teaching first graders
3-To determine whether or not it is convenient or helpful to use songs during teaching English while
4To analyze the effect of songs in the teaching of English as a foreign language
5-To demonstrate that children are able to learn a new vocabulary with each song they listen to.
6-To find out how quickly children can learn English through songs
7-To identify the strategies by the use of songs in first graders emphasizing the listening skill to teach
8-To establish the amount of opportunities pre-scholars have in the classroom by using songs as a learning method.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Song: A short musical composition with word.
A song is a relatively relatively short musical composition for the human voice, possibly accompanied by other musical instrument which features words (lyrics).
It is typically for a solo singer, though may also be a duet, trio or more voice (word with more than) one voice to a part, however, are considered choral.
The words of song are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, although they may be religious verses of free prose song can be broadly divide into different many forms depending on the criteria used , one division is between “ art songs “, popular songs and folk songs.
