The Role of English Songs to Improve Students’ Listening Skills: Students’ perceptions

Abstract

Listening to English songs can be said to help improve students' listening skills. This study aims to reveal students' perceptions in listening to English songs outside the classroom that can help improve students' listening skills. This study used a qualitative approach with a single case study design. Participants in this study was students majoring in English education, 45 students (17 boys and 28 girls) at a university in Malang, East Java, Indonesia. Data collection was carried out through questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaire was adapted from (Afriyuninda & Oktaviani 2021) which contains 15 questions using a five-point Likert scale model which were sent online using Google Forms. Participants who were interviewed participants who had positive perceptions of the questionnaire results. The interview session used a semi-structured model of 5 questions. Data from questionnaires collected from questionnaires were analyzed by descriptive analysis and perceptions of positive, neutral, and negative perceptions. The data collected from the interviews were analyzed by transcribing the data, reading the entire data and representing the data through narrative. The findings from the questionnaire show that most of students had a positive perception. From the results of the interviews, it was concluded that the participants believed that learning through songs was enjoyable and relaxing, and it helped them understand the main idea of a song. They also found that listening to songs outside the classroom can help them understand native pronunciation and help them acquire new vocabulary. Each participant had their own strategies for utilizing songs to enhance their listening skills. Listening to English songs outside the classroom is one of the ways students could improve their listening skills. Considering the limitations of this study, further researchers can add to the subject of research by combining many factors, or involving students who were not from the English faculty. In future researcher, researcher can examine the duration of songs listened to by male and female students. On the other hand, researchers can also compare student learning outcomes using English songs with other learning techniques or they can find elements that influence the use of English songs as a learning tool.

Keywords: Student Perception, Listening Skill, English Songs