黃埔學報第五十六期民國九十八年 13

WHAMPOA - An Interdisciplinary Journal 56(2009) 13-28

The Effect of English Popular Songs on Learning Motivation and

Learning Performance

Yi-Chun Chen1 • Pi-Ching Chen2

1
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature National Cheng Kung University,
Taiwan
2
Department of International Business Chang Jung Christian University, Taiwan

ABSTRACT

For language educators and practitioners, how to effectively motivate students to learn
has long been a crucial concern issue. Among all the factors that affect learning motivations,
teaching styles and teaching materials might be regarded as the most essential elements to be
taken into consideration for achieving a more successful teaching and learning. The objective
of this study was to explore whether the use of English popular songs can enhance elementary
school students’ motivation for learning English. It was also an attempt to investigate the
relationships between learning motivation and learning performance. Five intact six-grade
classes of a public elementary school in Tainan city were selected to be the study subjects in
the one-semester research. Four English popular songs were chosen as the teaching materials.
After the instruction, a questionnaire was distributed to collect data for further analysis. Of a
total of 166 questionnaires, 131 were valid, yielding a response rate of 79%. The results of
this study showed that the majority of students were interested in learning English popular
songs and their learning motivation also increased after engaging in this creative teaching
activity. As for learning performance, students felt that their English abilities, especially
listening ability, have improved after learning the songs. There was a high correlation between
learning motivation and learning performance. Pedagogical implications based on the findings
were provided.

Keywords: Creative teaching, Motivation, English popular songs, EFL learners

І.Introduction enhance students’ learning motivation and

It is widely accepted that motivation
plays an important role in successful
language learning. According to the
Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum in Taiwan,
one of the major goals for English
education at elementary schools is to
develop their study interests. In the
examination-oriented instruction like
Taiwan, textbooks are served as the main or
even the only resource for English learning.
This kind of limited exposure to the target
language may not only decrease students’
learning motivation but also stifle their

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14 黃埔學報 第五十六期 民國九十八年
creativity. All these explain why creative
teaching has been highly valued recently.
Motivation contributes significantly to
success in learning and it is also recognized
as an important factor in L2 achievement.
For this reason it is crucial for teachers to
increase learners’ motivation by making the
language learning process a more motivating
experience. In EFL classrooms, since
English is not the language used in ordinary
social encounters, learners can not see direct
personal benefits and life relevancy in what
they are learned from textbooks.
Especially for young learners, most of
them learn English simply because it is a
required subject at school or they are told
that learning this useful language will
benefit them in the future. That means that
most young learners learn English for extrinsic
reasons, such as parental reinforcement,
teacher’s encouragement or tangible rewards. So
after learning English for several years, it is
easy for them to get demotivated because
English is just a subject at school, not a part
of their life. In the context of Taiwan,
English is a required subject from grade
three and it is found that some students have
already given up learning English even
before they graduate from elementary school.
This is alarming for elementary school
English teachers to find out what they can
do to enhance and maintain students’
motivation to learn English.
Warrington and Jeffrey (2005) found
that one significant reason behind passivity
and de-motivation toward English learning
was that students did not like the way
English was taught. Their negative prior
experiences with English instruction in a
classroom environment might further erode
14
their motivation to learn English in the
future. In view of this, it is essential for
teachers to take their teaching styles or even
teaching materials seriously. In EFL
learning environment, teachers might be the
sole link for learners to connect with the
target language and culture. How teachers
present or interpret the material has a large
part to influence learners’ engagement in the
learning process. That partly explains why
the Taiwanese government regulated “The
White Paper on Creative Education” in 2002 to
encourage teachers to adopt more creative
approaches to develop lesson plans in all
disciplines.
To create the conditions for creative
teaching, adding some variety is a great
choice. According to Cheung (2001), the use
of popular culture is a key to effective
teaching and learning because it provides
learners with some form of meaning in a
relevant and concrete way. Authentic
materials, such as western movies and songs,
are good resources to lead learners to
develop a genuine interest in learning
English and which can sustain long-term
learning. Popular culture is not only a rich
source of authentic materials but a bridge to
connect formal and informal English
learning. That is, it develops learning based
on learners’ daily experience, personal
values and attitudes. Since popular culture,
especially popular songs, appeals to young
learners, they are motivated to become
active learners. When learning a new
popular song, learners are eager to know the
meaning of the lyrics and sing the song
repetitively themselves. What a marvelous
scene that teachers would like to see!
In order to make this kind of
Yi-Chun Chen1 • Pi-Ching Chen2：The Effect of English Popular Songs on Learning
Motivation and Learning Performance
voluntary learning happen, creative teaching
with the incorporation of popular English
songs into regular curriculum might provide
promising results. There are many
advantages of using songs to assist language
teaching and learning. However, even many
have claimed the motivational benefits of
learners learning English songs, few
empirical studies of this issue have been
conducted, especially the situation of using
English popular songs in the elementary
school classroom. The present study
attempts to analyze the teaching material
and methodology in relation to learning
motivation of sixth graders of an elementary
school. The research questions (RQs) of this
study focused on three aspects: (1) Will the
use of English popular songs motivate
young learners to learn English? (2) What
aspects of English popular songs do young
learners find motivating? (3) Do students’
English abilities improve after learning
English popular songs?
Ⅱ.Literature Review
This section reviewed the related
literature concerned with motivation in the
L2 field, creative teaching, and songs in
language teaching, respectively.
2.1 Motivation in the L2 Teaching
In foreign language learning, a
number of factors can contribute to the
differences of learner performance, such as
age, gender, attitudes, motivation and
learning style. Among them, motivation is
widely accepted as a key to successful
language learning. Motivated learners with
15
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positive attitudes towards the target
language perform better than others. For
motivation is playing an essential role in L2
achievement, to recognize what exactly
motivation is will be beneficial to both
teachers and learners. Motivation is a
complex construct and various definitions
have been proposed. First, motivation can be
examined in terms of the intrinsic and
extrinsic motives of the learners. When
learners are intrinsically motivated, they
seek out novelty and challenges to extend
their capacities and to learn without any
apparent reward. On the other hand,
extrinsically motivated learners learn in
anticipation of a reward from outside.
Semmar (2006) claimed that students were
more likely to succeed in their English
courses when they possessed both extrinsic
and intrinsic motivations. As for which type
of motivation is more powerful, Brown
(2000) conducted the researches on
motivation and found that intrinsic
motivation could achieve a long-term
retention.
In addition to the intrinsic-extrinsic
continuum, Gardner (1985) proposed two
types of motivation. They are the integrative
motivation and the instrumental motivation.
Integrative motivation refers to the attitude
of the learner towards the target language
and target culture. Learners with integrative
motivation are socially or culturally oriented
and wish to integrate themselves into the
culture of the target language. Instrumental
motivation relates to ulterior motives, such
as acquiring a language as a means for
furthering a career or for academic purposes.
Both of these orientations are crucial in
16 黃埔學報 第五十六期 民國九十八年
successful language learning and are not
mutually exclusive (Brown, 2000). In most
situations, learners might have a mixture of
each orientation. However, the social or
cultural milieu may determine learners’
orientations toward the target language and
culture. In an EFL context such as Taiwan,
the use of target language in daily life is
restricted and the potential for integrating
into the target language community is
probably limited, too. This is like the
situation in Japan, Holt (2001) indicated that
most students learned the target
language—English with instrumental
motivation. That is, the underlying reason
for studying English is simply to pass the
university entrance exam. Once students
enter the university, their interests to
continue studying English are diminished.
This agrees as what previous research has
found that integrative motivation can sustain
long-term success in foreign language
learning.
After recognizing different types of
motivation, it is quite important to see how
they work inside the classroom. Is
motivation just “there”, or can it be acquired
or taught? Prior to looking at the motivation
in EFL classroom, it is beneficial to know
that there are three different types of power
in teacher / learner relationshipcoercive,
reward-based, and referent (Wright, 1987).
In the classroom, these can be seen as
punishment, reward, and motivation
respectively. All these three reinforce
learners’ learning attitudes in some way,
however, according to Thanasoulas (2002),
the fostering of learner motivation is
considered to be the most effective power
relationship. In other words, coercive and
16
reward-based can be seen as “extrinsic
motivation” and it is “intrinsic motivation”
that has the most lasting influence in
learning. Therefore, possessing skills to
intrinsically motivate students to learn is
essential for teachers.
Especially for teachers of young
learners, effectively arousing students’
intrinsic motivation to learn can be half the
battle. For young learners, learning
motivation comes from the interest that
learners generate in their minds. That is,
they usually look for direct interest when
doing an activity. In the study conducted by
Petrides (2006), sixth grade Cypriot students
who have higher task motivation perform
better than others. It is also important to note
that one criterion for task motivation is that
the material should captivate the interest of
the learners (Burden, 2000). All these
highlight the crucial role of both the teacher
and the teaching material in EFL
classrooms.
2.2 Creative Teaching
Throughout the human civilization,
creativity is recognized as one vital driving
force for change and progress. As we all
know, by definition, creativity means the
ability to develop new ideas, make new
things or find new ways to do things.
However, Sternberg (2007) gives us a
different perspective by defining creativity
as a habit, an attitude toward life. Creative
people habitually approach problems in
novel ways. And just like any other habits,
creativity can be encouraged but also
discouraged. Among 12 keys Sternberg
suggests for developing the creativity habit
in children, “provide an environment that
Yi-Chun Chen1 • Pi-Ching Chen2：The Effect of English Popular Songs on Learning
Motivation and Learning Performance
fosters creativity” is the one that agrees with
what our government has been advocating.
In 2002 the Ministry of Education regulated
The White Paper on Creative Education.
Teachers at all levels of different disciplines
are encouraged to seek innovative ways to
improve the effectiveness of teaching and
learning. That is, creative teaching is highly
valued.
Creative teaching refers to teaching
that results from the teacher’s creativity, not
to teaching that is intended to develop the
learner’s creativity. Even so, creative
teaching enhances students’ performance
(Schacter, Thum, & Zikfin, 2006).
According to Chiu (2007), creative teaching
can be understood by four renowned Ps of
creativity: person, process, product and
place/environment. Environment can be
seen as the most comprehensive element, for
it can work as a provider of resources or
constraints. Without the environmental
support, a learner may not have the chance
to display his or her creativity within. The
physical environment is one aspect of
learning. By building a creative learning
space, it is found that students become more
active in the learning process (Jankowska &
Atlay, 2008). Moreover, an appropriate
atmosphere that makes students enjoy
learning is also important. The person, that
is, teachers are one crucial component of
students’ learning environment.
Teachers can exert an influence on
students through their own actions. If a topic
is presented in more interesting ways, it is
likely that students care more about the topic.
The use of positive emotions in the
classroom is essential to learning. “Fun” as
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one of the positive emotions is very
important for young learners and the
emotional reaction caused by the nature of
an event is what makes an event memorable
(Gilbert, 2002). For example, novelty is a
motivating factor that stimulates the learning
potential of learners. Therefore, to make
students more engaged in learning, bringing
in some variety or material which is least
expected from time to time might be a good
choice.
2.3 Songs in Language Teaching
For young EFL learners, carefully
chosen materials are quite important.
Among all the materials used in class, songs
are of great value. They can provide a
substantial amount of auditory input, and
which is most important at early language
learning stage. Much previous research has
provided insights into the advantages of
learning English through songs in the
classroom (Schoepp, 2001; Mora, 2000; Liu,
2006). For helping learners to develop their
multiple intelligences, Simpson (2000) believes
that through well-planned teaching activities,
linguistic intelligence and musical
intelligence can benefit each other.
Teachers may adopt songs in the EFL
classroom for many reasons and they mainly
come from three different aspects: affective,
cognitive and linguistic (Schoepp, 2001).
First, songs can create a relaxing,
entertaining and non-threatening classroom
atmosphere in which learners lower their
anxiety filter and be more open to learning.
Second, the nature of songs is repetitive and
it facilitates automaticity in language
development process. To combine both
18 黃埔學報 第五十六期 民國九十八年
affective and unconscious factors together,
the power of ‘song-stuck-in- my-head’
(SSIMH) phenomenon (Murphey, 1990)
appears. Singing is an easy way of
memorizing something and melody seems to
help us retrieve the information effortlessly.
Third, some songs consist of colloquial
English which can prepare learners for
informal conversation in real life situation. In
addition to these three reasons mentioned
above, songs can also be a culturally-rich
resource and easy to be handled in a lesson
(Murphey, 1992).
However, some songs on student
textbooks are very ‘artificial’, that is, they
are composed based on the specific sentence
patterns or vocabulary that the students just
learned. Therefore, sometimes the songs are
not good and this might partly explain why
students, especially sixth graders, don’t want
to sing at all. Another main reason is that
sixth grade students think that the songs on
textbooks are simply too ‘childish’ for them.
These days, six-grade students (about 12
years old) are more mature than we think.
They are just like teenagers who are easily
to be influenced by popular culture.
Domoney and Harris (1993) asserted that
pop music was probably the most frequent
and meaningful exposure to English outside
learners’ English classes. Therefore, popular
songs can be effective materials that relate
English learning to students’ daily life.
In conclusion of literature review,
motivation is essential to language learning
and one way to increase the learning
motivation is by creative teaching. Hence,
the present study centers attention on
motivational aspects of using one creative
element, English popular songs, in EFL
18
classroom. By conducting the research, the
researcher hoped to get promising results
and provide insights into language teaching.
Ⅲ.Methodology
3.1 Subjects
Participants included 166 six-grade
students from five classes in an elementary
school in the northern district of Tainan City.
However, for students who hadn’t
completed all the items on the questionnaire
or ticked the same box on both Item 14 and
Item 15, they were excluded from the
present study. In the end, a total of 131
six-grade students constituted the study
subjects, including 62 male students (47.3 %)
and 69 female ones (52.7 %).
3.2 Materials
To create a more enjoyable learning
environment for young learners to learn
English, a total of four English popular
songs were introduced during the whole
semester. The titles were “Seasons in the
Sun” by Westlife, “You Raise Me Up” by
Westlife, “You'll Be In My Heart” by Phil
Colins as well as “Way Back Into Love” by
Hugh Grant and Haley Bennett. In class, all
those songs were presented by the CD player.
In addition, the teacher also provided
students with parts of the films to introduce
the main plots of the songs about “You'll Be
In My Heart” and “Way Back Into Love”.
The rationale of incorporating these
English popular songs into school
curriculum was that they not only motivate
students to learn but also provide a context
to help students review sight vocabulary. In
students’ textbook, Enjoy which was
Yi-Chun Chen1 • Pi-Ching Chen2：The Effect of English Popular Songs on Learning
Motivation and Learning Performance
developed by Educational Bureau of Tainan
City, there was a section in each lesson that
required students to read and spell certain
target words. Since that most of the target
words were from Dolch Basic Sight Words
List, students have learned the list from their
fifth grade. Therefore, it was assumed that
students could recognize most of the words
in the lyrics.
3.3 Instrument
To understand the improvement of
students’ abilities through English song
learning, a questionnaire was designed by
the researcher herself for a further study.
Besides the main survey items, there were
two items about students’ background
information and an invitation letter to fill in
the questionnaire. A total of 17 survey items
were designed to investigate whether
students were motivated to learn English
through the teaching of English popular
songs. Moreover, this study also examined
how young learners felt after learning
English through popular song singing. All
items of the survey questionnaire were
subdivided into two categories. One was
related to the variable of “learning
motivation”, and the other was “learning
performance”. In addition to the 16 items,
the final item (Item 17) was an open-ended
question designed for the students to express
their opinions about which song they
enjoyed most and why they liked the
specific song.
Except Item 15, all the other survey
items were designed in positive statements.
Participants indicated the extent to which
they felt each item was true for them on a
19
19
4-point scale. The scoring system was
“strongly agree (SA)” to be scored 4 points,
“agree (A)” 3 points, “disagree (DA)” 2
points, and “strongly disagree (SD)” 1 point.
Furthermore, for collecting the qualitative
data for references, one open-ended question
(Item17) designed to provide students with a
chance to state or express their perceptions
or opinions about the use of popular songs in
the class, was not scored by numbers.
3.4 Description of the Treatment
The duration of the present study lasted
for one semester. Since the four English
popular songs were used as the supplemental
materials to their English textbook, the
instructional time was intermittent. That is,
each song was introduced after the end of
one lesson. On average, 15 minutes per
period were reserved for the appreciation of
one English popular song and the students
had two class periods per week. The students
were exposed to the song 30 minutes a week
for three continuous weeks. To sum up, there
was a total of six-hour instructional time
within 12 weeks.
Ⅳ.Results and Discussion
The collected data was analyzed
through SPSS 10.0. In order to check if the
students were attentive when completing the
questionnaire, Item 15 was designed as the
opposite statement of Item 14. That is, Item
15 describing about the difficulty of the
teaching materials was separately counted
and discussed. This meant there were 14
survey items (Items 1-13 and 16) in the
20 黃埔學報 第五十六期 民國九十八年
questionnaire divided into two groups.
Seven survey items (Items 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9,
and 16) were related to the variable of
“learning motivation”, while the other seven
items (Items 3, 4, 5,10,11,12, and 13) were
identified as “learning performance”.
Table 1 presents the mean scores of
the survey items about young learners’
learning motivation. The mean scores above
3 points meant that students agreed with the
statements, so the first two items with high
mean scores were selected to discuss further.
As for the variable of learning motivation,
Item 6 was the highest one (M = 3.27) which
suggested that students were motivated by
learning English popular songs and they
wanted to improve their listening ability.
The result was assumed that this was
probably because some pronunciations of
Table 1. The mean scores of the survey items about learning motivation
Survey Items M SD
Item 1 2.98
Item 2 3.26
Item 6 3.27
Item 7 3.11
Item 8 3.04
Item 9 2.72
Item 16 2.96
Note. N = 131
Table 2 presents the mean scores of
the seven survey items about students’
learning performance. The mean scores
above 3 points meant that students agreed
with the statements. As for the variable of
learning performance, the highest mean
score was Item 4 (M = 3.23) which meant
that students thought that learning English
the words were hard to be discerned in the
song. It might be quite challenging for
students to hear every word clearly. The
second highest was Item 2 (M = 3.26) which
indicated that students were very interested
in learning English popular songs.
On the other hand, the lowest mean
score of the variable about learning
motivation was Item 9 (M = 2.72) which
showed that students did not want to
enhance their writing ability by singing
English songs. The result was reasonable
because the teacher did not emphasize the
writing ability. That is, the major purpose of
using English popular songs was just to
create an enjoyable learning environment to
motivate students to learn English
interestingly.
Rank
.95 5
.86 2
.86 1
.94 3
.96 4
1.02 7
1.08 6
popular songs was helpful to their English
learning. Then, the second high mean score
was Item 5 (M = 3.09) which indicated that
students might expect to learn foreign
culture better through the appreciation of
English popular songs.
On the contrary, the lowest mean
score of the variable about learning
20
Yi-Chun Chen1 • Pi-Ching Chen2：The Effect of English Popular Songs on Learning 21
Motivation and Learning Performance

performance was Item 13 (M = 2.49) which
showed that students did not feel that their
writing ability has improved after learning
English popular songs. This result seemed
reasonable because the teacher did not
emphasize this ability. The purpose of using
English popular songs was just to create a
more interesting learning environment to
engage young learners in English learning.

Table 2. The mean scores of the survey items about learning performance
Survey Items M SD Rank
Item 3 2.98 .96 4
Item 4 3.23 .89 1
Item 5 3.09 .94 2
Item 10 3.08 .92 3
Item 11 2.87 .96 6
Item 12 2.91 .96 5
Item 13 2.49 1.00 7
Note. N = 131

Table 3 presents the correlation
coefficient between two variables, learning
motivation and learning performance. This
study discussed the relationship between the
two variables named young learners’
learning motivation and their learning
performance. From the averages of the two
categories, the study found that the sum of
mean scores about the seven items related to
the variable of learning motivation were
higher than those of learning performance.
The two subcategories had a high
correlation.

Table 3. The relationship between learning motivation and learning performance

M SD r

Learning Motivation 21.34 5.32

.855＊＊＊
Learning Performance 20.65 5.28
＊ ＊＊ ＊＊＊
Note. N = 131; p< .05; p< .01; p< .001

In terms of students’ learning
motivation, this study found that there was a
gender difference. According to Table 4,
female students (M = 23.72) had a higher
average mean score than male students (M =
18.69). The t-value showed that there was a
significant difference between male students
and females. That was to say, female
students were more motivated than male
students after this learning activity.

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22 黃埔學報 第五十六期 民國九十八年

As for students’ performance of 18.32) and the t-value showed significant

learning English through popular song
singing, this study also examined the
difference between male and female students
(see Table 5). The study found that the mean
score of female students (M = 22.72) was
higher than that of their counterpart (M =
difference (p < .001). This result indicated
that female students more agreed that their
English had improved after learning English
popular songs.

Table 4. T- test of gender difference in learning motivation

N M SD r t

Male 62 18.69 5.37

.474＊＊＊ -6.120＊＊＊
Female 69 23.72 4.00

Note. ＊p< .05; ＊＊ ＊＊＊

p< .01; p< .001

Table 5. T- test of gender difference in learning performance

N M SD r t

Male 62 18.32 5.28

＊＊＊
.418 -5.226＊＊＊
Female 69 22.72 4.35

Note. ＊p< .05; ＊＊ ＊＊＊

p< .01; p< .001

This study also investigated teaching
materials itself. According to Table 6, the
majority of students agreed (M = 2.90) that
learning English popular songs was easier
than the contents of their textbooks. Among
them, female students agreed that the songs
were easier, while male students’ responses
were approaching “agree”. The result was
probably because the chosen songs had
many sight words in them and they have
been taught these high frequency words
from fifth grade. However, the result was a
little surprising and stood in direct contrast
to what Peacock (1997) claimed. In
Peacock’s study, participants said that
authentic materials were hard to
comprehend and difficult.

Table 6. Gender difference about Item 15

n M SD

Male 62 2.74 1.17

Female 69 3.04 .95
Average 2.90 1.07

22
Yi-Chun Chen1 • Pi-Ching Chen2：The Effect of English Popular Songs on Learning
Motivation and Learning Performance
Note. N = 131
As for the influence of extra English
classes, the data collected from the personal
information, this study found that only 11
out of 131 students (approximately 8.4%)
never attend after-school English classes.
Owing to the relatively small percentage of
all; therefore, the researcher didn’t consider
the attendance of after-school English
classes as a moderating variable in the study.
Finally, as for students’ responses to
the open-ended question of Item 17, most
students expressed that they like the song
entitled Way Back Into Love most. The very
reason was simply because the melody of
the song sounded pleasant. Nevertheless, the
researcher wondered if this response was
because they just learned this song or
because the teacher showed them parts of
the film which made them feel more
connected to it.
To sum up, based on the
above-mentioned results, the study
concluded that most of the students enjoyed
and appreciated learning English through
popular song singing. The more important
findings were that they were motivated to
learn English, and that they wanted to
enhance their listening ability. As for gender
differences, female students tended to be
more motivated and performed better in
English learning.
Ⅴ.Conclusion
Based on the results and discussions
presented above, the major findings were
summarized. We found that overall class
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motivation had significantly increased after
creative teaching. Students were motivated
to become more active learners. According
to students’ responses, it could be elicited
that most of the students were fond of
learning English popular songs and they
were interested to learn more after this
activity. As for what aspects did students
find motivating, listening, speaking and
reading abilities were the ones that students
wanted to improve. It was also important to
note that students felt that their English
abilities had improved after learning these
English popular songs.
In the light of these findings, some
implications for elementary school English
teachers in Taiwan were given. To begin
with, since creative teaching by using
English popular songs could increase
students’ learning motivation, it might be
worthwhile to adopt this intrinsically more
interesting material to make effective
teaching and learning. Moreover, English
popular songs could be used to practice the
four skills - listening, speaking, reading and
writing - together. Since students were
interested in lyrics and enjoying singing
them, they might be eager to talk about the
songs or learn to read the vocabulary and
sentences of the lyrics. Most important of all,
as Amabile and her colleagues (Amabile et
al., 1994) indicated that intrinsic motivation
can be a contributing factor to creative work.
That is, students could be encouraged to
generate mental fantasies or to create their
own work after the appreciation of the song.
The true meaning of creative teaching was
24 黃埔學報 第五十六期 民國九十八年
to foster learners’ creativity. Therefore,
rather than being considered as discrete,
marginal items, English popular songs could
be valuable materials to be integrated into
school curriculum (Domoney & Harri,
1993).
As for future research, it was suggested
that motivation can be further analyzed to
see which type of motivation could be
enhanced after creative teaching, such as
intrinsic/ extrinsic or integrative/instrumental.
In addition, a high learning motivation was
expected to have a substantial impact on
learning gains. It might be good to have a
pre-test and a post-test to examine students’
actual performance instead of just a
self-report questionnaire. For instance,
because the lyrics of the song can provide a
good context to learn sight words, it is fairly
worthy to further explore to see if students’
reading and writing abilities improve after
the creative learning.
References:
[1] Amabile, T. M., Hill, K. G.., Hennessey,
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Yi-Chun Chen1 • Pi-Ching Chen2：The Effect of English Popular Songs on Learning 25
Motivation and Learning Performance

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[23] Warrington, S. D., & Jeffrey, D. M.

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26 黃埔學報 第五十六期 民國九十八年

Appendix 1.
Questionnaire on Appreciation of English Popular Songs
Hello, everyone!

I am very glad to have taught you the English subject through English popular songs during
the whole semester. Through this questionnaire, I’d like to learn how you felt about English
popular song singing and if the appreciation of popular songs improved your English learning.
Please check the appropriate boxes that best represents your opinions or situations.

Many thanks for your participation and cooperation!

Sincerely yours,

Debbie Chen
English Teacher
A. Personal Information
1. Gender:
… Male … Female
2. I’ve attended after-school English classes
… Yes, I have. … No, never.
B. About Appreciation of English Popular Songs
Survey Items SA A D SD
I want to learn English well through the appreciation of
1.
English popular songs.
2. I am very interested in learning English popular songs.
I am confident that I can learn the vocabulary and sentences in
3.
the lyrics.
I feel that English popular songs are helpful for my English
4.
learning.
I get to learn foreign culture better through the appreciation of
5.
English popular songs
I want to enhance my English “listening” ability through the
6.
appreciation of English popular songs.
I want to enhance my English “speaking” ability through the
7.
appreciation of English popular songs.
I want to enhance my English “reading” ability through the
8.
appreciation of English popular songs.
9. I want to enhance my English “writing” ability through the

26
Yi-Chun Chen1 • Pi-Ching Chen2：The Effect of English Popular Songs on Learning 27
Motivation and Learning Performance

appreciation of English popular songs.

I feel that my English “listening” ability has improved through
10.
the appreciation of English popular songs.
I feel that my English “speaking” ability has improved
11.
through the appreciation of English popular songs.
I feel that my English “reading” ability has improved through
12.
the appreciation of English popular songs.
I feel that my English “writing” ability has improved through
13.
the appreciation of English popular songs.
I feel that learning English popular songs is more difficult
14.
than learning from the textbook.
I feel that learning English popular songs is easier than
15.
learning from the textbook.
16. I want to spend more time learning English popular songs.

17. Of all the songs we appreciated this semester, which one is your favorite? Why?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Note. SA = Strongly Agree; A = Agree; D = Disagree; SD = Strongly Disagree

27
28 黃埔學報 第五十六期 民國九十八年

英文流行歌曲、學習動機與學習成效關係之研究

陳怡君 1、陳璧清 2

1
國立成功大學外國語文學系
2
長榮大學國際企業學系

摘要

長久以來，如何有效地激發學生學習動機，一直是語言教育者關注的研究議題。在
影響學習動機的因素中，教學風格與教材或許是成功教與學所需考量的重要因素。本研
究旨在探討教材對學童學習動機之效益。為了探討使用英語流行歌曲是否可提昇國小學
童學習英語的動機，並分析學習動機與學習表現的關係，本研究以台南市某公立國小五
個六年級班級學生為研究對象，進行為期一學期的研究。教材為四首英語流行歌曲。教
學後，學生填寫問卷供進一步分析。在 166 份問卷中，131 份為有效問卷，有效問卷回
收率 79%。本量化研究結果顯示，大多數學生對學習英語流行歌曲有興趣，且此項創意
教學活動亦提昇學生的學習動機。在學習表現上，學生覺得學習歌曲使他們的英語能力
進步，尤其是聽力。這些發現意謂學習動機與學習表現兩個變項高度相關。基於本研究
結果，研究者並提出教學建議以供參考。

關鍵詞：創意教學、學習動機、英語流行歌曲、英語學習者

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