VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES





HÀ THỊ THU HƯƠNG





USING SONGS TO TEACH VOCABULARY TO
PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN: AN ACTION RESEARCH
AT DIENBIEN PRIMARY SCHOOL, THANH HOA PROVINCE

SỬ DỤNG BÀI HÁT ĐỂ DẠY TỪ VỰNG CHO
HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC, MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG
TẠI TRƯỜNG TIỂU HỌC ĐIỆN BIÊN, THANH HÓA


M.A. Minor Thesis



Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10

HANOI, 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES





HÀ THỊ THU HƯƠNG





USING SONGS TO TEACH VOCABULARY TO
PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN: AN ACTION RESEARCH
AT DIENBIEN PRIMARY SCHOOL, THANH HOA PROVINCE

SỬ DỤNG BÀI HÁT ĐỂ DẠY TỪ VỰNG CHO
HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC, MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG
TẠI TRƯỜNG TIỂU HỌC ĐIỆN BIÊN, THANH HÓA



M.A. Minor Thesis


Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410
Supervisor: Phùng Thị Kim Dung, M.A








HANOI, 2012

iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i
ABSTRACT ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Statement of the Problem 1
1.2 Aims of the Study 4
1.3 Objectives of the Study 4
1.4 Scope of the Study 4
1.5 The Significance of the Study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Characteristics of Young Learners 6
2.2 Teaching English to Young Learners 8
2.3 Vocabulary 10
2.4 Teaching Vocabulary 11
2.5 Vocabulary Teaching Techniques 14
2.5.1 Using Flashcards or Pictures 14
2.5.2 Translation 14
2.5.3 Using Games 15
2.5.4 Using Songs 15
2.6 Using Songs in teaching Vocabulary 16
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 A Brief Introduction to Context of Teaching and Learning English
at Dien Bien Primary School 19
3.2 Research Design 19
3.3 Subjects 20

iv
3.4 Research Instruments 20
3.4.1 Observation 20
3.4.2 Questionnaires 21
3.5 Data Collection Procedures 22
3.6 Data Analysis 22
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS
4.1 Analysis of Data from Observation 24
4.1.1 The Situation of the class 24
4.2.2 The Participation of the students 25
4.2.3 The Pronunciation of the Students 25
4.2 Analysis of Data from Questionnaire 26
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1 Conclusion 29
5.2 Suggestions 29
REFERENCES I
APPENDICES
Classroom Observation 1-8 IV
Questionnaire XII
Collection of songs XIV

1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the researcher will discuss about the statement of the
problem, aims and objectives of the study, scope of the study and the
significance of the study. All of these items will be explained below.

1.1 Statement of the Problem
English is one of international languages, which is used throughout the
world and in many fields of life such as in Politics, Economics, Social and
Education. Therefore, English as a language in international communication
is clearly needed by many learners to deliver thought and interact in a variety
of situations. Because of the importance of English, English has been taught
to students since they are in the Elementary school.
According to Yuliana (2003), teaching young learners is not like
teaching adults because children have their own way of learning. Since
children like to play and have fun, the learning and teaching process should be
suited with the nature the children themselves. Larsen-Freeman (2000) state
that in teaching English to young learner context, children will learn a foreign
language more effectively under certain conditions.
As the basic components of the four language skills (listening, reading,

writing and speaking) vocabulary has to be mastered by learners. Vocabulary
is the main point to learn English. Without having adequate vocabulary we
will get difficulty to learn English. In Elementary School, vocabulary is the
first step to learn English, because without knowing a lot of vocabulary in
English the children will get difficulties in mastering English. Thus,

2
vocabulary should be the first priority in English language teaching and
learning.
To teach vocabulary in Elementary school, especially for children, is
not an easy way. Teaching children is different from teaching adults. We must
have extra power to teach them, because the children have certain
characteristics and need certain treatment. Therefore, in teaching vocabulary
to young learners, it needs appropriate technique. According to Brown (2001)
technique is any of a wide variety of exercises, activities, or tasks used in the
language classroom for realizing lesson objective. In addition, in any kinds of
language learning activities, techniques may certainly constitute an
indispensable factor that facilitates every successful effort in vocabulary
mastery. Therefore, we can say that techniques of teaching vocabulary to
young learners are important because it can help the students learn easier and
enjoy the material presented. Furthermore, some sources explain techniques
in teaching vocabulary in elementary school can be applied such as games,
songs, memorization, dictation, etc. Among these techniques, song is one
useful technique to young learners because most children enjoy listening to
songs.
Many empirical works were done to prove the theoretical consideration
above. Purwoharto (2002) study about the vocabulary teaching techniques of
the fourth class students at MIN I Malang, Indonesia. The study was
conducted to know what the techniques used by the teacher and what the most
appropriate technique to be employed by the teacher. The research design

used was descriptive qualitative design. The result of the study showed that
the teacher used two techniques in teaching vocabulary. The techniques were
guessing pictures and singing a song. Between those two techniques above,

3
students were interested in singing a song. They were very enthusiastic
because they were free to express their styles and they felt happy.
In Vietnam, teaching English at primary school to children at grade 3
has been applied since 2010. Two years after the implementation of English at
primary level, there are many problems of language teaching that can be
identified as research subjects. We could discuss about methods, material
selection, and others. Some study had been done to explore the use of modern
equipments and techniques to find out the effective ways of teaching English
to primary school children. Vu Thi Luong (2002 cited in Do Thi Mai Chi,
2007) conducted a study on using games in teaching English to primary
school children. The research pointed out that game is a useful teaching
technique in primary English language teaching; however, the teachers had
many different opinions about them as well as difficulties in using them. 90%
of teacher in the study sample agreed that games are effective to language
teaching but almost all of them complained that they did not have any book
about using games in teaching so they used only some games repeatedly.
In this research it is identified that teaching technique for primary
level is challenging. Moreover, we know that technique in teaching
vocabulary is important to help students to increase their achievement in
English. Therefore, the researcher intends to do a research: “Using songs to
teach English vocabulary to Primary school children: an action research at
Dien Bien Primary school, Thanh Hoa province”. The reason of choosing
this research is the researcher believes that song is a useful technique in
teaching vocabulary that supports the successful of learning and teaching
process, especially to young learners who are learning English.




4
1.2 Aims of the Study
This research is carried out with the hope that it could raise teachers‟
awareness of using song in teaching vocabulary and provide them a useful
teaching technique. Through using song in teaching, it could attract students‟
interest in language learning. Based on that, it is hoped to increase
effectiveness of English teaching and learning process in Dien Bien primary
school.

1.3 Objectives of the Study
The main purposes of the study are to find out the effectiveness of
using songs to teach vocabulary to elementary students and the learners‟
responses toward this technique. The statement of the problem can be
formulated into the general research questions:
1. How effective is the use of songs in teaching vocabulary to
elementary students?
2. How are the learners‟ responses toward the technique?

1.4 Scope of the Study
The research was carried out with no ambition to cover all problems
over all Vietnamese learners of English. Scope of the research is limited as it
is only conducted on the students in the third grade at Dien Bien Elementary
school.

1.5 The Significance of the Study
The writer hopes that this study will be useful for teachers of
elementary level. Practically, it is hoped that this research will give the

guideline how to teach and learn language better, especially in vocabulary

5
subject. So, the teachers themselves are expected to improve their
performance in teaching. Beside that, they are able to use songs as an
appropriate technique in teaching vocabulary.
Theoretically, this study is also expected to increase and enlarge the
researcher‟s understanding in using teaching vocabulary techniques and help
the other researchers to provide information in mastering language
components especially vocabulary.



















6

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the review of related literature. It concerns with
the theoretical understanding as the references of this study. The references
that will be discussed are (1) characteristics of young learners, (2) teaching
English to young learners, (3) Vocabulary, (4) teaching vocabulary, (5)
vocabulary teaching techniques, (6) song and vocabulary.

2.1 Characteristics of Young Learners
Young learners will learn best if the people involved in the teaching
learning process facilitate the learning and take into account the way they
learn into the teaching practices. Piaget (1967 cited in McCloskeey, 2002),
suggested that children developed through specific stages, they are:
1. Sensor-Motor Stage (from 0 – 2 years) in which children seemed to
learn through physical interaction with the world around them.
2. Pre-operational stage (from 2 - 7 years) when children need concrete
situations to process ideas.
3. Concrete Operational Stage (from 7 - 11 years) in which children
begin to conceptualize and do some abstract problem solving, though they
still learn best by doing.
4. Formal Operational Stage (from 11-15) in which children are able to
use abstract thinking.
Based on the cognitive development above, the third grade students of
Elementary School, who are involved in this research, are in the concrete
operational stage. It means that they are in the stage of learning language and
thinking more concrete to actions, objects, and properties. Teachers require

7
plenty of object and pictures to work with, and to make full use of the school

and their surroundings. By seeing and doing what the teacher has said, they
will understand the lesson unconsciously. Thus, they learn naturally.
Harmer (2007, p.82) summarizes young learners‟ characteristics into
several points as follow:
First, children have their own culture and learning preference. It means
that the instruction should be child friendly. Therefore, they will find the
instructions easy.
Second, children learn by way of physical activities such as learning
through hand-on activities, learning by doing. It is believed that physical can
help students to internalize the language they are learning.
Third, children have relatively attention and short concentration span;
unless the activities are extremely engaging, they can easily get bored, losing
interest after ten minutes or so.
Forth, children learn naturally. As part of their development, children
are always active in exploring their environment and accumulating knowledge
and experiences. From this exploration, children construct their understanding
of how things work, including the language they use as both a system and
tools for communication.
Fifth, children learn best when learning is meaningful, interesting, and
functional. Children will find things meaningful, interesting, and functional
when they are relate these things with their needs and personal experiences.
Sixth, non- verbal language is important because children will indeed
attend very sensitively to the teachers‟ facial features, gestures, and touches.
The last one is children often learn indirectly rather than directly. They
take in information from all sides, learning for everything around them rather
than only focusing on the precise topic, they are being taught.

8
The strategies for teaching children should maintain characteristics of
children in order that students can learn the target language optimally. One of

the common principles that may be considered to teach English for young
learner is fun and natural.

2.2 Teaching English to Young Learners
In general, childhood is said to be golden period in acquiring language.
They are easy to accept language. It is time to learn about something new in
the world including the language. Teaching foreign language, in this case
teaching English is complex because the way of teaching them differences
from other. Different levels of students certainly will need different treatment.
Teaching English to young learners requires more attention than adult
learners. Larsen-Freeman (2000) states that in teaching English to young
learner context, it is believed that children will learn a foreign language more
effectively under certain conditions.
Teaching English to young learner needs all teachers‟ skill in managing
children and keeping them on task, plus the knowledge of the language,
language teaching and language learning. Piaget (cited in Cameron, 2001)
states that children are active learners. Children learn best when they are
actually doing the work themselves and creating their own understanding of
what is going on (Mooney, 2000). He believes that in the learning process,
children are not simply passively assimilating knowledge given by the
teacher. In addition, they will actively operate on it.
Cameron (2001) proposed that children are often more enthusiastic and
lively as learners than adults. They always have an activity to be done even
when they do not quite understand why or how. In learning English as foreign
language, children need to play with the language. Try it out, test it, receive

9
feedback, and try again. Thus, teaching materials should be appropriate with
children‟s need in mastering English.
First, learning should be fun and natural for young learners. It is

commonly believed that the environment of foreign language learning often
causes stress and anxiety. Therefore, there must be the absence of stress for
them to be successful in learning the target language. Young learners are
believed not to learn language forms directly; commands are believed to be
helpful for children to interpret meanings. This activity is believed to liberate
self conscious and stressful situations.
Second, the language should be first presented through sounds, not
written symbols. Listening and speaking are worked on as the learners
produce meaningful utterances concerning physical object and their own
experience. After young learners can produce sounds in the target language
and connect the sounds in the truth, they may begin to read symbols in the
target language. This process can begin after the children are able to
understand what other people speak (listening) and able to produce the
language (speaking).
Third, young learners are more sensitive to anything that can be
touched and sensed; they react easily to physical objects, language is taught
by having the students use their senses, touch, listen, smell, and even taste
necessary. This will help them relate the linguistic signed to the truth that
they perceive with their senses.
Fourth, meaning should be made perceptible through concrete objects
or by the presentation of experience. When language learners make mistakes
or misconception of something, teachers are not correct it through translation
but they need show to something to make the meaning are better.

10
Fifth, the idea that teaching should start from what the students already
know in order to encourage association processes seem to favor children. By
teaching through this way, children are expected to know what they are doing.
They are not only saying something without being aware of what they are
saying. In order for them aware, the new materials have to have relationship

with previous one so that they can easily make associations since association
process is necessary part of learning. Thus, language teacher should build
upon the learning process by adding new segment of language to the previous
one; he/she starts from what the language learners already know in order to
encourage association process.

2.3 Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the basic element in the language. It is used as a tool to
access the background knowledge, express idea and learn new concept.
Without sufficient vocabulary, people cannot communicate effectively or
express their ideas in both oral and written form.
River in Nunan (1983, p.125) proposes that the acquisition of adequate
vocabulary is essential for successful foreign language use, because without
an extensive vocabulary, we will be unable use structural and function words
that we have learned for comprehensible communication.
Hocket (in Celce-Murcia and Mc Intosh, 1978, p.129) states that
vocabulary is the easiest aspect at a second language to learn and it hardly
requires formal attention in the classroom. Hornby (1995, p.1331) defines
“vocabulary as a list of words used in book, etc. usually with definition and
translation”. While Hatch and Brown (1995) define vocabulary as a list or set
of words for a particular language or a list or set of word that individual
speakers of language might use.

11
However, vocabulary itself is more complex than these definitions
above. Lehr, Osborn, and Hiebert as cited in Mardiana (2008) explain two
kinds of vocabulary description as follow:
First, words come in two forms: oral and print
1. Oral vocabulary includes those words that we recognize and use in
listening and speaking.

2. Print vocabulary includes the words that we recognize and use in
reading and writing.
Second, word knowledge also comes from in two forms, receptive and
productive.
3. Receptive vocabulary includes words that we recognize when we
hear or see them. It is the ability to comprehend passive vocabulary that is
used in reading and listening contexts.
4. Productive vocabulary includes words that we recognize when we
speak or write.
Further, Cameron (2001) states that knowing and understanding words
means knowing its „form‟ and its “meaning”. Knowing its “form” means how
it sounds, how it is spelt, grammatical changes that could be made to it.
Knowing its „meaning‟ is its conceptual content and how it relates to other
words, and in particular types of language use. According to how they are
used to construct sentences, Cameron (2001) divided the words of language
into two groups, which are content words and function words. „Content
words‟ are those that carry lexical meaning, even out of context, whereas
„function words‟ act as complementary that carry grammatical meaning.

2.4 Teaching Vocabulary
Vocabulary is one of important aspects in teaching language, as stated
by Edward in his book:

12
“Vocabulary is one of the important factors in all language teaching,
student must continually be learning words as they learn structure and as
they practice sound system”.
Vocabulary was necessary to give students something to hang on when
learning structures, but not a focus for learning itself. It means that teaching
and learning vocabulary is as important as teaching and learning grammar or

structure. Teaching vocabulary is an activity to give an instruction to develop
students‟ ability in recognizing and understanding new words that are
unknown before.
Teaching vocabulary is clearly more than just presenting new words.
Therefore, the teachers should know all kinds of techniques and they must
select the technique that will be most effective, so that they can use one of
them based on the condition needed. It is done in order to facilitate the
students in comprehending the material.
Wallace (1982, p.207) explains that teaching vocabulary should
consider these following factors:
1) Aims
The aim of teaching vocabulary is to make the teacher easy to
formulate the materials, which will be taught to the students.
2) Quantity
The teacher has to decide the number of vocabulary items to be learned.
The learners will get confuse or discouraged if they get many new words.
Therefore, the teacher should select new words, which can easy to understand
by the learners.
3) Need
In teaching vocabulary, the teacher has to choose the words really
needed by the students in communication.

13
4) Frequent exposure and repetition
The teacher should give much practice on repetition so that the students
master the target words well. They also give opportunity to the students to use
words in writing or speaking.
5) Meaningful presentation
In teaching vocabulary, the teacher should present target words in such
a way that the meaning of the target words are perfectly clear and

unambiguous.
6) Situation and presentation
The teachers tell the students that they have to use the words
appropriately. The use of words depends on the situation in which they are
used and depends on the person to whom they are speaking.
To help the learners in learning foreign language Mary Slaterry and
Jane Wilis (2003, p.4) suggest some ways to teach them. There are (a) make
learning English enjoyable and fun, (b) don‟t worry about mistake, be
encouraging; make sure children feel comfortable and not afraid to take part,
(c) use a lot of gestures, action, pictures to demonstrate what you mean, (d)
talk a lot to them use English, especially about things they can see, (e) play
game, sing a song, and say rhymes and chants together, (f) tell simple stories
in English, using pictures and acting with different voices, (g) don‟t worry
when they use their mother tongue. You can answer a mother tongue question
in English and sometimes recast in English what they say in their mother
tongue, (h) Consistently recycle new language but don‟t be afraid to add new
things or to use words they won‟t to know, (j) plan lesson with varied
activities, some quite, some noisy, some sitting, some standing and moving.


14
2.5 Vocabulary Teaching Techniques
Brown (2001, p.16) states that technique is any of a wide variety of
exercise, activities, or tasks used in the language classroom for realizing
lesson objective. Technique of teaching is one factor that plays an important
role in determining the success of the students‟ achievement. An English
teacher has to know various techniques of presenting vocabulary. It is carried
out to make students to understand, to use and to comprehend words that the
teacher has presented. For young learners, technique is not only to assist the
students to grasp the meaning of new words easily, but also to make the

variation of teaching in order to avoid the passive class. Because of that, the
techniques that can be applied to young learners should be simple and
interesting techniques.
Thornbury (2002) gives some ways to teach vocabulary to the students
who are learning foreign language. The common techniques are as follows:

2.5.1 Using Flashcards or Pictures
To young learner teachers, this is a common technique. Many teachers
collect their own sets of flashcards from magazine, calendars, etc. The young
learner teacher usually uses interesting pictures like food and drink, clothing,
house interiors and furniture, and so on. They often lend themselves easily to
practice activities involving students‟ interaction. For example, a set of
pictures illustrating types of food could be used as a means of presenting
items such as bread, rice, fish etc. This technique prefers to be implemented
for young learners.

2.5.2 Translation
Traditionally, translation has been the most widely used means of
presenting the meaning of a word. Translation has the advantage of being the

15
most direct route to a word‟s meaning. For monolingual groups it is also a
valid technique to highlight the danger of the false cognates or to give clear
meaning of abstract words. For example, the English word enthusiastic would
be translated as „ hăng hái, nhiệt tình‟ in Vietnamese.

2.5.3 Using Games
Many experts of language teaching technique agree that a game is a
good way to learn vocabulary, especially for young learners. With the use of
games, the teacher can create various contexts in which students have to use

the language to communicate, exchange information and express their own
opinion. Lee (1995) gives several main advantages of using game, including a
welcome break from the usual routine of the language class, motivating and
challenging, effort of learning, and language practice in the various skills.
Therefore, games are a way to help students not only enjoy and entertain with
the language they learn, but also practice it incidentally.

2.5.4 Using Songs
Song is one of the best ways to brighten up the English class by
providing a chance of phase in the classroom routine. It can be used to
reinforce language pattern that have been already learned and to introduce the
new materials. Orlova (1997) identifies some additional benefits of songs in
language learning. First, they can encourage learners to use English. In a non-
English environment, the main problem for teachers is how to stimulate
learners to speak English in class; songs may be the starting point for that.
Second, listening to songs (especially when these are supported with pictures
and actions) helps students to recognize words and meanings more easily.
Finally, songs can stimulate a positive emotional attitude to language

16
learning. Song is a useful technique for young learners since most children
like singing a song.

2.6 Using Songs in Teaching Vocabulary
The role of songs in learning vocabulary has been widely discussed
(e.g. Orlova 1997, Murphey 1992, Phillips 1993). Much vocabulary will be
learned explicitly – through direct instruction and attention; however, we also
know that learners need opportunities to learn vocabulary incidentally – i.e.
when they are not paying direct attention to it but to some other task, they are
performing (Schmitt 2000). Songs, by exposing learners to many examples of

words used in meaningful contexts, create such opportunities for indirect
vocabulary learning.
Although there are many reasons why songs can be considered a
valuable teaching tool, there are some issues to consider. As mentioned
above, the teacher needs to take care in selecting a suitable song for his or her
class. The language, vocabulary, and sentence structure of some songs can be
quite different from that used in spoken English (Richards, 1969, p. 163)
Some teachers analyze the errors of their students and search for songs
or rhymes that can work as a remedy for these errors. This is one method of
selection – basing the song choice on student needs. Nevertheless, a teacher
should exercise care when choosing songs. The following criteria can be used
for choosing a song (Curtain & Pesola, 1988):
1. The song should contain limited vocabulary.
2. The song should contain language compatible with that being used in
the classroom.
3. The song should present a limited musical challenge.
4. The rhythm should be straightforward and repetitive.

17
5. Song topics should be within the experiences of children.
6. For primary level 4 and 5 it is useful if songs are accompanied by
actions.
7. It is also helpful if the words of the songs are highly repetitive and if
they have a refrain: a repeated stanza, between verses of the song
One way to maximize the advantages and minimize some of the
limitations mentioned above might be to develop songs into language learning
tasks. Although this alone will not help teachers develop a greater repertoire
of songs, it can help turn a song into a useful tool for language learning and
teaching (Cameron, 2001, p. 31).
Cameron defines an activity for young learners as “any kind of event

that children participate in” (2001, p. 31), but adds, not all classroom
activities can be classified as tasks. For an activity to be considered a task, it
must have more carefully planned and structured events with learner
participation as the fulcrum (Cameron, 1997, p. 346). Cameron provides “a
list of defining features of task for use in teaching foreign languages to
children” (2001, p. 31).
• Have coherence and unity for learners
(From topic, activity and outcome)
• Have meaning and purpose for learners
• Have clear language learning goals
• Have a beginning and an end
• Involve the learners actively
These defining features benefit the teacher because they provide a
reference point for planning a lesson or analyzing a lesson plan. In addition to
these five features, Cameron (2001) reports that tasks for young learners
should have three stages: preparation, core activity and follow up. Cameron
argues that the core activity is central to the language-learning task and

18
without the core, the task would collapse. The preparation activities should
help to prepare the students to complete the core activity successfully. This
might include pre-teaching of language items or activating topic vocabulary.
The follow-up stage then should build on the completion of the core activity
(2001, p. 32).
1) Preparation stage
Given the goal of the task is singing the song in the core activity stage;
it is useful to activate the vocabulary and to form basic sentence structures in
the preparation stage. This could be done using a number of methods,
depending on the resources available to the teacher or the size of class.
Regardless of how the teacher chooses to activate vocabulary and form

sentence structures, the aim is that, at the end of the preparation stage, the
students are ready to sing the song in the core stage.
2) Core stage
To involve the students and maximize interest, it would be
advantageous to sing the song several times in the core, each time varying the
pace or volume and having the students perform actions and sing along
chorally.
3) Follow-up stage
The follow-up stage should attempt to build on the successful
completion of the core stage. In other words, the students have sung the song
and now should be encouraged to use the vocabulary or sentence structures
from the song. Again, this depends on the circumstances of the teacher. The
follow-up stage could be used to develop written production, either through
writing sentences or gap-fill activities, or oral production where the
vocabulary learned is used in a situational role-play.



19
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter gives a brief view on the setting of the research then
discusses the methodology of the study related to research design, subject of
the study, research instruments, data collection and data analysis.

3.1 A Brief Introduction to Context of Teaching and Learning
English at Dien Bien Primary School.
It is a fact that English education at primary level has been
implementing for over a decade but mostly in big cities. English language

teaching at primary level has been actively implemented at almost school
since 2010 according to Project "Teaching and learning of foreign languages
in the national education system in the period 2008 - 2020" Decision No.
1400/QD-TTg 30/9/2008 of the Prime Minister.
Dien Bien is a primary school in Thanh Hoa city, Thanh Hoa province.
Like other primary schools in the province, English teaching has been
applying in Dien Bien primary School since 2010. It is an optional subject
from grade 3 with the time allocation of two periods per week and using the
textbook “Let‟s learn English book 1, 2, 3” (The Educational Publishing
House & SNP Panpac Publishing House, Singapore). Because it has just been
implementing for 2 years, there are some problems in teaching and learning
English such as lack of equipments, teaching aids, etc. Therefore, the teacher
only used the textbook “Let’s learn”.

3.2 Research Design
According to Ary (2002, p.426) research design is the researcher‟s plan
of how to proceed to gain and understanding of some group or some

20
phenomenon in its natural setting. This descriptive research uses qualitative in
nature because its objective means to answer some questions naturally
concerning with the current status of the subject of this study. The current
status of the subject of this study is the teacher‟s techniques in teaching
English vocabulary at the third grade of Dien Bien Primary school.

3.3 Subjects
The subjects of the study are students from 3 classes in grade 3 at Dien
Bien primary School. There are 102 third grade learners at Dien Bien primary
school in the second semester of the academic year 2011 – 2012. They are 8
years old. All of them are the beginning learners of English.


3.4 Research Instruments
In this study, the researcher used some research instruments to collect
the data. Those were observation and questionnaires

3.4.1 Observation
Observation is the most basic method for obtaining data in qualitative
research (Ary, 2002). The goal of qualitative research is a complete
description of behavior in a specific natural setting rather than a numeric
seminary of occurrence or duration of observed behaviors. Observation was
classified into participant and non - participant observation. In this research,
the researcher used participant observation. The reason for choosing this
instrument was that the researcher could have more detail of class activities
and experienced events in the same way as the participant.
The writer conducted observation to answer the research question
number one “How effective is the use of songs in teaching vocabulary

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to elementary students?” in terms of attracting learners‟ attention to
vocabulary learning, enhancing their understanding of teacher‟s instructions,
improving learners‟ mood in the lessons and improving class atmosphere.
Field notes were used to observe the situation of the class during each
lesson. Three components that were observed are
(1) The situation of the class
If there were a lot of students enthusiastically raising their hands when
the teacher asked them, she might conclude that they gave much attention to
the vocabulary learning through songs.
(2) The participation of the students
If the students did what the teacher requested, she would conclude that
they were motivated to learn.

(3)The pronunciation of the students
The researcher took notes of student‟s mistakes in pronunciation. If the
students could sing the song given clearly without teacher‟s help at the end of
each lesson or pronoun the vocabulary correctly, she would conclude that they
were in progress.

3.4.2 Questionnaires
Ary (2002, p.414) states that questionnaire is the major means of data
collection for a survey. It is important that the instruments used be valid and
reliable. Therefore, the questionnaire should be formatted so that it is
attractive and easy for the respondents to read, answer, and convenient for the
researcher to code and score. Questionnaire can be classified into two types,
they are structured or close questionnaire and unstructured or open
questionnaire.