Use of songs as a motivational tool to enhance pupils’ speaking skills

Abstract

The study is conducted to investigate the use of songs as a motivational tool to enhance pupils’ speaking skills. The paper discloses the implementation of songs as a motivational tool to develop Year 4 pupils’ speaking skills on the first part. The second part consist of knowing teachers’ perception on teaching speaking skills to Year 4 pupils. This research employed a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative methods. For the quantitative part, 30 pupils participated in the experiment of using songs that contain conversations to develop their speaking skill. For this purpose. a pre test and post test is conducted. The findings obtained involved calculating the margin of difference of the pre test and the post test scores to determine the success of the treatment. Next, descriptive statistics was used to analyse the test scores by comparing the mean and the standard deviations. For the qualitative method, five primary school teachers were involved in a semi-structured interview. The data from the interview is transcribed and discussed based on the objectives of the study. The findings showed that the usage of songs as a motivational tool is effective in enhancing pupils’ speaking skills. The teachers’ perception on the importance, strategies and ways of teaching speaking skill in the classroom revealed significant understanding of the issue. Plus, teachers must consider the challenges encountered by pupils to develop their speaking skill and strive to incorporate different instructional methods in their classrooms in order to improve pupils’ speaking skills. This paper sheds light on the value of using songs as a motivational tool to enhance pupils’ speaking skills and to know teachers’ perception in using songs to teach speaking skill.