A Preliminary Survey Investigation of College Students’ Perceptions on the Use of Music in English Conversation Class

A Preliminary Survey Investigation of College Students’ Perceptions on the Use of Music in English Conversation Class

In general, it is widely known that music is helpful and useful in learning English, Nevertheless, this kind of common sense is limited only for children. Therefore, there are not enough programs or methods except using pop songs for adults. As a result, adults start to learn English how to read and write first other than how to listen and speak. Moreover, college students usually learn English conversation with textbooks which are not included any English songs. Therefore, there are only a few studies in related music and English for college students. Such being the case, the purpose of this paper is to investigate college students’ responses if they are interested in music. This study focused on how students feel about classical music, what type of music they like, and how they perceive of using English songs. The study was held in 2-year college located in southern part of Geonggi-do. Participants were 83 students who were enrolled in first year English conversation course which is required for their degree completion. In this study, the author is going to inquire if Gordon’s Music Learning can be adopted into English conversation class. In order to do that, classical instrumental music were played before the class and English songs were played during the break time of the regular class as a background music. Data collection is by means of survey including 6 categories with 16 questions created by author. The questionnaire survey uses a five-point Likert type scale. The results of the survey suggests that 99% of the students become familiar and fearless about English songs. As a result, it is approved that Gordon's Music Learning Theory can be adopted for college English conversation class.