The Effects of Songs on L2 Proficiency and Spoken Fluency: A Pedagogical Perspective

Background: It has been shown that music andsongs benefit language learning. However, there are only a few studies lookingat how songs can be used in the classroom to promote the development offluency.

 

Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate,how three teaching techniques, namely singing, listening to songs, and recitingsong lyrics, affect the development of fluency.

 

Methods: Second language learners of Finnish(n=61) produced two oral stories elicited by picture materials at the beginningand at the end of the course. These narratives were transcribed and analyzedfor fluency as the total number of words, and speech rate (words per minute).Variance analysis with proficiency level as a covariate was used to compare theeffects of the teaching techniques (singing, listening to songs, reciting songlyrics) on the development of fluency.

 

Results: First, fluency measured as thetotal number of words improved the most in the most proficient students, butthere were no differences between the three teaching groups. Secondly, fluencywas measured as speech rate (words/min). Also here, the most proficientparticipants improved the most. There was only a tendency towards a differencebetween the singing and the reciting groups, the singing group improving themost.

 

Conclusion: Improving fluency seems to belinked to proficiency levels: the higher the proficiency level, the morefluency improved. Of the investigated teaching techniques, singing seems to bebeneficial for improving automatized speech, measured by speech rate and thetotal number of words.