The use of rap songs to aid the teaching of pronunciation to Arab students at the University of Balamand in Lebanon

Abstract

Rap songs have been used to teach language skills such as listening, speaking, writing and vocabulary. However, no studies have been conducted to examine the effects of rap songs on the improvement of pronunciation. Intelligible pronunciation is the focus of current EFL/ESL classes to enable students to be orally proficient in the second or foreign language. Recently, researchers and teachers have stressed the importance of incorporating pronunciation as part of the speaking skill to allow learners to function confidently in the second or foreign language. The purpose of this study was to determine if rap songs are effective for teaching pronunciation since rapping is an exaggerated way of speaking. It was hypothesized that students who use rap songs as a learning technique will improve significantly in pronunciation as opposed to students who use minimal pairs and drills. In order to test this hypothesis, an experimental and a control group were formed. The experimental group was taught pronunciation using rap songs while the control group was taught pronunciation using minimal pairs and drills. Prior to the experiment, both groups sat for a pretest which comprised of reading aloud sentences that contained words with the phonemes /5/ and /0/. The duration of instruction for both groups was 25- 30 minutes daily over an eight-day period. After the conclusion of instruction, both groups sat for a post- test which also comprised of reading aloud sentences that contained words with the phonemes /5/ and /0/. In addition, the experimental group was administered a questionnaire to investigate the students’ attitudes towards the use of rap songs as a teaching technique. For the questionnaire, the students answered it by indicating their responses on a five point Lickert-type scale. Data analysis involved calculating the means and standard deviations. T- test analysis was computed for the pretests and post- tests, to investigate if there was a significant difference in the means between the experimental and control group. Two trained scorers rated the pretests and post- tests. Interrater reliability was calculated using Pearson’s product- moment correlation. Results of data analysis for the pretests and posttests were displayed in tables. In addition, means and percentages were calculated for the responses from the questionnaire and results were also displayed in a table. Data analysis revealed that the control group did significantly better than the experimental group whom were instructed with rap songs as a pronunciation teaching aid. This result reveals that the use of minimal pairs and drills seems to be superior to the use of rap songs. Another finding was that analysis of the questionnaire revealed that the experimental group was highly motivated and displayed a favorable attitude towards the use of rap songs.