The effect of songs on pronunciation of young EFL learners

Pronunciation is an important part of language teaching for a clear and understandable communication in the target language. It does not have to be native-like but intelligible and comprehensible pronunciation is a requirement for an understandable communication. How to teach pronunciation in a foreign language classroom matters because the effectiveness of the activities determines the success of learners. Instead of uncommunicative and old-fashioned pronunciation activities, the use of music in language teaching is not a new trend. Music has lots of beneficial effects on language teaching from motivation to recalling learned items better and easily. In this study, the effects of songs on young learners' pronunciations have been investigated. Participants formed two groups, experimental and control group. Experimental group were taught by six different songs and control group received texts for pronunciation teaching during two 40 minutes lessons. All participants pronounced target words before and after teaching sessions. Two native speaker evaluators graded pretest and post-test pronunciations of the all participants. Results of ANCOVA analysis showed that experimental group's post-test scores significantly different from those of control group, which means that use of songs in pronunciation teaching has a positive effect on learners' pronunciation. Key Words: pronunciation teaching, songs, songs in ELT classroom, young learners