Date of Award

6-2009

Degree Name

Master of Music

Department

Music

First Advisor

Dr. Brian Wilson

Second Advisor

Dr. Edward Roth

Third Advisor

Dr. Kenneth Smith

Keywords

ESL; vocabulary; singing; speaking; pictures

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Campus Only

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine if English as a Second Language (ESL) students in Korea acquired more English vocabulary words from an activity when the words were paired with singing and pictures as opposed to when the words were paired with speaking and pictures. Participants were 40 students, eight to ten years of age, from a foreign language institute in Seoul, Korea. Ten target vocabulary words were selected by the teacher and used for the eligibility assessment, experimental conditions, and the posttest. Prior to administering each treatment, the eligibility assessment was given to every student and the number of correctly verbalized words among ten-targeted vocabulary words was recorded. Anyone who was able to correctly verbalize any of the ten target words was eliminated from the study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the following conditions: singing paired with the picture card or speaking paired with the picture card. For four consecutive days, each condition group received a 15- minute session per day. The posttest was given in the same manner as the eligibility assessment. A two-sample t-test was performed to compare the posttest scores between the two treatment groups. The analysis indicated that singing had a significantly greater effect (p < .05) on the vocabulary acquisition of the ESL students compared with speaking.

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