Songs in English textbooks for pupils
What is it about?
This paper reports on the findings of a comparative study on songs in four English coursebook series for primary school learners, with two published in China and another two in the UK. Detailed analysis focuses on the number, the coverage, the teaching purposes, and the instructional arrangements of songs.The major findings include: 1) in terms of the number and coverage of songs, the Chinese coursebooks outnumber the UK ones, but the UK coursebooks show a negative correlation between the number of songs and learners’ grade level, but no correlation exists between learners’ grade levels and the number of songs in each fascicle of the Chinese ones; 2) Concerning the teaching purposes, the four series all put ample emphasis on utilizing songs to boost interest and motivation, improve listening and pronunciation, and enhance key words and structures, yet only a small part (average 16.5%) is devoted to cultivating learners’ intercultural awareness, revealing a lack of due attention to fostering learners’ intercultural awareness. 3) Regarding the pedagogical approach and other instructional arrangements, British coursebooks adopt a more diversified approach of highlighting the integration of learners’ physical, psychological and cognitive development, while Chinese coursebooks concentrate on providing simplistic and unified instructions, which may pose a challenge for novice teachers but an opportunity for experienced teachers.
Why is it important?
The study has contributed to the existing literature in terms of research perspective and research method. In contrast to previous research on songs, which has mainly aimed to improve classroom teaching by discussing the effectiveness of using songs or ways of teaching songs in ELT classrooms, this study was chiefly conducted to facilitate primary ELT coursebook development. Besides, unlike the previous relevant studies which usually adopted mixed methods of document selection and text analysis, this study enriches the existing research methods by incorporating a questionnaire survey administered to front-line primary English teachers to enhance research rigor.