Improving Student’s Pronunciation by Listening to the Western Song.

The main goal of teaching of English is to make learners can communicate with English well. As we know, four basic element of teaching English are listening, speaking, reading and writing. But, besides those four basic elements, learners can not communicate in English without good pronunciation. Nowadays, many students who have graduated from senior high school are not able to communicate in English with good pronunciation. They can not discriminate the sounds as well as they producing it. Even though, they have spent several years for study English in their school.

This problem may caused by the influences of their first language to their pronunciation in their second language. Because the English speech sounds are very different from Indonesian and the way how producing sounds also different from Indonesian. But the problem is not only made by the learners. It is also becomes a problem by both student and teacher.
The error on pronunciation is not only made by student, but teachers also involved in this problem. The factor that involved by the teacher comes from the teaching material that used. Sometimes the material can not build the student’s interest to study. On the other hand, as we know almost all of the students as the teenager like to hear music and song. And most of them like to hear the western one. So, why do not we use song in order to make student to have better pronunciation.
By listening to English music and song frequently can improve student’s vocabulary and their ability to pronounce a word in English. And listening to western song is an also interesting way for student to memorize how a word in English to be spoken. “Combining words and melodies to provide a pleasure that charms each new generation”. (Echange : 1991)
As I stated above, almost all of the student really like to hear music and song, especially the western one. This activity can make the student more interesting in study English. As Ostojic(1987:50) also stated,” while listening to music and song, the student can experiment with foreign word and expression in an atmosphere of trust, joy, and reflex ion and the student are ready to enjoy a new and precious experiment”. Or we can said that listening to music and song can encourage and motivating the student to respond to something new and to make student have motivation to learn English.
Finally, in order to solve this problem, that is to make the student have better pronunciation, but in the way that students interested in it. I try to give a solution by using western song to make students have better pronunciation, but in the way that student interested in it. I try to give a solution by using western song to make student to have better pronunciation.
Song provides examples of authentic, memorable and rhythm language. They can be motivating for student keen repeatedly listen to and imitate their musical heroes. There are three aspects of pronunciation that can be focused on through western song as media in teaching pronunciation.
First, using song to focus on sounds. Sounds are the smallest unit from which words are formed and can be categories as vowels and consonants. In this aspect, we as teacher ask the learners to focus on particular sounds, we create activities based on songs rhymes. The rhymes in songs provide learners with repetition of similar sounds. The repetition of similar sounds will help the learners to memorize how a word in English is pronounced. And songs are authentic and easily accessible examples of spoken English. Let me make an example of this activity.
Activity 1.
We replace some of the rhymes in the song with a space or blank. And then the learners have to listen the song carefully and fill the space, using the song to guide them.
The goal of this activity is we hope that the learners could categorize the words according to sounds. And we also focus on the differences between sounds, using the lyrics we show how changing one sound of a word can later the meaning of the word or we usually called it as minimal pairs. By using minimal pairs, we also can create a new activity.
Activity 2.
Choose six words of a song that minimal pair can be created. For example, we take some words forms “imagine” by John Lennon, the words are:
• heaven - even
• hunger –‘anger
• man – mad
We write those words separately on cards and give out one set per group of four or five students. The students and then match the pairs. Then, listen to the song and ‘grab’ the correct one. Choices are then checked against the lyric. By using song in pronunciation class, students have to focus on sounds. Because of the sounds have rhythm that is similar sounds at the end of certain words on the lyrics, the rhymes of the lyric will provide listeners with repetition of the similar sounds. And the student will know how a word in English should be pronounced.
Second, using song to focus on words. Words are combination of sounds which form together to give meaning. A word is uttered in syllables, usually one emphasized the stress and the rest is unstressed. As I stated above, the repetition of similar sounds or rhythm in songs can memorized by student easily. It means student also can memorize how a word should be pronounced easily. And by listening to songs, it will help learners associate the number of syllable in the word of the song with memorable rhythms
The relaxed atmosphere that created by song can expose student to this difficult pronunciation area, without their realizing. As Ostojic stated (1987 : 50), “ while listening to music or song, the student can experiment with foreign words an expression in an atmosphere of trust, joy and reflection and the student are ready to enjoy a new and precious experiment “. Or we can say that listening to song can encourage and motivating the students to respond to something that is new and to make student to have motivation to learn English especially pronunciation skill, without their realizing. So, the students can enjoy in the class, the students will not think that pronunciation is the difficult subject anymore.
Let me show how we use songs to focus on words in activity 3.
Activity 3.
We give out the lyrics from a certain song that appropriate with the grade of student that we going to teach. From the whole lyric, we type some of the words in board form. And then, do not forget to give a space after the words that type in board form, so that student can write the number of syllable of the word. And ask the student to predict how many syllables is each word that type in board form. After students finish their work, we play the song and checking their pronunciation. After student can decide how many syllables in each word, we repeat the activity. But now, student have to underlining which syllable give stressed and which syllable we should not give the stress or unstressed. And once again play the song, and checking their prediction.
Using song to focus on word, the student can decide how many syllables is the word and where can give stress and unstressed in word. The memorable rhythm of the song, it can help the learners to associate the number of syllables in a word. And once again song will make student forget that pronunciation is the difficult subject. Because it creates the relaxed that can expose student to this difficult pronunciation area, without their realizing.
Third, using song to focus on Connected Speech. Connected Speech is the natural way we speak. Connected speech is linking together and emphasizing certain word, rather than each word standing alone. People do not speak in separate word, they speak in logical connected group of words. There are some ways we can connect the speech. The extremely example is contraction.
Contraction is forming two words into one word or we contract two words together. Songs, especially in the chorus, provide real and catchy examples of how the whole phrases are pronounced often to the extend that students find it in difficult to pick out individual words. The music further emphasizes the flow of the words. Songs also just like other spoken text, full of contractions. And student can be keen to reproduce this, in order to sing the song as they hear it.
We hope by using the song that has numerous contracted words to convince learners that contractions are natural in English. To realize this goal we could do activity 4.
Activity 4.
We play the song, we ask the learners to catch the contraction word that they hear form the song during they hear the song. And after the learners catch all of the contraction word of the song, we ask the learners to make the full form of the contraction word that they get from the song.
There are no standard songs for teaching pronunciation. Any song can be an example of different pronunciation aspects. However we should have a clear example song, or a song that have good quality recording. And also a memorable song, likely to appeal to our learners (songs that have been already known by the student), and it is not too fast song and easy to create activities. But it depends on our area of pronunciation we are focusing on. And finally, we should remember, songs are creative works, so be ready to justify the occasional miss-pronunciation to the learners.