INTRODUCTION
Nowadays English has become an international language, more and more people learn English. The importance of English as a world language has made people to learn English as early as possible. In Indonesia for example, English is taught even before the children enter the playgroup, there is a special class for children who are still around two or three years old. This is supported by the fact that the optimum age for children to learn a foreign language is when they are still in a very young age. This phenomenon has made Teaching English to Young Learners “TEYL” become increasingly famous. There are many English courses and the publication of the course books. Before we go on, it is better to look at the definition of young learners in order for us to have the same perspective and knowledge. “The definition of Young Learners is children between the ages of about 5 years old to 12 years old” as Rixon (1999) cited in Shin (2006), while the primary or elementary stages of formal education before the transition to secondary school. This is why the ages of the young learners could be varied from one country to the others.
Songs have become an important part of human culture and civilization. They are used in many social and cultural occasions and have traditionally used as an educational tool. Therefore, it is widely believed that songs can be used to promote learning amongst people, including children.
One type of songs which children like most is action song. This type of songs usually requires body movements of the whole parts of the body or only some parts of it. In relation to English language learning for children, action songs are considered as powerful resources which help their language development. By nature, children enjoy playing and singing songs and they will get a lot of benefits when they were exposed to particular English songs in the English classroom. This paper intends to explain the use of action songs in English classes at elementary schools. At first, it outlines some theoretical reasons of using action songs in the English classroom. Then, it identifies and explains some possible action songs that can be used in the classroom and how to use them in the English classroom.
The reason why the writer chooses this topic is mainly because song is really suitable for young learners. Through songs and the fun activity make the children learn the language unconsciously, and in a fun way. Through songs, the children can enhance their language skills such as listening, speaking and writing. These three skills are put in order, since the first skills that the children learn is listening the songs, and after that the children learn to speak or sing the song, the last thing, the children learn to write the lyrics of the songs. The activity is not only lead to the fun activity of the children but also the skills’ development of the students when they are listening to the particular kind of song.
DISCUSSION
A. Song as Useful Learning Resources for Young Learners
Songs and languages might have some similar features. By using songs, people can express themselves. Similar to songs, language is also a means used by people to express their thought, feeling or concern about particular things. As Goodger (2010) cited in Nurhayati (2012) mentions that music and language share some common elements. First “physically, both of them made up of sound waves which our ears capture and our brains process into a meaningful, recognizable code.” Language, except the sign language, and songs are firstly captured by ears and then they proceeded by the brains. Second, both of them “communicate emotions and meanings.” In everyday life, they often function as canal for human to express idea, opinion, feeling, emotion, and dream. Third, they both have an “intrinsic phonology namely rhythm and accentuation, key and intonation”. Song is defined as a short piece of music with words to be sung. In language, particularly English certain features like tune, intonation, stress also exist and give impact to meanings. Goodger also mentioned that “the notes in a melody correspond to the phonemes in words; change the order of the notes in a tune and it loses its sense. It is exactly the same for phonemes in words, phrases and sentences.”
B. English learning through Songs
The singing games and chants are the embodiment of symbolic play and imitation. These activities help the children to move from sensor motor experience to a symbolic transformation of it (Isenberg, 1993). Music helps children develop cognitive skills, as well as enhances language skills, by singing song; children learn language appreciation, vocabulary and rhyme (Shipley, 1998). Another thing is that songs and rhymes are learned by heart, and this may form part of a child’s linguistic. Thus, through this paper, the writer wants to explain how teachers can use songs to enhance skills to young learners, such as listening, speaking and writing skills. When the songs are introduced; the first skill that the children learn is listening. This section will focus on activities which will practice the skills of listening. The activities include detailed listening comprehension, listening for summarizing or writing, listening to isolated vocabulary and listening for word order (Griffee, 1992).
C. Preparing, Selecting, and Applying Songs in Teaching Young Learners
Before the advancement of information and technology, it was really hard for Indonesian English teachers to access the authentic learning resources and bring them to the classes. Fortunately, with the expanding popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web into both the classrooms and lives of students, music and lyrics have been made easier to access (Schoepp, 2001). Thousands of English songs suitable for young learners are now available on the Internet. Teachers can download them anytime and use them to support the teaching and learning process. One popular website that allows teachers to access the action songs is www.youtube.com. However, the English teachers cannot just take any song to the classroom. Before using the songs, teachers must first select the songs.
In preparing and selecting the song, the teachers should first familiarize themselves with the aims and the ministry documents that provide guidelines. Therefore, teachers should have complete understanding about their language program and documents relevant to it. Before choosing particular song, it is significant to firstly decide the teaching and learning objectives. The objectives should be in line with the overall aims of the teaching program and the action songs should be related to these teaching objectives. In Indonesia, the teachers are expected to use the Guidelines of English Teaching and Learning Practice in Elementary Schools issued by the government of Indonesia. The objective of the teaching learning process should be based on this guide. Based on the guideline, the teachers are expected to provide a fun learning atmosphere. This kind of situation can be built by making use of songs in the class. In this case, teachers should be able to match the teaching and learning objectives and the learning resources.
It has been noted that the songs used must reflect the objectives of the English teaching and learning. After deciding the objective, one other important part of the song selection stage is analyzing. In analyzing the songs, teachers have to bear in mind the aspects related to the grammatical features as well as the meaning of the song. This implies that they have to present all their English knowledge and consider the cultural information, values, human relations as well as feelings embedded in the song. When the song is going to be used as an input text, the teacher should firstly check whether the songs provide sufficient and good language model for the students. They need to investigate, for example, what kind of language focus it provides, the pronunciation and grammar used in the songs, and also the tune of the song. Furthermore, they also need to examine carefully the length of the lyric as well as words’ density and difficulty. Last but not least, the age of the students should also be considered in song selection.
D. Using Song in Teaching Fun English
The second skill that the children can learn through songs is speaking skills. Singing a song, however simple, is a pleasing achievement. After the children listen to the song, they would attempt to sing it. Moreover, since the words in the refrain are repeated several times, they are easily memorized. As (Rixon, 1999) says that one of the most popular formats for songs is that the refrain (a rhythmic section) is repeated many times, and has often been observed to result in spontaneous ‘joining in’ by the young audience. Teacher of young learners of a language experienced that this exposure to rhythmic utterances benefits retention of words in memory. (Griffee, 1992) also states that the children practice saying the words in the same way they sing the songs, the children can repeat the words in rhythmic word groups. Thus, the exposure and the repeated words from the songs make it easier for the children to remember the words as a result the children can produce or utter the words.
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