(cover page with Author info, remaining pages are without reference to the author)

"Suggestive Music" for English Listening Skills Improvement

Revised Oct 31, 2001, per comments of Editor



October, 2001






The Author:
Robert Dickey is an Assistant Professor of English at Kyongju University in South Korea. He has
been teaching English (and assorted other subjects) in Korea since 1994. Robert holds advanced
degrees in public administration and law, his career prior to entering the ELT profession, and gained
the (RSA) CTEFLA from International House, Hastings, England, in 1996. He has been actively
involved in Korea TESOL since 1996; serving as president during 2001-2002. His teaching and
research interests include professional ethics, low-technology instruction, and pronunciation and
accent.


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"Suggestive Music" for English Listening Skills Improvement

wordcount: 1855 (includes references)


1. Setting:
Kyongju University is a fairly typical four-year university in South Korea, with a student
population of approximately 3,000 undergraduates, located in a mid-sized city approximately
300 kilometers from the nation's capital. As with most universities in Korea, English has
become a required course of study for all students. All students must successfully complete
four semesters of "English Conversation." The first year course has a focus is on grammar
and vocabulary, and for students outside the School of Foreign Language and Tourism, is
usually taught by bilingual instructors. All second year courses are taught by "native
speaker of English" (NSE) instructors. During all four semesters, there are typically 35-40
students in an unheated, non-airconditioned classroom, and a large number of students are
unmotivated to learn after five to six years of English grammar and vocabulary instruction at
the middle and high school levels. There are standardized written tests at the end of the first
year (first and second semester) courses. All classes are taught through standardized syllabi
and books.
Second year, second semester classes taught by three North American instructors in the
fall of 2000 are the focus of this investigation. Classes are officially open to students from
any major, but over 90% of students in any typical general studies classroom are usually from
a single or two departments. Most of the students included in this discussion were from the
schools of Tourism, Public Administration & Law, and Foreign Languages. The students
entering these schools typically have higher English language skills compared to most other
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freshmen.
I frequently teach one or two of these General Studies English classes in addition to
courses within the English department. Though I hold only an "RSA Certificate" as a
teaching qualification, I have been teaching, reading ELT literature, and conducting my own
research in ELT at the university level since 1995. The General Studies English program
holds regular workshops to discuss teaching ideas, classroom experiences, and jointly develop
new teaching materials.

2. Focus:
There is a widely held belief by NSE teachers in Korea that general studies English
courses are a waste of the students' time, that little is learned. Korean society, like many
other Asian nations', is highly attentive to TOEIC scores, and speaking ability is not assessed
on that exam. Many universities also offer TOEIC test preparation courses as well as
elective courses in conversation; these classes are filled with motivated, higher-skill students.
There are various teachers who argue that listening skills directly correlate to speaking ability,
but few documented studies to this effect. All of these issues troubled me, as it did my
colleagues. I suspected that the "affective filter" (Krashen, 1982
1
) -- a mental block that
impedes the entry of a second/foreign language, such that a "high" filter is associated with
stress and discomfort -- might play a role in the claimed lack of student learning.
Having read a bit on Lozanov's Suggestopedia
2
, I decided to trial elements of the
methodology within my classes. Would a "musically suggestive" environment, within the

1
Stephen Krashen was not the first to use this term, but his numerous writings on the subject since his landmark
1982 discussion have caused the concept to be closely linked to him.
2
There is no widely-available comprehensive "primer" on Georgi Lozanov's Suggestopedia, but several
"methodology survey texts" offer impressionistic descriptions. See Larsen-Freeman (1986), Richards &
Rodgers (1986), Stevick (1980), and Stevick (1998). See also Felix (n.d.) for a shorter description and history
of Suggestopedia, available on the world wide web.
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confines of a typical university classroom, facilitate improved listening during the class,
leading to improved communicative skills? Several colleagues agreed to join in the study,
we all expressed uncertainty as to the effectiveness of Suggestopedia. The sophomore
General Studies English class does not focus on listening, though I estimate that roughly 67%
of class activities are specifically oriented to listening comprehension or conversational
(listening + speaking) skills development.
The Suggestopedic method involves a number of complimentary components, many of
which are not feasible in a typical university classroom. Stevick (1980, p.230) summarized
the underlying assumptions in a succinct manner:
(1) That learning involves the unconscious functions of the learner, as well as
the conscious functions; and (2) that people can learn much faster than they
usually do, but (3) that learning is held back by (a) the norms and limitations
which society has taught us, and by (b) lack of harmonious, relaxed working
together of all parts of the learner, and by (c) consequent failure to make use
of powers which lie idle in most people most of the time.
Perhaps the most famous aspects of Suggestopedia are baroque music played before and
during readings of the long passages to be learned, a comfortable room (lighting, colors,
flowers, art), and fantastic success stories of vocabulary learnt and the pleasure of doing so.

3. Investigation:
Three NSE instructors administered an abbreviated version of a commercial TOEIC
practice test to seven classes during the second and third week of the semester. Questions
21-50 were used (listen to a brief conversation, select one of three spoken responses). The
same test was administered during the 13
th
and 14
th
weeks. In the intervening time, music
was played at low volume prior to class, during breaks, and occasionally during student
working periods for the "treatment" classes. The "control group" classes received no music.
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In every other respect, instructors attempted to teach their courses identically to all other
courses they taught within the General Studies English program, and according to the
standardized syllabus. Each of the three instructors taught one "treatment" class," one or two
"control group" classes, and the other two instructors also taught other classes where the pre-
and post-tests were not administered.
For most of the treatment class sessions, the music selected was from a "Classical
Guitars" recording, this selection is consistent with the Baroque form of music identified with
the Suggestopedia method. One instructor chose to replace the classical music for several
weeks with an "Early years Beatles" recording, he reported that the change in music
apparently made no difference in student attitudes towards music in the class, in general.
The reason for the music and the tests were explained to the students as "for us teachers to
test our teaching." No names or student identification numbers were listed on the tests, only
date of birth (so the pre- and post-tests could be matched). We may therefore question
whether students exerted their best efforts on these tests, but they seemed pleased to have the
chance to take a "practice TOEIC."

4. Response:
The semester-long nature of this study made mid-course changes impossible. Final
findings were not available until after the semester had been complete. Our aim had been,
from the origin of the study, to analyze for potential changes in the next year's curriculum, as
well as within our personal teaching styles regardless of syllabus.
Students seemed pleased with the musical interludes, though after a few class meetings
they took it as a rather matter-of-fact. Even if played during pairwork or small group
exercises, it seemed to not affect their behavior. A few students hummed along before class
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began, certain of the melodies were heard along campus hallways.
From the psycholinguistic standpoint, all seemed well. However, the rate of test
score improvement from pre-test to post-test was not consistent with the success stories of
Suggestopedia. Music listeners did approximately 25% better than those without music.
Collectively, the music treatment groups saw a net increase of 0.097, and the control groups
improved by 0.077 (after removal of a decline group). The growth, however, was small.
It seems students aren't developing as much as we would hope. We saw only 8.6%
improvement for all students over 11 weeks, and this only after a class that had a net decline
had been removed from consideration. The decline group was one of two control groups
taught by instructor "z", who was unable to identify any particular reason for this decline.
Only students who took both pre-test and post-test were included in the statistical analysis.
In this small population of 109 test-takers (not including the decline group nor those who took
only one of the two tests), the pre-test/post-test score changes of individual learners within
any single class were not internally consistent, nor were single classes very consistent with
others of similar type.

5. Reflections:
As with any action research, we may question whether the investigation was thorough
enough or wide-ranging enough to respond to concerns of validity. We didn't "teach to the
test," but that was a central aspect of the investigation -- would general listening skills
improve if we affected the classroom environment? The instructors did not attempt to
modify the treatment beyond the choice of music noted above, and didn't discuss the project
extensively prior to preparing "after action" summations after the post-tests had been
administered, but prior to test scoring.
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Then IATEFL vice president Susan Barduhn (personal communication, February 16,
2001) commented after a conference presentation on of the findings of this study "That's not
Suggestopedia." To which I agreed. And I am aware that Lozanov has been reported as
indicating that Suggestopedia was an "all or nothing" type of approach, that loss of only a few
elements undermined the full process. Since environmental changes such as carpeting,
upholstered chairs, room color, fresh flowers, and noise control are beyond the control of
most university teachers, along with class sizes and frequency/duration of class sessions, we
never hoped for the dramatic language skills improvements claimed in that approach. Nor
were any of the instructors trained in "Suggestology," Lozanov's psychology-based
framework for his methodology. But this investigation was based on the realities facing an
ordinary language teacher in Asia.
What I have concluded is that, if a teacher is carrying an audiocassette or CD player into a
classroom anyway, it is minimal effort to play relaxing music during the non-teaching time.
In fact, it seemed to help reduce my non-instructional "teacher talking time" during class.
Music did not reduce the amount of instruction provided, though it may have been a
distraction to some students. Recognizing the possibility that music can improve listening
skills by 25% compared to not using music, I have concluded that I should take music into all
my classes. While I continue my action research into other possibilities.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Robert Dickey is an Assistant Professor of English at Kyongju University in South Korea.
He has been teaching English (and assorted other subjects) in Korea since 1994. Robert
holds advanced degrees in public administration and law, his career prior to entering the ELT
profession, and gained the (RSA) CTEFLA from International House, Hastings, England, in
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1996. He has been actively involved in Korea TESOL since 1996; serving as president
during 2001-2002. His teaching and research interests include professional ethics,
low-technology instruction, and pronunciation and accent.
The author would like to thank his teaching collaborators in this project, Mr. Sean M.
Reed and Mr. Alex Voss, without whose participation, thoughtfulness, and suggestions the
research project could not have been completed.

REFERENCES:
Felix, U. (n.d.). Suggestopedia. Available Oct. 30, 2001 on the world wide web:
http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~ufelix/thesis2-2.htm
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. New York:
Pergamon.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (1986). Techniques and principles in language teaching. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Richards, J., and Rodgers, T. (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stevick, E. (1980). Teaching languages: A way and ways. Cambridge, MA (USA): Newbury
House.
Stevick, E. (1998). Working with teaching methods: What's at stake? Pacific Grove, CA:
Heinle & Heinle.