USE A RAP MUSIC TO IMPROVE STUDENT’S LISTENING SKILL FOR EXTENSIVE

LISTENING

ANWAR J. KHOTIBI , META AZIZAH

(anwarjk5@gmail.com)
Universitas Muhammadiyah Jakarta, Indonesia
Jl. KH. Ahmad Dahlan, South Jakarta, 15419.

Abstract: Everybody love music, from the young ages to the old ages. Music are the best way to

learn listening. Using music is helpful and easy, especially in learning listening skill. Everybody

prefer listen to a music rather than conversation. The teacher can use the music that they like to

raise their learning spirit. Then, this article will explain about to improve student’s listening skill

by use a rap music. Listening skill is one of skill in the English language that should be mastered.

People who learn the English language should master the listening skill. To improve listening

skill, people can exercise through a music because music has a large benefit to improve listening

skill.

Keywords: extensive listening, extensive reading, learning through music, music learning, rap

music, listening material, listening skill, extensive listening materials and activities

Extensive listening focuses on longer activities, these may vary from something that’s a few

minutes long to several hours long. Rather than focusing on individual parts, extensive listening

focuses on overall understanding. With extensive listening, you don’t have to translate each word

or focus on grammar rules. Instead, you simply have to try to understand the audio as a whole.

Because extensive listening focuses on overall understanding, extensive listening helps students
understand spoken language in real-world contexts. Gardner (2006) calls an approach that

focuses on logical or linguistic intelligences to teach most subject content “fundamentally unfair.

It privileges those who have strong linguistic and logical−mathematical intelligences” (p. 56).

Therefore, English language learners are not simply faced with learning a new language’s

foundational skills at the same time as they are learning the higher level content of academic

classes. If their linguistic intelligence is not one of their dominant channels, they are doubly

disadvantaged. Since Gardner (2006) first introduced the multiple intelligence (MI) theory, many

educators have tried to apply his theory to improve teaching practice. Teaching to musical

intelligence has proven to be effective in helping students learn English, yet there is little

curriculum to help teachers incorporate using music in teaching English as an additional

language. Therefore, students are often deprived of opportunities to use their musical intelligence

for learning. In addition to reaching students who have dominant musical intelligence, music

provides an ideal way to teach prosody, the rhythm, pitch, and tone of a language. Graham

(1992) proposed that expressing meaning in the English language is not possible without correct

intonation, stress and rhythm. In Music, Language and the Brain, Patel (2008) explains that

“within our own minds are two systems that perform remarkably similar interpretive feats,

converting complex acoustic sequences into perceptually discrete elements (such as words or

chords) organized into hierarchical structures that convey rich meanings” (p. 3). He notes

“ability to form learned sound categories, to extract regularities from rhythmic and melodic

sequences, to integrate incoming elements and to extract nuanced emotional meanings from

acoustic signals” demonstrate that the domains of music and language use some of the same

mechanisms (p. 4). Therefore, teaching the intonation, stress and rhythm of English can be
authentically acquired when language is accompanied by musical phrases that reflect or represent

the natural rhythm and tonality of English phrases.

The importance of Using Song in Language Learning

In language learning, the students start to learn with the listening process. That’s why the

use of song in language learning is very important. This statement supported by Thornbury

(2002) that explained children will acquire the listening skill first, as they have not yet learned

how to read. The listening process also backs up with visuals, facials expression, movement,

mime and through pictures. The whole process namely the starting point in learning language for

the students.

Hare & Smallwood (2008) that explainsong and rhymes helps the learners to improve

their listening and sound discrimination and can aid the memory and learning skills. The last

opinion also comes from Fairbanks (2000) mention that learning through music can be very

effective as the stimulation for the brain while processing the information. Their opinions

strongly recommend that the use of song will bring a significant impact in learning process for

the students.

Rap Song as an Edutainment

According to Horn (2007), mentioned that song signaled a positive improvement in

listening skills between seventy-two second language learner students in a primary school in

South Africa. This opinion suggests that song strongly leads the students in improving their

listening skills, one of the four main skills in English language learning. Based on the finding of

his research, the uses of song succeed in improving the ability to master English in general.
 Rap song has a lot of a different and unique vocabulary that can improve student

knowledge. The intonation and pronounce in a rap song also can improve the student listening

and analyzing skills. The emotional aspects of a rap song may increase the level of arousal and

attention. Also from a perceptual point of view, the presence of pitch contours may enhance

phonological discrimination, since syllable change is often accompanied by a change in pitch.

Music creates unique opportunities to teach important elements of language. Because

prosody and music have tone, pitch and rhythm as common elements that define them, music can

be added to teaching prosody to create a reinforcement of prosodic characteristics. According to

the findings of a study by Schon, et al. (2008), many students, who might not recognize or detect

some of these oral language characteristics with speech alone, are more likely to detect them

when music is added to words. Ilcuikiene also established that many teachers who were

convinced their students needed to learn prosody in order to be understood when speaking were

apprehensive to teach it, in spite of their students’ needs. This apprehension was because

teachers were afraid they could not teach prosody well.

Music Creates a Positive Environment and Lowers the Affective Filter

According to Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis (1982), language acquisition best takes

place when anxiety is low and confidence is high. Under these conditions, learners are likely to

receive more input and produce more output. In recent years, neuroscience has strengthened

Krashen’s hypothesis on affective filter. According to Sylwester (2007), “emotion and attention,

are the gateway to cognition [and] artistic arousal and focus help to maintain the vigor of our

emotion/attention systems” (Arousing Phenomena section, para. 1). Accordingly, emotion is a

driving force in attention which, in turn, drives learning. Moreover, emotion and attention relate
to the here and now in brain function which creates the setting for learning. Rafiee, Kassaian and

Dastjerdi (2010) suggest that using humorous song creates a positive atmosphere to extinguish

negative factors that raise the affective filter and create a barrier for language learning.

Research finding

Rap Song for learning

Why Rap Music To Improve Student’s Listening Skill For Extensive Listening?

Activities

Conclusion

REFERENCES