The Effect of Music in the Learning and Retention of Lexical Items in German.

MF-$0.63 HC-$1.67 Plus Postage Cognitive Processes; *German; Grade 7; *Language Instruction; Learning Processes; *Music; Recall (Psychological) : *Retention; Secondary Education; *Second Language Learning; Teaching Methods; Vocabulary; Vocal Music; Word Recognition The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to investigate the effectiveness of music as a mediation factor in the learning and retention of lexical units in German language sequences:The main question to be considered was whether or not the addition of melody and rhythm would constitute an aid or a hindrance to the Ss in learning the body of a text, as measured by retention of individual items within the sequences originally presented. Thirty-eight subjects, nineteen boys and nineteen girls, were selected from seventh grade beginning German classes in a midwestern junior high school. Two media consisting of four songs and four dialogs were used. Tests for retention of items in the original context were of four types: German-cued recognition, English -cued recognition, uncued recall, and English-cued recall. A German-cued recognition test was used to retest all items in a different context. The results indicate that music is an effective mediating factor in the learning and retention of lexical items in German language sequences, and that boys in particular appear to benefit in learning such materials with addition of the kinesthetic and sensory experiences afforded by listening to and singing songs. (Author/CLK)h *********************************************************************** Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effort * * to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items of marginal * * reproducibility are often encountered and this affects the quality * * of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available * * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not * responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions * . * supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original. * *********************************************************************** THE EFFECT OF MUSIC IN THE LEARNING AND RETENTION OF LEXICAL ITEMS IN GERMAN U.S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY Sidney L. Hahn L.C1 -4ON Man's basic tool of communication is language. The acquisition of the linguistic system and its building blocks--vocabulary--which enable LAJ the users of a language to communicate with one another is clearly a learned and highly complex activity. In 1953 Osgood (p. 727) noted: In terms of its central relevance to general psychological theory and potential applicability to complex social problems, no other area of experimental psychology so greatly demands attention as language behaviorand in the past has received so little. Despite the progress made in the intervening years, so much remains to be studied and accounted for in language learning that Osgood's observation must still be considered valid. If this is true of the study of language behavior generally, it is even more pronounced in the area of foreicn language skills acquisition. Vocabulary learning in particular has escaped the attention of researchers. "Unless one counts the multitudinous studies in 'verbal learning' through the study of paired-associate learning, there has been almost no progress in research on vocabulary learning in FL. " (Carroll, 1970, p. 34). Theories of language and language learning which include the aspect of human communication, either in contrast to or in addition to abstraction of a symbolic linguistic code, refer to the necessity for individual decoding, encoding (Osgood, 1953) and storage of verbal sequences. The major usage of such recalled verbal sequences, as stated by Gagn (1965) is in the area of language itself--specifically, in the construction of verbal utterances that communicate ideas. 7"2717F! 7 77 IP.F4 ,k;g1),1 1duitI 2