This research attempted to investigate the effectiveness of using songs as a medium to improve senior high school students’ pronunciation. Since correct pronunciation becomes a fundamental language component which can affect
accuracy and comprehension in speaking, it should be primarily acquired by foreign language students. Songs can be used by English language teachers to teach natural pronunciation. There have been some studies investigating how songs could improve students pronunciation. However, there have not been adequate studies which investigate the effectiveness of using songs as a medium to improve senior high school students’ pronunciation in Indonesia. Unlike the other studies, there were only five students of grade XII Santa Ursula BSD selected from 180 students to become the respondents of the study. There were
ten problematic sounds encountered by the respondents. They were eight consonant sounds ([ð], [v], [?], [?], [d?], [?], [z], [t?]) and two diphthong sounds ([a?] and [e?]). A pre-test was conducted in order the investigate the prior respondents’ pronunciation. The score of the respondents’ correct pronunciation of the problematic sounds in the pre-test was 25.16. The treatment class of using various English songs as a medium to improve the respondents’ pronunciation was conducted for 16 meetings, about 15 minutes each meeting. The score of the respondents’ correct pronunciation of the problematic sounds in the post-test was 78.70. The finding showed that the use of English songs as a teaching medium
appeared to be effective to improve the language learners’ pronunciation since the iv progress was 53.54. Thus, using English songs as a medium can be considered as one strategy in improving senior high school students’ pronunciation. |