Pop music in informal foreign language learning

Abstract

There is currently little information about the kinds of foreign language pop music, songs and activities used by language learners in informal learning contexts. This systematic analysis provides an overview of research from 2010–2020 in an attempt to describe how foreign language learners find, listen to, and engage with pop songs from another country or culture and how this can lead to increased informal language learning, using qualitative observations and interview responses found in published articles to conduct thematic analysis using grounded theory. Thematic analysis resulted in six themes within the peer-reviewed qualitative journal articles, and we argue that more research is needed into learner perspectives and about how learners engage autonomously with L2 pop music in informal language learning.

The Effectiveness of Utilizing Song Media in Enhancing Mandarin Language Vocabulary Proficiency Among Students

“…Teachers generally have a positive perception of using music and songs in secondlanguage classrooms (Tse, 2015). However, in practice, the use of music and songs seems to be infrequent (Ludke & Morgan, 2022). Despite this, applied researchers consistently recommend incorporating music-related activities, such as listening to songs, to teach new vocabulary or grammar (Degrave, 2019;Pavia et al, 2019).…”

Informal learning of Spanish in a Chinese music fan community

“…While fan practices like gaming, watching videos, or writing fanfiction have been thoroughly explored, little is known about the relationship between fan engagement with pop music and informal language learning (Ludke;Morgan, 2022). This is probably due to the fact that conventional music streaming platforms restrict users' activity to listening to music individually, making it difficult to analyze practices that are communal in nature.…”

“…With a long-term ethnographic observation approach, we sought to analyze the organizational structure of this community, the motivations underlying its fan practices, and the strategies that members employed for informal language learning. Listening to music not only is a widespread recreational activity but can also bridge the gap between formal and informal language learning (Ludke;Morgan, 2022). Although numerous empirical studies have confirmed the benefits of pop songs for the improvement of various specific language skills (Degrave, 2019), the use of music in the classroom still diverges significantly from what is advocated in theory (Engh, 2013).…”

Singing Songs Facilitates L2 Pronunciation and Vocabulary Learning: A Study with Chinese Adolescent ESL Learners

“…The use of music and songs in second language (L2) classrooms is perceived positively by teachers (Engh 2013;Tse 2015) despite the fact that their use appears to be rather occasional (Ludke and Morgan 2022). Applied researchers regularly recommend musical activities, such as listening to songs, to teach new vocabulary or grammatical structures (e.g., Arslan 2015;Bokiev et al 2018;Degrave 2019;Pavia et al 2019;Saricoban and Metin 2000).…”