Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

Abstract

The purpose of thisDissertation was to examine the impact that musical mnemonic strategies have on the vocabulary knowledge and retention rates for learners in South Korea who are learning English as a foreign language. The study attempted to determine if learners who were placed in a class that utilized musical mnemonic strategies in the classroom environment will retain more vocabulary than those learners who were placed into a classroom that used traditional rote memorization tactics that did not include songs or other media. There were 31 participants that took part in this study. The study had two groups one of which used songs and the other did not. This study was influenced by the dual channel learning theory that the musical group would be adding a second learning channel by utilizing the audio channel for songs in addition to the visual channel for text learning. Groups were separated using a convenience sampling and classes occurred during the summer months of 2016. Each participant took a pretest, immediate posttest, and a delayed retention posttest that occurred four days after completion of the treatment. Several repeated measures MANOVA tests were conducted to measure the significance of differences in the tests between groups, and also within groups. Repeated measures MANOVA were conducted to determine if significance existed between immediate posttest and retention posttest results. Participants were also asked if they believe they experienced Song Stuck in My Head (SSIMH) phenomenon. Of the 31 participants 16 were in the TLI group and 15 were in the MMI group. No significant differences were found when investigating differences between the groups on the immediate posttest. No significant differences were found when investigating differences between the groups on the retention posttest. Significant differences were found when investigating the differences within groups from the pretest to the immediate posttest. Significant differences also existed within groups between the immediate and retention posttests. Nearly 80% of the participants in the MMI group reported experiencing SSIMH phenomenon. Of those 12 participants (80%) eight had at least nine years of prior English language experience. The perception of SSIMH benefit did have a higher outcome of test score than those participants who reported not feeling SSIMH.

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