| Popis: |
The article reviews the methodology of applying pop-songs in English for the purpose of developing cognitive interest of technical students in the process of L2 teaching. The pop-song as a multimedia teaching tool presents a number of advantages which must not be overlooked by university instructors. To these we refer a balanced combination of amusing, thoughtprovoking and discourse-motivating features which, when applied according to a certain methodology, can enhance students' motivation for expanding their knowledge in connection with newly-discovered data, which builds ground for the habit for life-long learning. The article highlights the idea that, due to the cognitive basis of speech, enhancement of cognitive aspects in the process of teaching L2 prompts the increase of learners' communicative competence in verbal interaction. The research was conducted among sophomores majoring in power engineering doing a General English course and involved the theoretical and the practical stages. Within the theoretical stage the notion of cognitive interest, its types and specific feature were addressed; the notion of pop-music was studied and pop-music samples were selected according to such criteria as harmoniousness of music and performance; informative and anthological value of the song; consistency of lyrics with the level of the learners' proficiency. Within the practical stage of the study, pop-music was applied in accordance with the developed methodology which was targeted at the enhancement of learners' background knowledge about pop-music in English, developing their cognitive interest and expressive skills by using popular pop-songs in the classroom. The classes conducted according to the suggested methodology proved to be effective in meeting the assigned objectives. As the result, 77.78% of the learners participating in the research displayed an enhancement of cognitive interest in a number of directions, such as studying the diversity of pop-music, increasing attention to song lyrics, and developing listening skills via songs. It is noteworthy that the methodology stimulated a 44.47% increase in the number of learners paying attention to song lyrics while listening, as well as a 33.32% increase in the number of learners displaying enhancement of expressive skills, thus validating the value of popsongs for developing cognitive-communicative skills. |
