Content Analysis: Pop-Songs in the English Language Teaching Classes

Abstract

 Along with Hindi, English is given a status of an official language in India as per the Official Language Act, 1963.(Dept. of Official Language, India). English is studied in India as a Second Language and so English is the most sought after language in India. There are many university students who aspire to obtain a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in English. With a view to make the process of teaching English language interesting as well as enriching, some popular English songs were selected for the class of postgraduate students of English Language. It was realised, during and after the activity, that pop songs can be effectively used in an English Language class. Songs and music have a natural quality to induce interest and enthusiasm to the listeners/learners and so it was aimed to redirect the students’ attention to the linguistic varieties present in the songs. As the songs are easy to memorise, they effortlessly develop English vocabulary of the students. These songs are selected to learn the use of adjectives, figures of speech and idioms. The whole process of learning English Language through popular songs also helped students to improve their listening comprehension. The present paper is an attempt to study how content analysis of the selected pop songs is proved effective and impactful in the postgraduate class of English Language. The songs for the present study are selected from a popular album named Imagined Dragon.