The effects of music, relaxation and other suggesto- 24 pedic elements in a primary school German class. An experimental investigation

Abstract

This nine week study set out to test whether, in addition to good communicative teaching, music, relaxation, suggestion, and the adoption by the students of German personalities, would have a positive effect on students' language self-concept, attitude and achievement. The subjects were twenty-eight fourth and fifth year students (average age nine years eight months).at a metropolitan Catholic Primary School in South Australia. Pairs of students were matched for sex, year level and language self-concept and then allocated at random to the control or the experimental group. Both groups were taught German by the same teacher for four weeks of seventy minutes daily instruction. The children had no previous experience of learning a foreign language. Video tapes were taken of both groups during teaching for comparison of teacher and student behaviour by independent raters. Tests were administered at the end of the course testing all four language skills. t-Test analyses showed that the experimental class performed significantly better on all language tasks than the control group. Repeated measures Anova showed that both self-concept and attitude improved significantly in the experimental class. Rank sum analysis of the video ratings showed that attention rate was significantly better in the experimental class. Die doel van hierdie studie van nege weke was om te toets ofmusiek, ontspanning, suggestie en die aanneem van Duitse persoonlikhede deur die skoliere, tesame met goeie kommunikatiewe onderrig 'n positiewe uitwerking op die studente se taalselfkonsep, houding en prestasie sou he. Ag-en-twintig vierde- en vyfdejaarskoliere ( gemiddeld nege jaar en agt maande oud) verbonde aan 'n stedelike Katolieke laerskool in Suid-Australie is gebruik. Skoliere is in pare gekies op grond van geslag, skoolstanderd en taalselfkonsep en op 'n willekeurige basis, of in die kontrole- of in die eksperimentele groep ingedeel. Beide groepe is vier weke lank onderrig. Die skoliere het geen vorige ondervinding gehad ten opsigte van die aanleer van 'n vreemde taal nie. Video-opnames is gedurende die onderrig van beide groepe gemaak sodat vergelykings van onderwyser- en skolieregedrag deur onafhanklike beoordelaars gemaak kon word. Toetse waarin al vier taalvaardighede getoets is, is aan die einde van die kursus afgeneem. T-toets-analise het getoon dat die eksperimentele groepe beduidend beter gevaar het in alle taalopdragte as die kontrolegroep. Herhaalde Anova-metings het getoon dat beide selfkonsep en houding van die eksperimentele klas beduidend verbeter het. 'n Graderings- analise van die video-evaluering het verder aangetoon dat die eksperimentele groep se konsentrasievermoe beduidend beter was.