USING ENGLISH-TRANSLATED INDONESIAN KID-SONGS IN ENGLISH CLASS

TO TEACH ENGLISH VOCABULARY AND NOUN PHRASES,

AND TO ENCOURAGE INDONESIAN YOUNG LEARNERS’ CONCERN
ABOUT NATURE

Puthut Prehantoro
Hokkaido University of Education, ASAHIKAWA, JAPAN
Teacher Training Program MEXT 2012
SMAN 1 Widodaren, NGAWI, INDONESIA

Abstract

Songs have been used as pedagogical tools for a long time in language education and
provide some advantages (Millington, 2011). Basically, this study investigated 50 fifth-year
elementary school students from two different areas in Ngawi, East Java, Indonesia to find
the effects of the use of English-translated Indonesian kid-songs to enrich vocabulary and
comprehension of English noun phrases. From the former perspective, songs used in English
classes were usually native English songs, such as: Baa Baa Black Sheep, If You’re Happy,
etc. In term of teaching English as foreign language in Indonesia (TEFLIN), though some
English-translated Indonesian-language songs were in use, the meaning of original songs and
the translation seemed to be quite different (Fahrurrazy, 2011). For its broader purpose, the
use of English-translated Indonesian kid-songs was also aimed to encourage Indonesian
young learners’ concern about nature. This study utilized two Indonesian kid-songs, namely:
Pelangi (Rainbow) and Kebunku (My Garden), which had been translated into English with
care taken to preserve their meaning as close as possible to the original meaning. The study
showed that these translated songs were beneficial both for learning English as foreign
language because the original chunks of the original songs were already in the long-term
memory of the students, and for encouraging Indonesian young learners’ concern about
nature as the students surely would recall the meanings of the original songs. Moreover, using
songs has been for long believed to be one of the ways to create an enjoyable atmosphere in
the learning activity.

Keywords: translated, songs, vocabulary, phrase, nature

 1. Introduction

In the past ten years, even though English is not listed as a compulsory subject in
elementary schools, teaching English as a foreign language in Indonesia has been started in
most of public elementary schools by the establishment of 2004 Competence Based
Curriculum. There has been a growing awareness by parents and educators to initiate
teaching English to their children or students in their young ages, since they wish to prepare
their children or students to be more competitive in their future days. As Indonesian children
study at elementary school from the age of 7 to 13, they are certainly categorized as young
learners of English. It is due to the definition of ‘young learners’ mentioned by Rixon (1999)
that young learners are learners between the ages of about 5 years old to 12 years old.
However, other researchers suggested that young learners are those under 14 years old
(Cameron, 2011).
Indonesia is a multiethnic country with about 300 tribes and more than 750 local
languages, along with their unique ethnical cultures. Each tribe in Indonesia surely has
traditional songs and folktales as means of education for their next generation. The elder
teach children their community’s norms and values through songs and folktales. These
traditional songs and folktales then are well preserved by Indonesian national education
system by grafting them into, for example, handbooks and audiovisual media which are
commonly presented in Indonesian language.
It was in the Youth Oath of October 28, 1928 that the Indonesian founding fathers
started to acknowledge the Indonesian language as the unifier language. Still, the Indonesian
language, for most of its citizens, is considered as the second language in terms of order of
acquisition (Fahrurrazy, 2011). In recent years, because of the development of information
technology and transportation, many Indonesian children are well exposed to Indonesian
language since their baby ages.
By the development of technology and need for arts products in the Indonesian
language, Indonesian musician started to create mass-recorded kid-songs in the Indonesian
language. It was in 1956 when Koes Plus released their first Indonesian kid-songs entitled
‘Bebek’ (Sobari: 1987). In 1980s and 1990s, many kid songs were written and recorded. The
song themes were varied, such as: school life (Sungguh Senang, Oo Ibu dan Ayah, etc),
family life (Satu-satu, Pada Hari Minggu, etc), a happy friendship (Becak, Kwek-kwek-kwek
etc), religious life (Nama-nama Malaikat, Pertanyaan Kubur, etc), and nature (Di Pucuk
Pohon Cemara, Cangkul-cangkul, etc).
Research Findings on Using Songs in EFL Teaching
One familiar world for children is the world of music and songs. In any language
education, even in the first language acquisition, songs are widely used. Parents and teachers
often teach children to learn numbers, nouns and adjectives through songs. In an English as a
foreign language-classroom setting, there are some advantages of using songs in language
learning activities.
Murphey (1992) mentioned that one of the advantages of using songs for young
learners is the songs’ flexibility. In a classroom setting, teachers can use songs for a number
of purposes. Improving listening skills and pronunciation seems to be the primary advantage
of using songs for students, and, therefore it potentially helps students to improve their
speaking skills. He also cited that using songs is useful in the learning of vocabulary,
sentence structures, and sentence patterns. Using English songs in these activities can show
students the sentence structures, sentence patterns and vocabulary without any adverse effects
on their mother culture.
Songs create a fun atmosphere. It may be the main benefit of using songs in the
classroom. Pleasure is an important part of learning a language, and using songs can help to
avoid creating a boring routine for students, and even can make them feel challenged in their
learning process.

Research and Concerns on Using Translated Songs in EFL Teaching

Due to the lack of effort to translate Indonesian songs –either folksongs, Indonesian
popular songs, or Indonesian kid-songs into English– using English-translated Indonesian
kid-songs for TEFL in Indonesian is apparently a new method to apply. Previously translated
songs in use managed to cope with the lyrics, but it could not manage to keep the original
word-for-word meanings. The difference in literal meaning was too far.
It may happen that the translated songs will sound strange for some people, and this is
regarded as an undeniable consequence because the translator must adjust the rhyme and
maintain the meaning of the original songs. Moreover, the far difference between the original
song and the translated song in word-for-word meaning can lead learners to confusion.
In this study, two popular Indonesian kid-songs, namely: Pelangi (Rainbow) and
Kebunku (My Garden) had been translated into English with care taken to preserve their
meaning as close as possible to the original meaning. Due to the perspective of writer, these
translated songs were beneficial both for learning English as a foreign language since the
chunks of the original songs were already in the long-term memory of the students, and for
encouraging Indonesian young learners’ concern about nature as the students surely would
recall the meanings of the original songs.
This study will investigate what effects of using English-translated Indonesian kid-
songs in English class has in teaching English vocabulary and noun phrases, and encouraging
indonesian young learners’ concern about nature, based on these four research question
below:
1. Is using English-translated Indonesian kid-songs helpful for students to improve their
vocabulary?
2. Is using English-translated Indonesian kid-songs helpful for students to improve
students’ comprehension of Noun Phrases in English?
3. Is using English-translated Indonesian kid-songs helpful for students to create an
entertaining atmosphere of learning?
4. Is using English-translated Indonesian kid songs helpful for students to encourage
their concern about nature?

2. Method

2.1 Participants
The participants in this study were 21 fifth-year elementary school students of SDN
Beran I, Ngawi, Indonesia, and 29 fifth-year elementary school students of SDN Pangkur I,
Ngawi, Indonesia, totalling 50 elemantary school students. SDN Beran I is located at the
center of the city, and SDN Pangkur I is located in the rural area of about 15 kilometers away
from the city.
The study was conducted in two meetings for each class in September 2013, with 90
minutes in each meeting. The allocated time was divided into some sessions. The first 60
minutes were for translated-songs activity, and the last 30 minutes were a fun, free time for
Question-Answer session about Japan, games, and some other activities.

2.2 Materials
Two Indonesian-kid songs talking about nature were utilized in this study. The first
one was the song Pelangi (Rainbow) by AT. Mahmud. Pelangi has been translated to English
for EYL settings in Indonesia although it seemed that the word-by-word meaning was not
exactly the same. This fact made the reviewer create the newer translation of it with care
taken to preserve the original meaning as closely as possible. These are the comparison of the
previous translation in Fachrurrazy (2011) and the newer translation made by reviewer:

OLDER TRANSLATION LITERAL MEANING NEWER TRANSLATION

O rainbow o rainbow
How beautiful and nice
You’re red yellow and green
You are high in the sky
O rainbow don’t you know
I always wait for you
O rainbow o rainbow
Created by God
IN INDONESIAN
(Rainbow, rainbow) Rainbow, o rainbow
(How beautiful you are) How beautiful you are
(Red, yellow, green) You’re red, yellow, and green
(In blue sky) In the pretty blue sky
(Your Creator is great) Your creator is great
(Who is He) Who is he, who is he?
(Rainbow, rainbow) Rainbow, o rainbow
(Creature of God) Creature of God

The second song was Kebunku (My Garden) by Ibu Sud. The English translation of
this had never been heard before, it was apparently the first time that this song was used for
teaching English for young learners in Indonesia. The English literal meaning of the song and
its English translation are written below:

LITERAL MEANING NEWER TRANSLATION

(Look at my garden) Look at my garden
(It is full with flowers) It’s full with the flowers
(There are white and red) There the white ones,
and there are the red ones
(Everyday I water all) Of course everyday I always water all
(Rose, jasmine) Roses and jasmines
(All are beautiful) They all are beautiful

2.3 Procedures
The two classes in each school were given the same treatments. In the first meeting,
the steps were:
1. Students were given pre-test of 24 Indonesian words and 6 Indonesian Noun Phrases
to be translated into English in 10 minutes. All words and Noun Phrases were the will-
be discussed lyrics of the two songs.
2. After the pre-test papers were collected by the writer, students were given the
English-translated Indonesian kid-songs paper, and then they tried to fill in the blank
space of the translated lyrics. They did it by guessing the appropriate words that
 already existed in their memory . Finally, their work was discussed with the reviewer.
This second step took 10 minutes.
3. After completing the lyrics, reviewer sang the songs twice with guitar, and the
students observed. Then, students sang the songs three times.
4. Students reviewed the songs and the original meaning of the songs in Indonesian
language.
5. In the end of the session, students were told to voluntarily memorize the songs and
reviewer challenged them to voluntarily perform the songs in front of the class. If they
were succesful, the students were rewarded.

In the second meeting, on the same day and period of the following week, the
treatments are as follows:
1. Students were given a post-test of 24 Indonesian words and 6 Indonesian Noun
Phrases to be translated into English in 10 minutes. All words and Noun Phrases had
been discussed in the previous meeting. This time, the order of items were changed.
2. After the post-test papers were collected by the writer, students were challenged to
perform the songs in front of the class. Only two performs came up (numbering 3
students) at SDN Beran 1and two performs (numbering 5 students) came up at SDN
Pangkur 1.
3. As the closing, students sang the songs together, then a questionnaire of three
questions were given to the students.

3. Results

There were 24 vocabulary items in both the pre-test and the post test. This means that
there will be 1200 correct answers if the 50 participants could answer all questions in each
test. In addressing Research Question 1, the result of the pre-test was compared to that of the
post test. In the pre-test, the class made a total correct answers of 266 out of 1200 (22.17%).
The mean of all participants’ correct answers was 5.32 and the standard deviation was 2.351.
In the post test, the class made it doubled into 500 out of 1200 (45.17%). The mean of all
participants’ correct answers was 10.84 and the standard deviation was 5.358. In order to
know the significancy of the progress in this vocabulary improvement, a paired-sample t test
was used. It was revealed that there was a significant difference between the tests, t(49)= –
11.34, p<.0001.
In addressing Research Question 2 about the progress in Noun Phrases (6 phrases in
each test), the result of the pre-test was compared to that of the post test. In the pre-test, the
class made a total correct answers of 31 out of 300 they could make (10.33%). The mean of
all participants’ correct answers was .62 and the standard deviation was .937. In the post test,
the class made the correct answers doubled into 64 correct noun phrases out of 300 (21.33%).
The mean of all participants’ correct answers was 1.28 and the standard deviation was 1.386.
In order to know the significancy of this progress in the Noun Phrase improvement, a paired-
sample t test was used. It was found that there was a significant difference between the tests,
t(49)= –5.67, p<.0001.
To deal with Research Question 3, a questionnaire about the activity was given to the
students. The questionnaire consisted of four questions to know whether: 1) they think they
can improve their vocabulary by using the songs, 2) they think they can improve their
comprehension of English Noun Phrases by using the songs, 3) they like studying the songs,
and 4) they feel strange and funny to listen to the translated songs. The results show that 36
students (72%) answered ‘yes’ for Question 1, only 16 students (32%) answered ‘yes’ for
Question 2, all 50 students (100%) answered ‘yes’ for Question 3, and for Question 4, 33
students (66%) said that they felt strange and funny with the translated songs.
For Research Question 4, in the on-going process of the activity, when the students
listened to and sang the translated the songs students’, their response was observed.
Conversation between students and researcher, mostly in Indonesian language and Javanese
language, was also one way to reveal students’ understandings on the songs. Most of them
said that they well recalled the songs as well as the activities with their kindergarten teacher
or parents dealing with the songs in their earlier ages. Based on the students’ recall, most of
them said that the song titled My Garden was more frequently sung in their kindergarten
while doing a gardening session or small-walk to surrounding area, and the song titled
Rainbow was more frequently sung with their parents in rainy season at home.

4. Discussion

The results show that using English-translated Indonesian kid-songs in English class
is effective in teaching English vocabulary and noun phrases. It can be assumed that, because
students have already kept the chunks and meaning of the original Indonesian version of the
songs in their long-term memory, students find it easier to draw the meaning of vocabulary by
contrasting the English chunks to Indonesian chunks. However, Fahrurrazy (2011) urges that
the songs be sung together and the meaning of the songs be explained by the teacher. This fun
atmosphere will help the students to perceive that studying English can be a fun.
Certainly all participants have studied the construction of English noun phrases before
in their classes, but as what the pre-test result showed, they still had problems in
understanding the construction. The other important feature which may need more
elaboration in this research is that participants were not only doing a retention but also a
production of five new phrases by using the memorized words from the songs. Those phrases
were yellow flower, beautiful rainbow, great painter, and red rose, which participants
produced by observing the only one translated phrase from the song Pelangi (in the phrase
blue sky).
Apparently, as this activity involved two famous songs in their childhood, it was a fun
for the students to remember again their childhood memories. All students admitted that they
could enjoy the translated songs despite that more than half of them (33 participants) felt
strange with the English version of those Indonesian kid songs. Although the on-going
interview on the song was conducted in Indonesian, using English-translated Indonesian-kid
songs is believed to be a worthy effort in encouraging Indonesian young learners’ concern
about nature. By talking about the recent condition of their neighboorhood, environment, and
the daily phenomena they see or hear, the students can be directed to an idea of conserving
the nature for a better life.

5. Conclusion

This study has shown that using English-translated Indonesian kid-songs in English
class improves students’ English vocabulary and noun phrases. It is important to note that the
gap between pre-test and post-test was 7 days, and, in the middle of this, participants of this
study did not have any other English class in their school. From this fact, it can be assumed
that the students’ motivation worked greater in their learning. It can also be assumed that the
pre-existing meaning of the songs in Indonesian made them easier to contrast the meaning,
then utilize it to answer the test questions. For short, it is suggested that teachers translate
more songs of various genres for their classes, such as: translating an Indonesian pop-song
into English with care taken to preserve the original literal meaning as close as possible for a
high school classroom setting. Consequently, a study about it seems challenging to conduct.
 There are some limitations in this study. This study did not use a control class in
which students study English vocabulary and noun phrases without using songs. Therefore, a
study using a control class and a treatment class is needed to be conducted in order to reveal
more accurately the effectiveness of using English-translated Indonesian-kid songs.
The other fact is that the participants of this study were only 50 students of two
different schools. It has not been yet revealed whether the social backgrounds of the students
play a significant role to students’ performance. A study with more participants and more
varieties of backgrounds will be beneficial for more precise results.
Dealing with encouraging Indonesian young learners’ concern about nature,
regrettably, this study did not include a physical response activity to know the degree of how
well the use of the songs could encourage their concern about nature. A further study
involving a physical outdoor activity may be a good idea, instead of an in-class activity.
The other important thing to note is that Indonesian language and English has
significant difference in length. For example, it is only 3 syllables to say ‘I go now’ /ai gou
nau/, but it will be at 7 syllables in Indonesian language /ku pergi sekarang/. It may give
difficulties for teachers to translate an Indonesian song while preserving the original meaning
and preserving the rythm at the same time. Still, despite the possibility of being awkward to
the student’s ears, using English translated Indonesian songs is a good way to avoid
submitting students to a boring learning environment.
Some findings about the results made by the top-ten groups also need a further
research. It is assumed that they have something to do with how students’ motivation
contribute to students’ performance. Though it is still not clear about the cause of the
increasing motivation –whether it was because of the benefit of the English-translated songs
themselves or it was because of the reward promised by the reviewer for their performance of
fully memorizing the songs, this motivation has contributed much to students’ retention
performance as well as production performance.

Reference

Cameron, L. 2001. Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge, England: Cambridge

University Press.
Fachrurrazy. 2011. Teaching English as Foreign Language for Teachers in Indonesia.
 Malang: State University of Malang Press.
Isenberg, Joan P, and Jalongo, Mary Renck. (1993). Creative Expression and Play in The
Early Childhood Curriculum. United States of America: Macmillan Publishing
Millington, Neil T. 2011. Using Songs Effectively to Teach English to Young Learners.
Language Education in Asia, Volume 2, Issue 1, 2011.
Murphey, T. 1992. Music and Song. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Shipley, Dale. (1998). Empowering Children. Second Edition. Canada: International
Thomson Publishing.
Rixon, Shelagh. 1999. Young Learners of English: Some Research Perspectives. London:
Longman.

Acknowledgements

- The Headmaster and Mrs. Ida Yuliari of SDN Beran IV

- The Headmaster and Mrs. Sri Hartini of SDN Pangkur I
- Kasahara Sensei of HUE Asahikawa