The Impact of Persian Traditional Music Composed as an Input Mode on Iranian Upper Intermediate L2 Learners’ Learning and Retention of the Meaning of Difficult English Words

Authors
Nima Yousefi
Majid Nemati
Seyed Reza Dashtestani
University of Tehran
Abstract
While the previous studies showed the impact of the music on the words’ learning and retention, this study explores the effect of traditional music as an input mode on Iranian upper intermediate learners’ learning and retention of difficult English words. Eighty participants were divided into four groups. Two groups were exposed to western music while other two groups were exposed to Iranian traditional music. Each group received a pretest first, followed by instruction on selected difficult vocabulary items, and then posttest and delayed posttest. Repeated measures ANOVA indicated significant main impacts of time on vocabulary learning and retention. Descriptive statistics showed that those who were exposed to western music were outperformed by the ones who were exposed to Iranian traditional music in both immediate and delayed tests, although no significant interaction between time and music type was found. These results show that culturally familiar musical input may ease vocabulary learning and retention in L2 contexts. For language teaching and curriculum design implications are discussed.
Keywords
Traditional music
L2 vocabulary learning
Iranian learners
music input
retention