Investigating the substantive linguistic effects of using songs for teaching second or foreign languages to preschool, primary and secondary school learners: A systematic review of intervention research

Songs are popular resources with teachers of young language learners. In addition to important socioemotional and developmental outcomes, a common assumption is that songs will help support learning the target language. This systematic review narratively synthesises evidence from intervention research on the effects of using songs in second or foreign language classrooms on linguistic outcomes among children aged 2-18 years. 1862 potentially relevant reports were identified. After screening, 60 intervention studies from 23 countries were located that assessed the relationship between using songs in the classroom and substantive linguistic outcomes. These were vocabulary acquisition, grammatical learning, and speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. While most of the assembled literature made positive causal claims about the relationship between singing songs and these outcomes, a majority were not appropriately designed to support these claims. Our formal assessment of the robustness of the designs and other methodological characteristics of the included studies suggests that it is not possible to draw firm causal inferences about the effect of using songs on linguistic outcomes. This systematic review makes the case for conducting further robustly designed intervention research to better inform our understanding of the linguistic effects of using songs to teach young language learners.