According to Cheung (2001), as students more easily learn the things about which they have background
knowledge, student motivation is increased when the elements belonging to the popular culture of the target
language are involved in the class. Bringing a song listened by the student to the class environment increases
students’ desire to learn and enables them contribute to the process of learning by making use of their own
musical knowledge.
Songs offer many codes that strengthen student memory such as choruses, rhymes and melodies (Maley,1987).
Therefore, these codes in songs increase the functionality of songs in language teaching. When a student listens
to and memorizes a song involved in the class, the lyrics are embedded in his/her long-term memory. Moreover,
neurological researches have shown that musical and lingual processes occur in the same section of brain and
that there are significant similarities between musical and lingual syntax (Maess & Koelsch: 2001).