Experience of authentic songs didactic potential implementation in linguistic education of university students

Background. Foreign language is essential for establishing and maintaining business contacts, expanding social networks, and training competitive specialists capable of exchanging knowledge with representatives of other countries and cultures. The current social order for learning English and Chinese languages shows the necessity for effective didactic tools, and one of them is authentic song. The authors prove that authentic songs boost the efficiency and quality of learning lexical and grammatical material and broaden cultural knowledge.

Purpose. Providing a theoretical justification and experimental validation of the didactic potential of authentic songs in teaching English and Chinese languages to linguistic students.

Materials and methods. The research uses a combination of complementary theoretical, empirical, and mathematical methods: analysis of psychological-pedagogical, linguodidactic, and methodological literature, review of advanced teaching practices, observation, surveys, experimental teaching, and testing. Mathematical methods were used to process the results obtained during the experimental training.

Results. Training of nowadays university graduates proficient in English and Chinese languages is a key objective of domestic linguistic education, which seeks effective forms, methods, and teaching tools. In this context, the usage of authentic songs, representing the target language in its natural environment, provides reliable examples of foreign speech communication and foster interaction with a different linguaculture, aligning with the requirements for developing students’ foreign language communicative competence. The linguodidactic potential of authentic songs is determined by criteria such as relevance, linguistic value, textual informativeness, and alignment with learners’ interest, providing the development of lexical-grammatical skills, broadening the cultural and linguocultural knowledge, improving speech abilities, and enhancing the cognitive motivation. Authentic songs serve as an effective didactic tool in the linguistic education of linguistic students, especially when they are used purposefully and systematically.