I wanted to know about trainees’ tastes about music and to what extent they consider music important in their lives. Participants were asked three multiple choice questions and one open question. Questions asked about trainees’ preference of musical genres, major time of their listening to music, and their opinions on the essentiality of music in their lives. The last question was about their favorite English songs and the reason why.
For the first question, 5 out of 10 respondents said they liked classical music, while 3 preferred popular music, 1 jazz and 1 world music. For the second question, 3 out of 10 said that they need music most when driving. 2 respondents chose ‘while reading.’ The others said they listen to music when they feel blue, walk out, clean the house, relax, and feel frustrated. As for the third question, a majority of respondents, 7 out of 10, said they strongly agree that music is important in their lives and 3 just agreed.
As far as their favorite English songs are concerned, participants have shown the whole variety of tastes about English songs, from ‘oldies but goodies’ to more up-to-date R&B songs. The songs mentioned include: One Last Cry, Moon River, You Raise Me Up, Heal the World, Big Big World, Love (sung by Gareth Gates), Hard to Say I’m Sorry, Goodbye, and Viva Lavida (sung by Coldplay). Respondents said they like the songs because of their good lyrics, sweet melody, energetic music, and attractive singers.
The responses to this survey suggest that music is a crucial part of the trainee’s life, even though preferences about music styles or moments of their listening to music differ from person to person. Their preference for classical music implies that this teachers’ group has a good level of cultural literacy as members of the middle class of society. In addition, English teachers seem to like English songs with good lyrics, and this may be because they like songs all the more if they are applicable to their English teaching.
