Songs are appreciated for their linguistic, pedagogical, cultural and entertaining features and they are precious language learning materials. They can be used to teach and develop every aspect of a language. This paper aims to verify these claims and confirm the effectiveness of using songs as a means to improve young learners' English language vocabulary and to determine whether songs influence young learners' motivation to learn English. The paper deals with theoretical explanations of young learners, listening skills, and different aspects of using and teaching songs. It also discusses how songs influence motivation and the connection of songs with some language learning theories. The analytical part of the paper explains the procedure and the results obtained from the pre-tests, post-tests and delayed tests for three different children's songs as well as from the questionnaire that was done in order to collect information about motivation provided by songs. The results showed that songs have a positive influence on vocabulary retention of young learners. Whatever setting is used, aural or aural/visual, the results prove that songs are suitable for different learning styles, they encourage positive learning experience, and enhance their knowledge. Songs aid motivation and help learners develop a love for language learning. Students motivated in this way are imaginative, creative, and eager to learn and succeed.Key Words: Songs, ESL, Young Learners, Motivation, Vocabulary, Listening Skills IntroductionTeaching English to young learners cannot be seen only as teaching the language. This challenging process needs to consider the social and cognitive development of learners. In order to do this, it is necessary to create an atmosphere that resembles the one which is natural to children. One of the best ways to create such a natural, anxiety-free environment is through interesting activities. Songs certainly belong to the group of fun activities which serve as useful tools for learning the language and which do not put pressure on students to immediately produce the language but to start doing it only when they are ready.Songs are one type of listening activity that have a broad potential. Music and songs are essential parts of growing and learning. Children love to sing and teachers naturally use songs to teach them concepts and language in a fun way. Some of the significant characteristics of songs are that they are fun and can keep the students excited. However, the most important feature of songs is repetition. They contain language patterns, but also develop listening skills, pronunciation and rhythm, and provide a fun atmosphere. Even if the teachers play songs multiple times a day, the majority of students probably would not get bored. In addition, songs are very beneficial types of activities. There are so many aspects of a language that can be delivered and recycled through the use of songs. They can be used at any stage of a lesson and there are many ways to incorporate them into a lesson. Some...

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In spring 2020 both teachers and learners experienced the interruption of education as it had been established for over 150 years and seemed to be unchangeable. The paper focuses on students’ perspectives on how they perceive the changes in learning due to the pandemic educational emergency response based on the results of a survey of students in four countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Poland and Turkey. We aim at discussing the data collected at the end of the 2019-2020 Spring semester. The research focuses on the accessibility of the tools for learning, modes of instruction, as well as interaction patterns. In addition, we present students’ opinions on the difficulties they experienced, the learning strategies they adopted and what aspects of online learning should remain as a regular educational practice after the pandemic period.

Online crowdsourcing sites/platforms have become popular in recent years. This study aims to uncover when, where, and how language learners in Turkey (TUR), Poland (POL), Macedonia (MAC), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) make use of the available crowdsourcing websites/games to learn foreign languages. To ensure parallelism among the data collected in the four countries, a cross-culturally appropriate online questionnaire in English comprised of two parts was designed for this study. Part one gathered information about the use of crowdsourcing sites, tools, and games, while part two elicited background information related to the participants (N=211). The data were analysed considering country- and context-specific variables. The results show that there are more similarities than differences in the ways informants in the studied countries perceive, and employ crowdsourcing resources to learn languages. Therefore, the findings might provide insights for experts, material developers and teacher trainers striving to create cross-culturally valid crowdsourcing platforms/games.

With the COVID-19 outbreak at the beginning of 2020, many language teachers worldwide who were successfully implementing face-to-face teaching had to abruptly switch to online education, which was not something they were trained for or had experience with. Were they successful? The present study asked students from Turkey (TUR), Poland (POL), the Republic of North Macedonia (RNM), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) to evaluate their teachers’ professional adaptation and success during the first emergency online teaching semester. The results of the study showed that there were important similarities in the ways students in the examined four countries approached and evaluated the level of professionalism of their teachers in the first COVID-19 period regarding their teachers’ computer literacy, online teaching skills, creation of materials appropriate for online teaching.