Wade Nichols, national academic director for Disney English (COURTESY OF APCO WORLDWIDE)

Selecting appropriate songs could help Chinese children learn English, experts suggest.

Wade Nichols, national academic director for Disney English, made the remarks during his lecture "Music Inspires Children to Learn English" on September 9 in Beijing.

Appropriate songs, according to Nichols, who has spent nine years teaching English in China, should meet some standards. For example, the lyrics should reflect everyday life and follow a question and answer structure, the grammatical structure of the lyrics should be easy to grasp and simple for children to sing along with and the musical tone should be upbeat with a mixed tempo.

Nichols said children's phonemic awareness, pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary, and sentence structure training can be strengthened and improved through music.

Liu Jun, a professor and the head of the University of Arizona's English Department in the United States, agreed with Nichols, saying that parental encouragement has a positive effect on children's confidence.

Chinese children, in Liu's eyes, are good at English intonation and pronunciation, but weak in expression capability. Compared with other non-native speakers, their spirits of adventure are relatively low.

Liu said listening to English-language songs may help children comprehend vocabulary and sentence structure, while creating a pleasant environment for language learning.

"Learning is an interest-driven process. Children's participation, motivation and interest should be encouraged," Liu said. "The joyful experience that children get from English learning is more important than exam scores."