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Music: The Definitive Language
Learning Medium
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How
does music affect learning?
Constructivism maintains learning by
doing is the ultimate meaning-making process. The more meaningful the lesson for our students, the more hands-on
and collaborative, the more student-driven, then the more learning or
acquisition takes place. A good
teacher is therefore a meaning-maker.
Educators struggle to create meaning-making environments and
in so doing have constructed a spectrum of learning models and mechanisms
to that end. Some of these models
integrate song or music into the learning environment. When music is
integrated into learning it electrifies the process for both teachers
and learners creating immediate and engaging results. A musically integrated classroom experience is memorable and fascinating
from a students perspective. It is highly relevant, organic, student-driven
and easy to manage from a pedagogical perspective.
Though
some educators may be hard pressed to put their finger on exactly why
music works learning magic in pedagogical terms we need only turn to
a music scientist or musicologist for the obvious explaination:
musical creation, composition and reproduction epitomizes human
meaning and meaning-making. Its
effect on the human brain, cognition and learning is documented and
provides educators with two important things:
a road map to using music in the classroom and a treasure-trove
of information to support and substantiate its use in the classroom,
a pedagogically sound and potent education tool.
Music
education is an ongoing process concerned with developing the child’s
multi-sensory awareness and response to the vast range of sounds, and
teaching how to discriminate between such variations. It is therefore concerned with both diagnosis
and remediation of problems, evoking and supporting normal development,
and could be described as the physiology and psychology of hearing. Music is thus truly the source of all learning.(Wisbey
p.143)
Today many of us think of music as entertainment
but clearly it is and always has been much more.
Before recorded history man's culture and foklore were passed
on through a rich oral tradition.
A rare collaboration between Noam Chomsky and Leonard Bernstein
yielded assertions that suggested the first communicative uses of sounds
were sung. Music's presence and influence throughout the cultures
of the world down through time is pervasive even helping us to define
the word "culture".
Music is one of man’s most remarkable
inventions – though possibly it may not be his invention at all: like his capacity for language his capacity for music may be a naturally
evolved biologic function. All
cultures and societies have music.
(Clynes p.vii)
Song and music developed as a way not only
to celebrate moments and events but as a meaningful way to pass on history,
culture and ideas. The Song of Roland and Beowulf are both stories that were passed
orally long before they were committed to paper. The first twelve chapters of the Old Testament
were at the time new written versions of ancient stories of creation
and mythology handed down from many cultures and adopted to Judeo-Christian
beliefs.
Clearly, music is very old. That it is found in every culture in the world,
no matter how technologically primitive, indicates that music is something
that humans come by fairly easily.
The discovery of bone flutes in prehistoric dwellings suggests
that musical development has been a cultural priority for tens of thousands
of years. By antiquity, music
had blossomed into myriad styles. The
Bible is studded with references to music, and musical instruments appear
again and again in the painting, pottery, and sculpture of classical
art. (Jourdain p. 305)
Yet there is something mystifying and unpredictable
about our connection to music. What is so compelling about music emotionally and psychologically
that draws us to it? We are
drawn to its rhythm and melody because they deviate constantly.
Deviation itself from rhythm and composition standards appear
to attract our attention. Our
minds and imagination are attracted to music exactly because it is undulating
and changing and therefore ultimately of interest.
Might this explain how we are more open, receptive and retentive
of information, ideas and language itself when music is used as the
delivery vehicle for that content?
When music becomes extremely regular,
our brains reject it. A good
example is provided by computer-generated music in which tempo and loudness
are perfectly constant. Such
music provokes anxiety in the musically sensitive.
One explanation of why we reject strict tempo, and even perfect
tuning of instruments, is that our nervous systems attend most closely
to things that change. Put differently,
our brains habituate (stop responding ) to things that don’t change. As we walk though a familiar room, we are more
or less blind to its contents. Our visual systems sense every wall and
chair, but take little conscious notice.
Instead, the brain saves its attention for things that are new
and not well understood. Habituation
occurs in all parts of our experience, and at all levels. A flashing display on a VCR soon cease to draw our attention. So
does a perfectly even beat in music.
We still hear every feature of the sound, of course, because
habituation is never total. But
the beat is less forceful than it would be if it were varied slightly.
One cause of this phenomenon may be temporary neural exhaustion
when the same brain circuits are activated again and again. Slight variation overcomes this failing. And so a continuous pitch is made more engrossing
by slightly varying its frequency and loudness through vibrato. (Jourdain
p.314)
Ever
since Noam Chomsky attacked Skinner’s assertion that language is behavior
in 1959 cognitivists have theorized that language is an intricate rule-based
system with a finite number of rules and that with the knowledge of
these rules an infinite number of phrases can be performed in the language.
The idea that learners internalize rules that allow them to reproduce
infinite varieties of that language creatively lends itself dramatically
to the artistic expression of thought through prose and songs lyrics
defining music as optimal knowledge transmission medium. Music transmits
language and if the music is pleasant to the listener than he is more
receptive to the sound and structures of the lyrics as well as the semantic
content of those lyrics. Transmission
and cognition are therefore more enhanced and more effective.
One
reason for our making this connection derives, indubitably, from the
relation between the notions of “power” and “emotion” themselves; for
what can “move” us (motion and emotion having strongly shared etymologies)
has force. But just as indubitably,
the primary reason comes from the anthropological fact that when humans
talk about music, they almost invariably use the language of emotion
to do so. (Addis p.5)
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What kind of memory
does music produce
that so enhances learning?
A
musical experience can be tremendously memorable one.
Music becomes a highly relevant way of creating meaning by using
it as a learning medium in which to convey meaningful content to our
students.
Music
in school is not something that should be compartmentalized.
It should sometimes grow out of other activities, sometimes be
the growth point from which other activities develop.
It is true that there are certain aspects of music which are
unique if not self-contained. But
music has many parts, and music-making can often be seen in relation
to , and integrated with, other education activites, bringing with it
both unity and variety in the educational process.
This is why it is important that teachers should become aware
of as many different opportunities as possible for children to express
themselves musically. ( Evans p.5)
How
does music affect memory and what role can it play in knowledge and
content acquisition? Cognitive science distinguishes between three
types of memory: semantic, procedural
and episodic. Semantic memory among neurologists refers to memory of
the meanings words, phrases or definitions and bits of information disconnected
from their source or context of acquisition, such as the names of state
capitols and definitions of words. Episodic memory is memory of events
such as our 5th birthday party, or the time the couch caught on fire.
Procedural memory is our memory for processes like boiling water,
tying our shoes or getting to grand-ma's house. I maintain that
a musical event in our lives creates a special kind of memory, a cogent
composite of the three memory types.
A concert is an event along the lines
of a hiking trip that distinguishes itself in our consciousness as an
event. Many musicians and listeners
use adjectives like “ecstasy, joyful, endearing, orgasmic” to describe
musical events. Novice musical
students such as children experience a keen attraction to the freedom
and sense of well-being when allowed to let their natural creative juices
flow. This exultation in learning naturally bleeds over into other content
areas where a student may have difficulty with learning thus improving
a student's overall educational experience. When we experience these feelings during an
event it becomes that much more memorable because of these deep pleasurable
and relaxing effects.
The
pleasure which some children found in this type (musical) of expression
and the facility with which the improvisers spontaneously created a
melody related to the harmonic base, was often remarkable. The number of children who found this type
of improvisation satisfying and easy would for, at the outset, some
10 per cent to 20 per cent of the class.
It was interesting to note that the most successful improvisers
included less academically able children, as well as some of average
or high attainment. One recalls a 9-year old boy, receiving specific
remedial help with reading during part of the week, who derived great
pleasure from this type of improvised vocal expression. His absorption of the sounds of the chord progressions
of the harmonic base, and the resultant melodic facility with which
he improvised, was quite exceptional. (Evans p.56)
A musical experience also has a procedural
dimension. An inextricable part of music appreciation is an appraisal
and appreciation of its structure. Classical composers followed strict rules of composition. Jazz music though free form and improvisational
in many ways is still only possible because of a structural mold into
which it is poured. Thus process
and structure is always there in music. Theorists argue that it is this very structure, this predictability
that constitutes music’s beauty, attractiveness and hypnotic soothing
quality to the human ear.
The attraction of such music
seems to reside in the elegance of its patterns.
We admire it as pure structure.
It is a familiar enough experience.
Think of how we appreciate a building solely on the basis of
the patterns it delivers to our eyes, patterns formed by windows and
columns. Jourdain p.314
Inseparable from song are the lyrics
that comprise the soul of a song, in other words it's semantic dimension.
We have only to stop and listen to the lyrics of any Beatles
song or Joan Baez or Billy Bragg to hear the powerful human messages
they send. They speak to us, pregnant with meaning and
ideas. The subject of song lyrics span the gamut of all philosophical,
romantic, political and surrealistic thought.
Singing lessons are yet another way
of improving language skills. The
relaxation of the vocal organs (essential otherwise singing becomes
physiologically impossible) is often all that is needed to overcome
stuttering. The precious few extra decibels of hearing provided in the singing
of a sound not only help the learning of the sound, but often also appear
to increase the speed of feed back to the brain; the soft singing of vowel sounds therefore
leads to the development of great discrimination. As singing of necessity leads to greater intake of oxygen this in
turn increase the sense of well-being, stimulates learning and improves
muscle tone. It is important
to realize how vital is the improvement of self-image for children who
have experienced failure. (
Wisbey p.139)
Its
ability to tell stories, to transmit ideas and feelings in a three-dimensional
way defines music as an ultimate memory and meaning-making phenomena. Music creates a memorable event or episode, which is structured
as a definable procedure or process facilitating the exact recall of
that event, yielding a super-learning medium where the transfer of semantic
information (content of lyrics and the grammar structures themselves)
is highly optimized at an intellectual, emotional and psychological
level.
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How
does music specifically enhance
second language learning?
Children
learn their mother-tongue largely due to the emotional attachment to
their mother or parents. When we are grown we do not form as intense
an emotional attachment again. It
is the lack of this strong emotional attachment that leaves learners
mystified as to how the native speaker uses his language so well. They forget they possess the same ease with their own mother-tongue.
Without recreating the parent-child attachment in their classroom
teachers can reproduce other powerful emotional activities for adult
learners. Music creates a compelling emotional experience that creates
meaning for adult learners. Think of a song you find pleasing.
Do you remember some of the lyrics or perhaps the theme of the
song? Do you sometimes sing along with it when you hear it or sing it
to yourself? Have you ever found
yourself singing lyrics to a song in a foreign language though you don't
understand their meaning?
The desire to sing a song we find pleasant,
to be able to reproduce it, its lyrics is a most innate natural desire.
This desire in our students
can help us help them to acquire language. Oral repitition excercises are a drudgery. But singing a memorable song is a pleasure.
Song then presents educators with a medium that not only contains
elements of a powerful emotional experience, a personal internal connection
but also a perfect speaking and listening exercise that compliments
the effort of studying sound and structures.
Once students are done learning about a language music is an
opportunity for them to use the language itself in a meaningful way.
The
use of different stimuli to improve language acquisition is a paramount
strategy. Teaching language through music enhances not only linguistic
competence and performance, but also perception skills. Language as
music links emotions, memories, concepts, values, and behavior. Learning
a language is related to music skills because when you mentally repeat
or process a new word, sentence, you have to imagine sound, rhythm,
and the resonance of the words as if you are saying them out loud. It
requires several internalized dynamic systems. Meaning is internalized
or not depending on language. It can be contested if we consider that
thought is language and even though the thought uses images these images
can be translated in the language itself. (Aksnes, H. , 1996)
Lyrics
and melody in a good song are inextricable.
They pour into our consciousness like water.
When we know a good song we stroll down the street humming the
tune and singing the words to ourselves, even in a foreign language.
The language, its sounds and structures are absorbed into our
active alert conscious imaginations without feelings of awkwardness
or self-consciousness so familiar to any student or teacher ever involved
with the onerous task of drilling and repetition in the classroom. A generation of young men and women in America
learned the polite form of requesting “Would you like to go to bed with
me?” as Patti LaBelle sang Voulez-vous Couchez Avec Moi Ce Soir?”
When
music transports us to the threshold of ecstasy, we behave almost like
drug addicts as we listen again and again. What’s happening in music that drives us right
out of our skins? Why is some music “emotional” and some music “intellectual”?
And how is it that sound can give us please we seem to feel in
our bodies? (Jourdain, p.xvi)
It
may strike no one as odd that music some how positively affects language
acquisition in second language learners.
Who among us has not had their curiosity and interest piqued
by a catchy song or while humming a tune, wondering what those words
meant or even singing phrases and lyrics to songs perfectly without
quite understanding what it is we are singing? Music constitutes more than an event, more
than just a process. Combined with the semantic content of music we
end up with a powerful intellectual, emotional and sometimes spiritual
event that allows us to see things we have never seen, to ponder ideas
we have never thought of, to experience moments we have never lived,
to feel emotions deeply. As
Oscar Wilde tells us, “After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been
weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies
that were not my own. Music
always seems to me to produce that effect.
It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and
fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one’s tears. I can fancy a man who had led a perfectly commonplace
life, hearing by chance some curious piece of music, and suddenly discovering
that his soul, without his being conscious of it, had passed through
terrible experiences, and known fearful joys, or wild romantic loves,
or great renunciations.”
There
is a difference between acquiring one’s native language unconsciously
as a child and the effort required to learn a second language as an
adult. Stephen Krashen proposes a distinction between
the two: acquisition occurs
unconsciously whereas second language learning is achieved at a more
conscious level requiring greater effort. What differentiates the two processes is the
level of the internal motivation of the learner.
As a child our motivation to express our needs to our primary
care giver (mother, father, parent) is absolute.
At no time in our lives consequently is this emotional context
reproduced to such a profound extent.
One can imagine the negative as well
as positive emotional states that would produce such internal motivation
in us as adults to acquire language. We may find ourselves compelled
emotionally by the content of a rather intriguing and engaging movie
or song, compelling enough to create a desire an internal motivation
to understand the prose or the language we hear.
Music creates an event or an episode which creates a compelling
event or emotional connection, one similiar in nature to the deep emotional
experiences of childhood. This
musical experience provides a powerful language learning mechanism via
the strong emotional feelings, at times ecstasy that music produces
in us.
A defining trait of ecstasy
is its immediacy. Ecstasy is not some splendid event, like a
ravishing sunset, that happens in the external world before our eyes
and ears. Ecstasy happens to
our selves. It a momentary transformation of the knower,
not merely a transformation of the knowers experience. Music seems to be the most immediate of all
the art, and so the most ecstatic.
(Jourdain p.328)
How
are we to assess the results of a music-based language lesson? By presenting the lesson as task-based students
actively listen to the words and music of the song. Teachers can assess
students through performance or recreation of the song in part or in
whole. A highly developed lesson would require students to compose a
song collaboratively creating both the music and lyrics. The song is
then presented as a group performance. During my experience as an ESL
teacher at The Shonan Institute
of Technology in Tsujido Japan I introduced music-based language lessons.
They quickly displaced the dry monologic poduim lectures, a pervasive
tradition at that institution.
Students soon eagerly threw themselves into
dynamic, student-centered music activies collaboratively composing and
performing simple songs in English. What ensued was an organic student-driven
process that released my students imagination, energy and humor.
Using the standard PPP (presentation, practice and production)
method I used the production stage to assess learning and determined
their performance of the language structures. I assessed that my student's
speaking and listening performance as well as their reading and writing
skills were very much improved as a direct result of the integration
of music into the curriculum.
The
strength of recall following the performance of a musical lesson is
very powerful. The student has three dimensions of memory
to draw from during a performance assessment to recall language structure
and pronunciation: episodic,
procedural, and semantic. The
reproduction of a song demonstrates a deeper and finer level of language
acquisition than simple recitation or test taking.
The
memory of ballad singers and tellers ofepic poetry has been the focus
of a great deal of recent research….their memory capacity seems unbelievable
for the amount of detail they can readily access. (Cook p. 216)
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Bibliography
Uris,
Dorothy To Sing In English , Boosey
and Hawkes, 1971
Addis,
Laird Of Mind and Music , Cornell University Press 1999
Evans,
Ken Creative Singing , Oxford
University Press 1971
Wisbey, Dr. Audrey S. Music As The Source Of Learning
, University Park Press 1980
Jourdain,
Robert Music, The Brain, and Ecstasy,
William Morrow and Co. 1997
Clynes,
Manfred Music, Mind and Brain , Plenum Press 1983
Swanson, Bessie Music In The Education of Children
, Wadsworth Publishing Co. 1969
Appelman, Ralph The Science Of Vocal Pedagogy
, India University Press 1967
Cook, Perry Music, Cognition and Computerized
Sound , MIT Press,
1999
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