Do you Speak Music ?

Lifelong  Learning  Programme  COMENIUS

In – service  Training  Course ,  

 Do you speak music ?
European music portfolio
A creative way into languages

Schiers  Switzerland

July  2013

Basic  Ideas
Language  is  music               

         From a very early age children make sounds, murmur, sing, move around and dance in a very natural way. They communicate in their “music language” which can be regarded as pre-verbal communication. As they get older, they develop their mother tongue using these pre-verbal musical elements. Brain research has confirmed a profound relationship between music and language learning. Also, research indicates that children are pre-disposed to learning foreign languages. Listening, perceiving, imitating and creating are basic skills in both language and music. 

 Aims  of  the  project

       The goal of the Comenius  Multilateral Project “European Music Portfolio: A Creative Way into Languages” is to integrate musical activities in primary foreign language education. This learning approach can reduce language barriers, and help social integration. It can also nurture self-confidence and self-expression and improve intercultural understanding.

Really? Can I use music for language teaching?

         The neurological links between language and music are vast but the basic thing to remember is that music activates more parts of the brain than language does, on both the right and left sides of the brain. So if you remember something to a tune, you are more likely to recall the information than if you just read it or heard it spoken.

         Have you ever heard a song on the radio that you haven’t heard in a decade and you surprise yourself by singing all the lyrics?

         Music and catchy jingles can stick in our minds for years while names of people, places,  verb conjugation charts and memorized data disappear

 My excuse for using music….

         Claudia Cornett (2011) writes: "Classroom teachers do not need to sing well, play an instrument, or read music to start music integration. What is needed is commitment to the philosophy of arts integration and a willingness to learn. Put music into perspective. It is a way of knowing - an intelligence every person possesses. Students will not mind if the teacher does not have a fine singing voice if genuine enthusiasm is expressed. Making the effort to sing with students builds relationship and community - staples for discipline. Since classroom teachers are not perceived as specialists, students accept amateur efforts as natural and normal... With experience and commitment to music integration, all teachers can learn to sing without embarrassment, without being limited by the Western notion that only the talented should sing out.Remember Thoreau's point that the forest would be a very quiet place if only the talented birds sang." 

A Few course activities and moments with lovely people

Life-long Learning

The key to successful teaching is getting rid of the teachers' "know-it-all" perception of reality and deciding that teaching is a lifelong learning process. But what happens if you live on an island far away from the centre of action, the capital city of your country, or an Asian, South American, or African country where the opportunities are rare? e-Learning is the solution to the problem. There are many courses offered by several universities that give great opportunities to teachers worldwide.
The course I attended this summer was one of those and I consider myself quite fortunate to be selected. I was part of a select group of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) educators who were participating in this innovative and exciting online project! The course was offered by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs; the U.S. Embassy of Greece ; and the American English Institute in the University of Oregon's Linguistics Department and was a 10-week online training course.

Course description

Teaching English to Young Learners 

Students ages 5-10 are "primed" to acquire English in an integrated skills and content-based, experiential approach. Educators who understand the cognitive and social processes of language acquisition for Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL) are better equipped to help learners while also creating a fun, positive environment. In many cases TEYL educators in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) settings have limited time to reach their teaching goals and meet local requirements on the use of specific texts, tests, or other materials. A low-resource environment can also pose challenges. In this course, participants explore solutions for such challenges through an overview of current research and "best" practices (always context-dependent) for TEYL, plus hands-on experimentation with a wide array of freely available online resources. Participants can also opt to identify resources and create final projects for "tweens" (ages 10-12).

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
     - Identify, evaluate and selectively apply a wide variety of stimulating and age-appropriate materials (e.g., read-along texts, audio, songs, video,  hands-on manipulatives, games, puzzles, realia) to existing or new EFL curriculum, tailored to EFL learners' needs and interests.
     - Effectively apply strategies to motivate and manage classroom-based language activities for young learners, with a "tool set" for rewarding desired individual and group behaviors.
     - Conduct an needs analysis, develop a learner profile, and then develop unit/lesson plans for young learners in a specific local context. This may also include the amassing of a collection of new resources and materials for strategic application to the local TEYL-related context.
     - Clearly articulate language learning goals and appropriately aligned measures to justify and evaluate any new approaches, activities and/or materials applied to local contexts.

 Presentation of the Final Project of Group A
Angela Tsakiri, Anna Grabowska, Cristina Cernei, Narith Souk
Teaching English to Young Learners on PhotoPeach


 Part 1
General Description , Lesson 1 , Lesson 2
Teaching English to Young Learners on PhotoPeach


Part 2
Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Lesson 5

I met teachers from parts of the world I had never imagined I could have, read about their problems, shared ideas and cooperated in every step of the way. I am also proud to say that the final project of my Group was awarded the highest grade and was chosen to be a model project for the courses to follow. Special thanks to the people who informed me about the course and helped me become part of it, to Wanda Walker the instructor of the course, my fellow participants and my partners for the final project.