Integrating Music and Spanish

Elizabeth RaineyMIT Student EWU

July 23, 2014

Musical Background• 1998- Joined Spokane Area Youth Choirs• 1999-Started Private Piano Lessons• 2000-2001-Begin playing cello in school orchestra• 2002- Win Gold for a composed piece and play on the radio• 2003- Audition for Spokane Youth Symphony• 2006- Tour Italy with Ferris Chamber Orchestra• 2008- Sing and accompany Canterbury Belles-Women’s Chamber ensemble

• 2012- present: hired to play

piano for high school musicals, choir performances and festivals

• 2012-2013: Teacher’s Assistant in 5th/6th grade strings classes at Bemiss Elementary

• October 2013- 2 day choir substitute for Mukagowa Fort Wright women’s choirs

• 2013-present- substitute church service pianist

• 2013-present- accompanist for Spokane Area Youth Choirs

Arguments for I.C.(Integrated Curriculum)

Psychological/developmental

Sociocultural Motivational Pedagogical

Mason, T.C. (1996). Integrated curricula: Potential and problems. journal of Teacher Education, 47(4), 263-270

Positive Results of I.C.

Heightened teacher collaboration

Greater student involvement

Increased relevance to Real-world applications

Greater learner achievement

Better content mastery Fewer fragmented

learning experiences

Ellis, A. K. (2005). Research on educational innovations. NY: Eye on Education, Inc.

Obstacles to I.C.• The trivialization

problem• The skills problem• The teacher knowledge

problem• The assessment problem

Mason, T.C. (1996). Integrated curricula: Potential and problems. journal of Teacher Education, 47(4), 263-270

• "In any [voiced] interaction only 15% of information corresponds to verbal language, while 70% of the message is performed through body language; the final 15% belongs to intonation, the musical character of language.”

-Spanish music therapist: Patxi Del Campo (1997)

Historical Beginnings• Mousikas: music (Greek)• 3 classical elements of mousikas:

melody (intonation), verse (words), and dance (body language)

• Music inspired muses’ language, poetry, tragedy, song, and dance in the classic Greek theatre.

Early Childhood Development

• Language and song are developmentally connected.

• From auditory input, an infant develops sound perception, location, and discrimination, and also the melody contours of their native language.

Thompson & Andrews, 2000, p. 181-182

Language, Music and the Mind

• Howard Gardner: Musical-rhythmic, verbal-linguistic intelligences

• Phonemes (left brain network), pitch discrimination (right brain network)

• When the brain processes music, this function extends over both hemispheres and blurs traditionally accepted divisions between them.

Zatorre (neuroscientist, 1992)

Quantitative Study• Groups of 26 native French speakers (mean

age 23)

• 4 consonants, 3 vowels, 11 syllables, 6 words

• 7 minutes: spoken vs. sung

• gimpsy, mimosa, pogysi, pymiso, sipygy, sysipi

• gysomi, mosigi, pisipy, pygymi, sogimy, sypogy

Schön, D., Boyer, M., Moreno, S., Besson, M., Peretz, I., & Kolinsky, R. (2008). Songs as an aid for language acquisition. Cognition, 106(2), 975-983.

Historical Example• Words + Rhythm help hold songs together, and improves

RECALL

• The phrase “proudly we hailed” in the US national anthem used to be sung to four notes of equal length, but now has a lengthened first note and shortened second note to match the syllable stress.

• The music changed to conform to the language, so that the musical accent and duration were aligned to the syllables of greater linguistic importance.

(Palmer & Kelly, 1992)

“Where a picture book has visual language accompanying the text, song text invites children to create their own images based on the words and their meanings, with the bonus of a melody and rhythm to add affective and sensory appeal.” Jalongo 1988, 67

Medina (ESL teacher) Experiment

• Theory: Students learn an incredible amount of language before they ever attend school. The non-academic sources of language are much less ritualized, organized, and stressful than a classroom, so it makes sense to try methods that more closely resemble childhood, generally filled with music, stories, songs, and art.

Medina, 1990

• Wilcox investigated the effects of classroom singing among adult ESL students at a community college.

Among the many studies she reviewed, music was shown to improve pronunciation, memory through "organizational framework, linear time order, lowering affective barriers, repetition, residual learning, expectation, anticipation of patterns, resolution cues, and anchors for memory.”

Wilcox, 1998, p. ii

Case Study

Qualitative Study• Who: class of high school History students • Purpose: To see how music could heighten

conversation and bring up new realizations about historical portrayals of King John.

• Teacher used a song from Disney’s “Robin Hood” to open conversation and more deeply understand the choices made in the music to portray King John in a specific way.

• Backing music without lyrics helped students think about the mood which they decided was “comical”.

• Was there evidence to suggest that King John was a foolish or disrespected king?

• Dynamics, mood, voice alterations, tempo, dramatic pause and background instrumentals used to compose students’ own song to bring facts from historical sources ALIVE.

Mielke, 2008

• Students fully understood that words and music work in parallel to strategically craft an interpretation.

• “Music was a tool that developed higher-order historical discussion, encouraged the use of evidence in developing and supporting ideas and provided an exciting new opportunity for many pupils.”

Mielke, 2008, p. 18

Cultural Connections• In the language classroom, songs provide a

rich context for recognizing and celebrating cultural diversity, and for developing an understanding and appreciation of different languages.

• Music from a target language’s country portrays the views and messages of its people, which is integral to immersing oneself in another worldview.

Best Practices1. Musico-Linguistic

• Level 1-Recite phrases from written directions with steady beat. Chant text in canon (round) format

• Level 2- Question-answer session with partner, encourages imitation, improves memory and meaning processing

• Level 3- Write out a text using musical representation of it’s rhythm

Macarthur & Trojer, 1985

2. Activating kinesthetic intelligence

• Recite a text while clapping is rhythm, leaving out words from lyrics to rehearse them mentally

• Making text’s rhythm into a dance

• Research has shown the effect of music and movement for attention, excitement, reduced inhibitions about performing and speaking, memory and retention

Schunk Experiment• Effect of singing and signing in ASL with

elementary ESL students’ acquisition of vocabulary.

• 4 groups of 20 children each given a pretest to check vocabulary comprehension

• Each attended different training sessions• spoken text, sung text, spoken text with signs, sung

text with signs

Schunk Results• Post test to determine gains in receptive

vocabulary identification.• All groups made significant pre to post test

gains• Children who heard text sung and watched

the signs had a significantly higher gain over children who only heard the text spoken (6.5 words learned, over text group’s 2.5 words)

Schunk, 1999

Curriculum Plan-Targeted Population

• 9-12 grade students• Curriculum plan will integrate music into a

year II Spanish unit on technology vocabulary, and preterit and imperfect past verb tenses

• 68% have a GPA of 3.0 and above, 32% have a GPA of 2.9 or below

• 55% 9/10th graders, 45% 11th, 12th graders

Objectives1. Students will know regular –ar, -er/-ir

preterit and imperfect verb endings in all six verb chart forms.

2. Students will identify technology vocabulary and past tense verbs in song, the GOUIN exercises and a dictation.

3. Students will explain the conditions for when to use preterit and imperfect tenses.

Action Plan• 10 school days• Technology vocabulary 1 and 2 + imperfect (new)

and preterit (old) past tenses• 2 GOUIN (vocabulary story lines, chanted with

movements: 1 computer/2 phone)• Dictation (4-6 lines a day of a mystery text-in this

case song lyrics, where what is spoken is transcribed by students)

• Pop song in Spanish introduced related to technology vocabulary and past tense use

Lesson 1 Activities• Drop and Drag word pieces-

Vocabulary practice• GOUIN (vocabulary 1)• Dictation (No Te Metas a Mi Facebook)• Tortuga (Turtle)- Vocabulary game• Matamoscas (Fly Swatter)- Vocabulary

game

Siéntate delante de tu computadora.Mira la pantalla.Toma el ratón.Haz un clic.Usa el teclado.Borra la bandeja de basura.Imprime los papeles importantes.Oprime el botón de apagar.

Descolga el auricular.Introduce la tarjeta en la ranura.Espera el tono.Marca el número de tu amigo.Tu amigo contesta. (Hola, mi amigo.)Estás cortando.¿Me eschuchas, me escuchas?¡Ay! Una llamada perdida.

Aló Music Video

Lesson 2: Pop Song1. Frontload: Title: Aló: What can this song be about?2. Analyze lyrics, look for vocab words, preterit and

imperfect examples. Everyone uses the same code to mark up the lyrics.

3. Watch music video: what vocabulary do you see?4. Sing along!5. Q&A: a) images? b) familiar words? c) emotional

state based on the rhythm? d) stand out/favorite phrases? e) fastest/slowest sections?

For later…Summative Assessment

Utilize the Aló song to create:• a skit• music video • comic strip/story board + simple

script related to Aló• write own words to Aló song’s

melody

Predicted Implementation

• create listening comprehension, speaking, writing, reading activities with song.

• use music: • activate long term memory through repetition• combine creative, non-verbal and emotional

processes with verbal and logic-based learning • rely on the rhythmic patterns to fit new words,

while focusing on the comprehensibility of the content created

• exploit natural interests and engage students to make learning hard grammar concepts and massive vocabulary lists easier and more fun

Reflections• During my student teaching, I found that students felt

proud to know lyrics to songs in a different language. Hearing old songs animated them immediately. Music in the classroom gave students a sense of unity.

• I found that music is a multi-sensory approach to learning that can enable students to absorb content more quickly in a relaxed and creative setting.

• As a teacher/musician integrating music will keep me inspired. The strength I bring to a language classroom is my depth of music knowledge and passion for continued exploration of effective Spanish teaching practices.