Music is created to help people communicate with one another by an expression of words that come from the heart. Children can relate to music much easier than adults because they are spontaneous with their responses to experiences with the environment.
When I use music to teach children languages, they do learn better. There are two things to sonsider:
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not every child or person is musically incline and therefore no able to follow the beat of a rhythm quite readily;
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there is nothing in our environment that can actually presents music to them like language does.
So how do we incorporate music into our lives that allow us to augment our language skills?
Music and language are simply a marriage that has to be arranged or integrated by humans, otherwise there can no be role for music to play in our lives. Isn’t that so? And that is exactly what musicians and songwriters do. They create music and find the language to fill up the tunes to make sense to the expressions of their personal emotions and views.
Does music help in language development?
What can music do? Music can put you to sleep but great books just keep you up reading till wee hours of the night. With music you can grab a song or two and be happy with it. With books, well you just have to wait for the next available bestseller to show up on the shelf. Just how much money people had spent just to vote for the next American Idol is testimony to the fact the Role of Music in our society has become more superior than the importance of reading and learning by paper and pen to improve one’s language. We have to constantly fight in our heads on where to store the books in our house but will never argue for a space in our handbag for a good music CD.
Music cannot improve your writing skills though. To write music, you need to to handwrite on paper the next note in the chorus or bridge, read and plan schedule for the next concert, write the name of the next singer in a charity concert, and communicate the finished music album to the world through advertising media, magazines and interviews.
Music finds its way to our living room only because our ears capture our heartstrings and we decide to grab a copy for our personal listening pleasure. Insofar as improving our speech skills, music is not the instrument we will use.
But music has supported my language development in many ways. I have no doubt that I have learnt more English words in good music than I do with a good movie, that is because I prefer to listen to music.
As I type my random thoughts, I have the words of Carpenters ringing in my ears; her voice soothes my ears and I begin to sieve out the richness of the Karen Carpenter’s vocals. She sang every word to its last phenome and still each verse sung is in tune and not one word is minced just so her emotions get the better of the song. I was only probably only 10 years old when I first heard their songs.
How can I, as a non-English person have benefited from her music or many others during those times? Perhaps because I didn’t stop listening and listen more each time a good speaker or singer comes on air. I listen into a person’s voice and discriminate the muscular parts that help produce the different sounds. It is just how it is with speaking well. LISTEN MORE, SING AND SPEAK MORE, READ LATER.
