Learn English by Using Music
In learning English, music should be included almost by necessity.
Music – What It Does To You! What It Can Do For You!
After listening to a live performance of a Brahm’s symphony, one listener said:
“Every time I heard that emotional melodic tune from the violin section I felt like I wanted to cry because of how rich the melody was. Every single time it was played, I felt satisfied and complete.” (Associated Press Content – “How Music Can Represent Human Emotions” by Drake Hugo)
Can anyone doubt the powerful effect of music on a person’s emotions and physiology?
Music can rouse the emotions to heights of jubilation and joy, calm the emotions into states of relaxed peacefulness, and, of great interest to teachers, focus the mind and help create an optimal learning environment.
The Significance of Baroque
A style of European classical music from the period between 1600 and 1750 known as Baroque music, including works by such composers as Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel, is especially useful in this regard.
Additionally, certain musical selections from Mozart, especially the piano sonatas, are held by many to help calm the body and mind. Dr. Claudius Conrad, a senior surgical resident at Harvard Medical School, often plays Mozart to patients who are critically ill.
This stimulates certain hormones to flow from the brain throughout the body via the bloodstream creating a calming effect or on the other hand stimulating various bodily systems.
For learning purposes, music with a tempo of around 60 beats a minute appears to have the greatest effect.
“Researchers found it’s the slow tempo section in Baroque concertos, – the largo or andante movement with a restful tempo of about 60 beats a minute – that brings the amped-up learning effect.” (Ostrander, S. & Schroeder, L. 1994. Superlearning 2000, p. 67)
If selected pieces of music can do this to you, it should be a powerful motivation for teachers to use it in a learning session.
What Music Can Do TO You
Playing Baroque and Mozart music in the background while teaching can enhance the rate of learning. A computer with speakers or CD player should be a necessary part of a teacher’s equipment in the classroom.
How welcoming when students enter the room to immediately be greeted by soothing sounds.
Whatever the emotional or physical state of a student before coming to this learning period, within minutes, a positive change can take place through the power of the music.
What Music Can Do FOR You
In addition to considering what music can do to you, it is also important for teachers to utilize another aspect of music in learning, namely, what music can do for you in teaching language vocabulary.
A wide variety of popular songs contain lyrics that mirror the way people of that culture speak in their everyday lives.
When a student is exposed to a catchy, rhythmic tune, and learns to sing along gradually memorizing the words, grammar and vocabulary are absorbed without any conscious effort.
A song can be selected with lyrics that correspond with the theme of the lesson and played to the students. Song sheets containing the words can be printed and handed out so the students learn to sing along with the song.
Certain words and phrases will then easily be remembered, especially if the chorus line contains useful vocabulary.
How To Learn English? – Why You Should Use Music
Apart from the fact students learn new words quickly and remember them, playing a song in a learning period adds variety to the lesson, introduces a fun aspect.
It makes the learning experience enjoyable, one even to be anticipated and looked forward to.
By understanding what music does to you and what it can do for you, teachers will have a learning medium that demands little in time and energy from them, but which is extremely powerful in accelerating the learning process.
So how to learn English with less stress and more fun? Use music.
