Enseñanza Del Ingles A Travez De La música

TEACHING ENGLISH THROUGH MUSIC AS A SECOND LANGUAGE.

“Language is a treasure that enriches my mind.

Music is a treasure that enriches my soul.

Teaching enriches my spirit.”

Veronika Rosová.

In the history and the present of mankind, English, music and teaching represent important areas of human activity and energy. Their importance, content, character, our attitude to them also their use have developed for centuries and they are still regarded as a bottomless well of new knowing, ideas and information. There are diverse ways how to teach, and learn a language. I would like to find out if the power of music and its particular use can be one of the useful, easily memorable ways how to acquire a language with ease and delight. In other words if music can help us put the ‘language treasure’ into the‚ memory bag.

Every year we sing a lot of new songs, and very often in different languages such as Spanish, Italian, Japanese, English, French, and others. Some of these languages are difficult, and moreover their pronunciation is also specific and exacting. Nevertheless, everyone is always able to learn a song without any bigger problems, and moreover we are usually able to sing a song, which has not been sung for a couple of years, plus, and that is the point, we remember the lyrics. Of course, it depends on a few factors, which influence our ability to recall the words, such as popularity of the song, motivation, choreography, and time devoted to rehearsing, and finally repetition.

T. Murphey says that “music has the potential to change the atmosphere”, but what is more important than his confirmation of this fact is that in this case he means the atmosphere in a classroom, and describes music as follows: “It seems to give energy where was none, and to spark off images when students complain of having nothing to write about. ’Music is the stuff dreams grow on.’”

Songs for language learning have been considered in relation to the progress of the four skills, activation of both hemispheres, memory, motivation and cultural sensitivity. Jolly (1975) and Thain (2010), amongst many others, put emphasis on the use of songs in lessons because they help in the development of the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Songs activate both parts of the brain. The pronunciation of words, understanding, rhythm and musical execution correspond to the left hemisphere, whereas, melodic expression, tone, emotions and artistic expression (nonverbal communication) correspond to the right hemisphere. Listening to music is an activity that usually helps to have fun, distract, relax or raise your spirits. Similarly, the fact of including rhyme, rhythm and melodies enables increased memorizing the lyrics, especially when the information is significant.

Singing is an activity that combines so much linguistic

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