A Creative Way Into Languages

European Music Portfolio –

A Creative Way into Languages

ENGLISH TEACHER’S BOOKLET

Karen M. Ludke & David Wheway

Produced for the Comenius Lifelong Learning Project

502895 LLP-1-2009-1-DE-COMENIUS-CMP

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.

This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the

Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the

information contained therein.

Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved.

Contents:

Page 2:Project Partners

Page 3:What can you find and how can you use this booklet?

Page 3:Introduction to the European Music Portfolio

Page 6:The EMP-L Pupil’s Portfolio

Page 8:Blank Grid for Teachers

Page 9:Sample EMP-L Activity in EMP format

Pages 10Categories of Activities

Pages 11-15:Sample Activities in simple ‘Word’ format

Back cover:Comment Form

The EMP-L materials were developed by an international team of language and music educators and researchers through the support of a Comenius Lifelong Learning grant awarded by the European Commission from 2009 to 2012.

Project Partners:

Peter Carle, Margarete Dinkelaker and Adelheid Kramer

Landesinstitut für Schulsport, Schulkunst und Schulmusik Ludwigsburg – Germany

Patricia Driscoll, David Wheway, Vikki Schulze and Jonathan Barnes

Canterbury Christ Church University, Faculty of Education – England

Maria Argyriou, Panagiotis G. Kampylis and Vicky Charissi

Greek Association of Primary Music Teachers, Piraeus – Greece

Kaarina Marjanen

University of Helsinki, Koulutus-ja kehittämiskeskus Palmenia, Centre for Continuing Education – Finland

Karen M. Ludke and Katie Overy

University of Edinburgh, Institute for Music in Human and Social Development – Scotland

Marina Cap-Bun and Iliana Velescu

Universitatea OvidiusConstanţa, Romanian Language and Literature and Faculty of Arts – Romania

Albert Casals Ibáñez and Laia Viladot Vallverdú

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Faculty of Sciences of Education – Spain

Maria del Mar Suárez Vilagran, Universitat de Barcelona – Spain

Jörg-U. Keßler, Robert Lang and Jürgen Mertens

Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg Institut für Sprachen – Germany

Isabelle Aliaga, Martine Dreyfus and Jacquie Azemar

Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres de Montpellier – France

Associated Partner:

Brigitte Bechter, Markus Cslovjecsek and Françoise Hänggi

Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, Pädagogische Hochschule – Switzerland

Hanna Weinmann, Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich – Switzerland

What can you find and how can you use this booklet?

Introduction to the European Music Portfolio

The primary aim of the European Music Portfolio: A Creative Way into Languages(EMP-L) project is to empower teachers to support modern language learning by emphasising the profound interrelationship between music and language. The project also aims to provide young learners in Europe with enjoyable and motivating first experiences in learning a foreign language.

This booklet offers a brief overview of the much more extensive Teacher’s Handbook, available on the EMP-L website at www.emportfolio.eu/emp. This booklet describes how the EMP-L activities can help support holistic learning in both music and language.

Connecting music and language using the EMP-L

Research and experience show that language and music learningcan support each other and enhance motivation through the development of skills and understanding in: Oracy, Pronunciation, Communication, Listening and Understanding, Reading, Speaking, Writing, Language Awareness, Inter- and Intra-Cultural awareness, Creative thinking, and Mediation. We further suggest that Music Listening, Making Music, Representing Music and Discussing Music are four areas of musical learning that can lead to responsive musical awareness and productive musical behaviour, at both the individual and the social level.Musical activities and games can reinforce authentic language material and pre-dispose learners to engage inenjoyablerepetition.Engaging in the EMP-L activitiesmay alsoenhance children’s memory for language sounds and structures.

The figureson page five may provide opportunities for reflecting on the links between music and language with your colleagues or with your pupils.

The Circle of Perception, Mental processes, Expression, and Cultural processes for an individual in a society

(Based on Alfred Lang’s Circle of Semiotic Functions)

The EMP-L Pupil’s Portfolio

In addition to the EMP-L activities,wehave created a bank of Pupil’s Portfoliocards, which are designed to help children reflect on their musical learning and experiences (see the Teacher’s Guide to the Pupil’s Portfolio for more details about this resource and how to use it.)

Each of the ten sample EMP-L activities in this booklet can be linked to specific Pupil’s Portfolio cards. The Pupil’s Portfolio teacher’s cards contain further ideas and opportunities for supporting children in reflecting on and building up their knowledge in music and language. The teacher’s cards also outline ways to develop children’sintercultural awareness and understanding, as well as learning strategies. Many additional example activities are also accessible through the EMP-L’s Moodle website:

Contact your national EMP-L representatives (see page 2) for further information about local support and training in your area.

Using the EMP-L activities creatively

The ten sample activitiesinthis booklet are presented in a non-hierarchical way for teachers to use in the mannerthatwill fit best into their own curriculum. Teachers should feel flexible in the way they use these materials, being guided by the age, abilities and interestsof their pupils, as well ascurricular requirements. Although there is a description of how to teach each of these EMP-L activities, these should be considered as suggested starting pointsfor fun and creative adaptation, and not as ‘recipes’ to be followed every time.

Reflections on the EMP-L activities

The EMP-L project partners envisage that teachers will develop theirown ideas for new activities anddevelop the existing activities, for example, by creating new worksheets or adapting an activity to teach another language. At the back of this booklet, ablankactivity gridis provided where you can record your own ideas. We hope that teachers will collaborate with each other in creating specific materials that are suitable for their pupils’ needs.

For the EMP-L activities you use, the following are questions for reflection (which can be added to Moodle):

• General Comments
• Adaptations – How was the activity carried out? How was the activity adjusted for the educational needs of the class?
• Learner Reactions – What reactions did the children have during the activity? Did any of the children lead or adapt the activity during the lesson or afterward? Did the activity help pupils achieve any of the four capacities of the Curriculum for Excellence?
• Creativity – To what extent did you feel comfortable to be creative in extending the activity, or letting the children do so?
• Musical Learning – Do you think this activity is valuable for children’s musical learning goals, such as developing instrumental or vocal performance skills, improvisation and composition, music terminology, or technology?
• Language Learning – Do you think this activity is valuable for children’s language learning goals, such as listening, speaking, reading or writing skills, vocabulary, grammar, language awareness and knowledge about language, or intercultural knowledge?
• Documentation and Reflection – How have you or your pupils documented, recorded, or reflected on this activity and their learning (e.g., photos, drawings, audio or video recordings for ‘My Musical Treasure’ or ‘My Music Journal’ cards of the Pupil’s Portfolio)?
• Teamwork – To what extent did you invite other teachers in the school to be involved in the activity (e.g., the classroom teacher, a specialist music or language teacher)?
• Mixed Groups – To what extent was the activity useful for teaching and learning in mixed classes (e.g., learners with special needs, working with an extracurricular music or language club)?
• Motivation and Emotion – What was the motivational impact of the activity, personally or for the children’s motivation and emotions?

The activity grid and the ten EMP-L activities

The blank activity grid on page 7 shows how teachers and schools can index their favourite activities that integrate musical activities (far left column) with educational objectives in language learning (top row). Page 8 is a summary ‘snapshot’ of the ten EMP-L activities, which are then presented in the rest of this booklet.Scramble on page 9 demonstrates an activity and links to language and music.

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Categories of Activities (with examples)

Musical activity category / Brief Description of Activity
1. Rhythmic vocalisation / Tak Tak
This rhythm game can be played with rhymes, syllables, new words, or song verses in different foreign languages.
2. Singing / A cat rhyme
While learning and adding their ideas to an English rhyme, children can move like a cat and play with different expressive vocal sounds.
3. Body percussion / Body percussion
This flexible body percussion activity can link to modern languages by using different syllables, new words and phrases from another language.
E.g., x x | x x | x x-x
«Ça va ?» «Oui, ça va bien.»
4. Playing instruments / Die Vier Jahreszeiten
Children can sing and play four instruments which represent the seasons of the year.
5. Dancing and moving / Watching dance
This activity begins with children observing a Greek dance, learning it themselves whilst embodying the musical rhythms.
6. Exploring, improvising, composing / Story trails
Children create and perform sounds, rhythms, melodies, sung words, and movements related to a trail of pictures.
7. Listening to music / Scramble
While listening to a piece of music (e.g., Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers or Schumann’s Kinderszenen), use word cards, descriptions, colours, and so forth can be used to reflect upon and describe the piece using words from another language.
8. Painting, writing, reading music / Roda, roda moliner
While listening to and learning the words to this Catalan song, children can draw or paint a picture of the words they recognise, or perhaps draw/notate the rhythms.
9. Using ICT / Cànan nan Gàidheal
This is an activity in which children can listen to a song in Scots Gaelic on YouTube and expand their language and intercultural awareness.
10. Conducting and teaching music / Conducting
This structured activity gives children the experience of exploring the rich textures of vocal sounds to create a piece of music. They can also learn new musical terms and instructions related to conducting in another language.

Sample Activities in Word Format

Fish and Chips: Rhythm layers

Author: / David Wheway
Target language(s): / Any
Copyrighted materials: / Made available to the EMP community
Requested materials: / None in the first instance, but instruments may be introduced later on.
Time and space requirements: / This might provide a short (10 minute) activity, or build over a few sessions into an instrumental/ musical production.
Young learners' language level: / Medium
Standard procedure: / Learn the phrases below, and then speak them rhythmically to a steady beat. Once the phrases are learned, divide the children into 2....then later 4 groups, each with one of the phrases. Each group says their phrase in time with the other groups.
(At first they may require a steady accompanying beat from the teacher or perhaps an amplified keyboard or a beat machine on the computer (such as the freeware Hammerhead: )
Once the rhythms are secure – the children can clap the rhythms, or play on classroom percussion instruments, (or play the rhythms on tuned percussion).
Underlined letters help with the accent of syllables (stress). The final rhythm: I‘d like some ice cream' (Listen to attachment 1) is said in a syncopated way.
To hear the different rhythms on their own, then in combination, listen to Attachment 2
SUGGESTED PHRASES:
Fish and Chips
Salt and Vinegar
Bangers and Mash
I‘d like some ice cream
Try phrases in other languages:
boeuf bourguignon, salade niçoise , pain de campagne, assiette de fruits de mer
Käse und Brot, Sauerkraut und Knödel, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, Wiener Schnitzel
Targeted competencies (Language): / Spoken production
Pronunciation-articulation
Vocabulary
Language awareness
Intercultural awareness
Music activities: / Rhythmic vocalisation
Playing instruments

Stone: Passing song/game

(‘Bombella’)

Author: / Jonathan Barnes
Source(s): / Traditional: from Ghana
Requested materials: / Stones (pebbles, etc. of assorted
colour and size)
‘Bombella song’ (see above)
Time and space requirements: / Time: Approximately 10+ minutes.
Space: Children sitting or kneeling in a circle
Young learners' / Basic
Standard procedure: / Sit the children in a circle, tap kneesto a repeating count of 4 (4/4 time)
Tap own knees twice and right hand neighbour’s twice (repeat until smooth)
When knee tapping smooth teacher/leader sings the Bombella song against the tapped accompaniment - teacher tells children about stone passing games in school playgrounds in Ghana and gives a stone to each child (choose different kinds/sizes/colours of stone) - holding the stone in the left hand sing song to the accompaniment of stone tapping on floor in front of each child (on beats 1 and 3) whilst singing song, tap beat 1 in front and beat 3 in front of right hand neighbour, eventually leading to…. leaving the stone in front of right hand neighbour (on the third beat) for them to pick up and pass to their right hand neighbour and so on. (Teacher should talk about the importance of placing the stone carefully and in time in front of their neighbour). Practice stone passing until smooth.
Song ends when each stone has returned to its original owner.
Optional procedures: / The teacher teaches the song in two halves and group sings with tapped accompaniment until confident - observe how many times the song has to be repeated until everyone has his/her own stone. Is it dependent on the numberof participants? How exactly? Play the stone passing game with closed eyes.
Extra procedures for further language learning: / Tell children to get to know their stone (name it, imagine being a tiny tiny insect crawling across it etc.), describe it.
-pass other things like pencils, cups, sticks, and so on.
-pass mixed things and everyone has to name it correctly
Extra procedures for further music learning: / Explore the sound of the different stones. Do children recognise their stone by his sound?
Invent other accompaniments, more complex ones, changing directions....
Targeted competencies (Language): / Spoken InteractionSpoken production
Pronunciation-articulation Intercultural awareness
Music activities: / SingingBody percussionDancing and moving

Target language(s):

Ghanian and English; easy to be translated

in other target languages
Using a picture

Author(s): / Caroline Davenport
Requested materials: / Picture ( See attached file)
Collection of sound makers including percussion
Time and space requirements: / Variable - from 40 minutes
Young learners' language level: / Basic
Standard procedure: / 1. Share picture - discuss elements, characters, context, inviting speculation - native language, noting key words and inviting alternatives to extend vocabulary.
2. Identify elements in picture that may produce a sound. Experiment with vocal, body, percussion etc. to create effects.
Extra procedures for further language learning: / Select a grammatical focus e.g. adjectives, nouns, adverbs.; Generate questions linked to the picture.; Develop dictionary skills - find alternatives and/or translations
Use as a stimulus for narrative composition. Activities could include focus on description (story setting or character), describe events in the picture or leading up to the picture. Compose a story ending based on the picture in native or other language.
Extra procedures for further music learning: / Teach or reinforce terms used to express musical elements : dynamics (loud/quiet) timbre (sound quality e.g. dull or bright), tempo (fast/slow), duration (long or short), pitch (high/low), crescendo, diminuendo etc. Compose mood music.; Create a sound trail of elements of picture.
Manipulate sounds using ICT e.g. sound recorder/audacity
Targeted competencies (Language): / Spoken Interaction; Spoken production; Writing (creative)
Vocabulary; Language awareness
Music activities: / Body percussion; Playing instruments; Exploring-improvising-composing; Using ICT
Young learners will...: / Create sound effects and develop vocabulary.
Teachers addressed: / Any
In what ways is the activity representative for language and music integrated learning?: / Language development used as stimulus for musical experimentation.
Musical experimentation generates language, supporting oracy and creative writing skills.
Authors' comments:
This can be used as a very simple activity with even very young learners.
It is easily adapted to learners with more linguistic or musical knowledge.
Cards could be made to support language development e.g. collecting adjectives/verbs etc.
It can be used equally well to develop linguistic skills in native tongue or in other languages, as appropriate to the teacher’s aims and pupil competences.

Mood Music

Author: / David Wheway.
Type of activity: / additional activity for the website
Target language(s): / Any
Keyword(s) / Mood, meaning, adjectives
Requested materials: / A range of percussion/other instruments
Word cards (see activity)
Time and space requirements: / (Note: The sound files attached are from a workshop for German teachers in 2011. The final performance is a sequence of the teachers' musical pieces)
Children in groups of approximately 6/7
Space for the children to work without distraction from others if possible
Young learners' language level: / Medium
Young learners' previous experience: / The children will have had previous opportunities to explore instrument sounds
Standard procedure: / Secretly - hand a word to each group. Each word must describe a mood or adjective in the target language, and must be different from the words handed to the other groups.
The children interpret the word in sound. Ask the children to consider how their piece will finish - and may be give a rough time limit - e.g., 20 seconds
Write the words on the board, and ask one of the groups to play. The other groups must vote on which word on the board links to their music.
Repeat with each group-only revealing the answers at the end of all the performances.
Decide on a sequence for the groups - and perform each piece of music at least once within the agreed sequence.
Extra procedures for further music learning: / Decide on a range of different sequences for performance. Which groups should repeat within the sequence? Which group should start, which group end the performance? How many times should each group repeat their music?
Targeted competencies (Language): / Listening and understanding
Reading and understanding, Vocabulary, Language awareness, Language learning strategies
Music activities: / Playing instruments, Exploring-improvising-composing, Listening to music
Young learners will...: / Develop a deep understanding of adjectives within the target language.
Interpret emotion through music.