Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Culture in Child Education

Alivia A. Austin
Tallwood High School Global Studies and World Languages Academy
Global Connections

Author Note
Alivia A. Austin is a senior scholar at the Tallwood High School Global Studies and
World Languages Academy.
Contact: alivia.austin97@gmail.com

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

Abstract

This research paper summarizes about musics impact on learning languages and cultures.
It also mentions how music increases comprehensibility, allows cultural expression, as
well as stimulates both sides of the brain, making music be able intertwine into learning
languages. The main point of the paper is how music impacts learning languages and
cultures in childrens education. Abbreviations mentioned in this paper are ESL (English
as a Second Language), EFL(English as a Foreign Language), L1(First Language), and
L2 (Second Language).

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

Table of Contents
Abstract2
Introduction.4
Limitations of Study....5
Methodology6
Literature Review8
Main Body/Argument...12
Conclusion16
References17

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures in Child Education

Introduction

The field of learning is infinite and has no boundaries since one never stops
learning; everyone starts his or her journey as a child. One component of the first
components to be learned is language. Learning a language is no simple task, though it is
learned expediently through listening and repetition. From hearing a lullaby to observing
the surroundings, music incorporates on how people learn language. This paper goes in
depth about how music goes hand in hand with learning language(s), especially in a
foreign language where one picks up knowledge on the culture. Music positively impacts
the learning of languages and culture by increasing comprehensibility, allowing for
cultural expression, and stimulating both sides of the brain, making it a very large
component in childrens education. Research presented in this paper dates from July 1984
up to July 2014. The paper goes in depth about how the brain processes a language
similarly to the action of listening, playing, and/or singing music. The rhythm in a beat
within a song aids a learner to comprehend how to pronounce the word(s) or phrases in
the target language. Dissecting the comparison between music and learning languages
and cultures will help one understand how language teachers in the foreign language
departments as well as the ESL (English as a Second Language) departments and EFL
(English as a Foreign Language) departments can help expedite the pace of processing
the target language as well as catch their students attention in a unique way.

Musics Impact of Learning Languages and Cultures

Limitations of Study

Research is intended to show evidence of how singing, playing, and listening

assists children to learn language and culture through the symphony of music. Attempts
of phonics, tone, pitch, timbre and language as a whole assists with pronunciation of
words , consonants, and vowels of a language including the learning of a foreign
language. The limitations of this paper are as follows: limitations of geographic, time
restraint to gather data for extended research , incapability of playing an instrument
(besides amateur skills in piano), and age of the scholar for inability to conduct a
elongated experiment for more detailed data as well as obtain a degree in linguistics and
music are as well limited in the paper. Boundaries in this research are the incapability of
learning every language, technique, style of music, and obtaining scholarly resources
from data bases other than those from Virginia Wesleyan College . Personal biases of the
scholar contains the experience of singing in choral ensembles for 9 years, studying the
Spanish language for 6 years, studying the German language for 2 years, fluency in
English for a lifetime, the education of global studies and world languages for 4 years,
no experience in teaching languages or music ,nor expert knowledge level of music
theory or studies of linguistics . The scholar of the paper is neither an expert nor
possesses any endeavors to study of the brain and /or psychology.

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

Methodology

Method of research contains qualitative data, comparing language learning and

music . A questionnaire nor an interview was conducted during research and is solely
collected from the archives of Virginia Wesleyan College, an article from The Guardian,
and an academic paper written by Chris Dobrian. Research was gathered from the
archives of Virginia Wesleyan College and was aided by the scholars colleagues in
which the scholar found a bounty of academic journals, research papers, and experiments
within the papers to support the thesis and argument of this paper. The sources from the
archives gathered data by using other scholarly sources to aid in the research paper and
conducted separate experiments. The method used in the article Using songs to enhance
L2 vocabulary acquisitions in preschool children., written by Yvette Coyle and Remei
Garcia Gmez ,was implemented by conducting an experiment on 25 Spanish preschool
children between the ages of 5 and 6 years old, and giving them five target English
vocabulary words which they would learn from the song the Wheels on the Bus. Each
student attended three thirty- minute lessons each with a vocabulary pretest before the
lesson and a vocabulary test afterwards. During the lessons, the teacher sang the song
twice pointing to the parts of the bus on the board giving the children the choice to
participate in singing. Afterwards, they would sing along to a karaoke version of the song
and do movements to make the learning of the new English vocabulary words more
exciting. Five weeks later the children were given a post-test with colorful pictures to
identify the words. Experimenting is also shown as a method also in the article

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

Methodology

Effects of Stimulus Characteristics and Background Music on Foreign Language

Vocabulary Learning and Forgetting. by Annette M.B. de Groot. Groot went to the
University of Amsterdam in Netherlands and chose 36 first year psychology students and
tested their knowledge of 64 Dutch vocabulary words from the CESEX Dutch Corpus
(which contains 42.5 million words) and matched it up with the picture L1 of the word .
32 of the words given were common to the students native language and the other 32
were abnormal. While testing the students,18 students took the test in silence and the
other 18 students took the test with background music. The students chosen were native
speakers of Dutch and learned FLs in secondary school. FLs, abbreviated for Foreign
Languages, possibly learned by the students were English, French, and German.
Included in the test were FLs of French, German, Spanish, Surinamese, and Hindi. The
test was graded on a scale from 1 to 7(7 being the proficient as their native language).
Many sources being incorporate derived from the method of experimenting while other
sources for example Music and Language by Chris Dobrian (1992), The Brain in
Singing and Language by Valerie L. Trollinger (2010), and Music and Language by
Steven Feld and Aaron A. Fox (1994) used research from other scholarly resources to
incorporate into their studies.

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

Literature Review
Coyle, Y., & Gracia, R. G. (2014). Using songs to enhance L2 vocabulary acquisition in
preschool children. ELT Journal, 68(3), 276-285.
Costa-Giomi, E., & Ilari, B. (2014). Infants' Preferential Attention to Sung and Spoken
Stimuli. Journal of Research in Music Education, 62(2), 188-194.
Magne, C., Schn, D., & Besson, M. (2006). Musician Children Detect Pitch Violations
in Both Music and Language Better than Nonmusician Children: Behavioral and
Electrophysiological Approaches. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18(2), 199-211.
Groot, A. M. (2006). Effects of Stimulus Characteristics and Background Music on
Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning and Forgetting.Language Learning, 56(3), 463506.
Legg, R. (2009). Using Music to Accelerate Language Learning: An Experimental
Study. Research in Education, 82(1), 1-12.
The sources cited above pertain to showing comprehensibility in students learning
foreign languages, testing the impact that music has on their processing of the target
language. Coyle, Y., & Garcia, R.G.(2014) , Legg, R.(2009),and Groot, A.M.(2006) all
conducted separate experiments generally about how music aids students to absorb
vocabulary words and meanings , however Groot, A.M. (2006) uses multiple languages to
test the experiment on the first phycology students of the University of Amsterdam, while
Coyle, Y., & Garcia, R.G.(2014) focuses on preschool children learning L2

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

Literature Review Cont.

vocabulary words and meanings solely in English. Legg, R.(2009) similar to Coyle, Y. &
Garcia, R.G.(2014) and Groot, A.M. (2006), split students into a Music Group and a
Non-Music Group in which gave each group the same French poem Le weekend
dernier to learn vocabulary, phrases, and the meanings of them. Magne, C., Schn, D.,
& Besson, M. (2006) and Costa-Giomi, E., & Ilari, B. (2014) used the aspect of studying
the childrens behavior towards music being incorporated into the language in which they
are learning.
Chobert, J., & Besson, M. (2013). Musical Expertise and Second Language
Learning. Brain Sciences, 3(2), 923-940.
Ludke, K. M., Ferreira, F., & Overy, K. (2013). Singing can facilitate foreign language
learning. Mem Cogn Memory & Cognition, 42(1), 41-52.
Watts, D.(1984). Singing and Second Language Learning: Part I. Canadian Folk
Music,18(3), 28-35.
Watts, D.(1984).Singing and Second Language Learning: Part 2. Canadian Folk Music,
18(4),15-20
The sources above all give a more in depth explanation on how music makes
second language learning and general language learning more comprehensible for the
students to absorb vocabulary and meaning of the target language.

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

10

Literature Review Cont.

Bannan, N. (2008). Language out of Music: The Four Dimensions of Vocal
Learning. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 19(3), 272-293.
Berman, A. S.(2014). Music as a Second Language. Teaching Music.21(4),36-39.
Forns, J.(2003). The Words of Music. Popular Music & Society.26(1),37-51.
Mizener, C. P. (2008). Enhancing Language Skills Through Music. General Music
Today, 21(2), 11-17.
These four sources generally describe the details of how music vocally,
instrumental, and listening/practicing along can improve the world of teaching linguistics
by expediting the learning process and improving the memory of vocabulary for students.

Klassen, G.(2007).The Art of Harmony in 13 Languages. Sing Out, 51(1), 22-22

Klassen, G.(2007) supports the cultural learning aspect of music.

The Art of Harmony in 13 Languages was an experience in which the
writer, Klassen, wrote about his response to do musical ensemble
Madrigaas performance a series of songs in 13 different languages
representing the true culture behind each musical singing piece. This
represents how music can reveal the culture through the usage of
language.

Trollinger, V. L. (2010). The Brain in Singing and Language. General Music

Today, 23(2), 20-23.
Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

11

Literature Review Cont.

B.B.(2001).Music, Language may meet in the brain. Science News.159(18),280.

B.B.(2001) and Trollinger, V.L.(2010) both describes how music and languages
are alike when processed in the brain. When one listens, sings, and/or plays music, both
sides of the brain are stimulated. While learning a language, both sides of the brain are
used in the same way they are used while processing music.

Dobrian, C.(1992). Music and Language. Musical and Artifical Intelligence.Retrived

December 7, 2015 from http://music.arts.uci.edu/dobrian/CD.music.lang.htm
Feld, S., & Fox, A. A. (1994). Music and Language. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. Annual
Review of Anthropology, 23(1), 25-53.
The sources show the connection of how music and language go hand in hand
upon meaning of vocabulary as well as grasp grammatical understanding.

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

12

Main Body/Argument

Music positively impacts the learning of languages and culture by increasing

comprehensibility, allowing for cultural expression, and stimulating both sides of the
brain making it a very large component in childrens education. Comprehensibility of a
language is increased through the usage of music due to the aid of repetition and simple
gestures for the students to understand the target language clearly. One example of music
alleviating the heavy load of learning a language is from the article Using songs to
enhance L2 vocabulary acquisition in preschool children by Yvette Coyle and Remei
Garcia Gmez (2014). Coyle and Garcia Gmez conducted an experiment on 25
preschool children and gave a test before and after thirty- minute lessons three times a
week. The language teacher helped the Spanish children learn new English vocabulary
words by singing and showing the children the Wheels on the Bus as well as picked out
five vocabulary words from the song for the students to learn. In the end by the help of
gestures, repetition, and activities, generally all of the students improved in knowing one
or more of the five vocabulary words from the song. According to the article, Infants
Preferential Attention to Sung and Spoken Behavior by Costa-Giomi and Illari(2014),
11-month old infants respond better to music being sung and speech that is luring to the
ear as well as discovered the importance of singing to a child to become engrossed into

the language and culture. All younger age groups are still affected by music and
linguistics learning. Sources gathered as young as 11-month infants(Costa-Giomi, E. &
Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

13

Main Body/Argument

Illari,B. 2014) up to first year psychology students at the University of Amsterdam(Groot,

A.M. ,2006). An 8-year old musician, for example, has a higher performance in
languages and music than an 8-year old who is not a musician(Magne,C., Schn, D.,
&Besson, M., 2006).As stated before, music which makes one engrossed, helps the
children to gain knowledge of vocabulary words. In Robert Leggs article, Using Music
to Acclerate Language Learning.(2009), he conducted a study with young teenagers in
Year 8 learning the French language by dividing them into a musical group and a nonmusical group and picked out the French poem Le weekend dernier. Each group read the
same poem, though differentiating on how they studied. The non-musical group studied
more verbally and played games, while the musical group discussed about the poem and
acted in a musical based on the stanzas of the poem. In Leggs results when all was said
and done as well as the post-testing results, the musical groups grades improved more
from the pretest than the non-musical group. Leggs experiment shows that it is evident
that engrossing children with music makes them absorb knowledge of the language better
than without incorporating music. Effects of Stimulus Characteristics and Background
Music on Foreign Language and Forgetting. by Annette M.B. de Groot supports how
testing with music can help improve grades and focus on the language at hand (in this
case matching vocabulary words in Dutch and the translation in another language). Music

is more than just noise, its an advantage to learning more in depth as well as an
opportunity to engage others in the learning language process.
Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

14

Main Body/Argument

Music can be heard and sung in all languages, though while the music goes into
foreign genres, one can pick up a little bit of culture along the way. Learning foreign
songs to sing with a group or as a soloist comes with tedious work. Singers must have
accurate pronunciation and annunciation of every word as closely as possible in order to
intertwine the true culture and meaning behind the song and lyrics. Expressing a songs
culture by following the composers details such as dynamics and tone, makes the
composers song come to life. In the review ,The Art of Harmony in 13 Languages by
Gary Klassen, he praises the Madrigaas (a womens a cappella ensemble) for staying
true to the culture in every song they sing. As in previous sources used in this research
paper, when learning a language young by listening to singing and speaking of the
language one tends to pick up the culture as well(Costa-Giomi, E. & Illari, B. ,2014).

There are many ways different cultures and ethnicities can connect such as social
media and e-mail, but one way cultures can connect is in an ESL classroom with music.
In the article Music as a Second Language by Andrew S. Berman tells of how ESL
students share cultures with each other while learning the English language and music in
the classroom, lets the students and teachers have a stronger connection.

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

15

Main Body/Argument

Stimulating both sides of the brain is one of the positive impacts music has on
learning languages. The article, The Brain in Singing and Language.(Trollinger, V.L.,
2010) states, Singing activates the whole brain . When singers focus on the lyrics of
the song(s), they use the left part of their brain and when singers study the melody of a
song they use the right part of their brain(Trollinger, V.L., 2010). In Trollingers studies ,
it is found that children who know more than one language, have a better understanding
of music and can find out pitches faster. The brain processes music, the same as it does
for language, making the two intertwine when in use. In the article, Music, Language
may meet in the brain.(B.B., 2001),it states that both sides of the brain are needed in
order to play and sing music as well as to understand a language. This proves the
capability

of

music

impacting

childrens

education

throughout

communication ,testing, and techniques to teach as well as learn languages.

aspects

of

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

16

Conclusion

The importance of music gradually increases as years go by. The sources used for
knowledge, insight, and support for this paper is dated back from the 1980s up to the year
2014, which hints that music is still being studied of its value in society. Studies of
musics impact on language learning and cultures as well as the education systems
reveals that society is learning more about how music influences our everyday lives.
Language learning is discovered to be intertwined with practicing music from studies
showing that both music and language use both parts of the brain to process. Songs such
as the wheels on the bus and the ABCs in various languages ,help engage students as
well as aid them to obtain new vocabulary. Education systems are beginning to find out
that listening to music while testing is most likely to cause students grades to improve.
ESL classrooms and EFL classroom are using a musical approach to teach the English
language as well as the British schools incorporating music to comprehend French
poems(Legg, R., 2009). Singing a song is learned to be more than just a melody, but
attracts the ears of children to engross them into the language(Costa-Giomi, E. &Illari,B.,
2014). The music is all around us, all you have to do is listen.-August Rush

Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

17

References:
Bannan, N. (2008). Language out of Music: The Four Dimensions of Vocal
Learning. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 19(3), 272-293. doi:10.1111/j.18359310.2008.tb00354.x
B.B.(2001).Music, Language may meet in the brain. Science News.159(18),280.
Berman, A. S.(2014). Music as a Second Language. Teaching Music.21(4),36-39.
Chobert, J., & Besson, M. (2013). Musical Expertise and Second Language
Learning. Brain Sciences, 3(2), 923-940. doi:10.3390/brainsci3020923
Costa-Giomi, E., & Ilari, B. (2014). Infants' Preferential Attention to Sung and
Spoken Stimuli. Journal of Research in Music Education, 62(2), 188-194.
doi:10.1177/0022429414530564
Coyle, Y., & Gracia, R. G. (2014). Using songs to enhance L2 vocabulary
acquisition in preschool children. ELT Journal, 68(3), 276-285. doi:10.1093/elt/ccu015
Dobrian,C.(1992). Music and Language. Retrieved December 07,2015, from
http://music.arts.uci.edu/dobrian/CD.music.lang.htm
Forns, J.(2003). The Words of Music. Popular Music & Society.26(1),37-51.
Feld, S., & Fox, A. A. (1994). Music and Language. Annu. Rev. Anthropol.
Annual Review of Anthropology, 23(1), 25-53. doi:10.1146/annurev.an.23.100194.000325

Groot, A. M. (2006). Effects of Stimulus Characteristics and Background Music

on Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning and Forgetting.Language Learning, 56(3),
463-506. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2006.00374.x
Musics Impact on Learning Languages and Cultures

18

References cont. :

Klassen, G.(2007).The Art of Harmony in 13 Languages. Sing Out, 51(1), 22-22.

Legg, R. (2009). Using Music to Accelerate Language Learning: An Experimental
Study. Research in Education, 82(1), 1-12. doi:10.7227/rie.82.1

Ludke, K. M., Ferreira, F., & Overy, K. (2013). Singing can facilitate foreign
language learning. Mem Cogn Memory & Cognition, 42(1), 41-52. doi:10.3758/s13421013-0342-5
Magne, C., Schn, D., & Besson, M. (2006). Musician Children Detect Pitch
Violations in Both Music and Language Better than Nonmusician Children: Behavioral
and Electrophysiological Approaches. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18(2), 199211. doi:10.1162/jocn.2006.18.2.199
Mizener, C. P. (2008). Enhancing Language Skills Through Music. General
Music Today, 21(2), 11-17. doi:10.1177/1048371308316414
Trollinger, V. L. (2010). The Brain in Singing and Language. General Music
Today, 23(2), 20-23. doi:10.1177/1048371309353878
Watts, D.(1984). Singing and Second Language Learning: Part I. Canadian Folk
Music,18(3), 28-35.
Watts, D.(1984).Singing and Second Language Learning: Part 2. Canadian Folk
Music, 18(4),15-20