Roy E. Howard, Ph.D.
Gallup Graduate Studies Center, Western New Mexico University
e-mail | Vita

Acquisition of receptive and productive language is essential for every student. Each should have every opportunity to grow every year in school in one or more languages, both oral and written. Since every student has a different learning style, a variety of strategies should be available to the teacher for teaching the art of language. One of the most viable, versatile strategies involves teaching with music. The literature also advocates the development of a student's first language and culture as a means of encouraging enthusiastic participation and academic empowerment.
Musicians sometimes cringe when the value of the arts is justified by saying they support some other area. There is no doubt that music should be taught for its own sake. However, given children's natural abilities and interests in music, it also can be a natural springboard from which other areas may be pursued, that is, teaching classroom subjects with musical methods. Students fortunate to be in a school that provides special music instruction will also be likely to do better in many subjects. Researchers and practitioners find that students can adapt skills and attitudes from music and fine arts instruction to the benefit of other school subjects, especially the language arts. The study of music and the arts develops a part of the brain and the soul that contributes to the whole man. Classroom teachers can use musical methods to support virtually every content area in the curriculum (Howard, 1987).
This article is extracted from a volume with original songs of Dan Gómez and Roy Howard written especially for the purposes mentioned above (Ferrer, et al, 1993). The styles of composition and performance are intended to model those of Mexican and Mexican American music. Integrity in the styles of music and their performance are critical to accomplish the deeper objectives of the development of culture (Gonzo, 1993). While there is debate about what constitutes a multicultural education, the current article addresses the needs of those teachers who intend to promote first language and culture development as a key to success in the mainstream.
Teachers are encouraged to select music, art, drama, and all the arts and languages that may be accessible to them. Students should have the opportunity to learn with aesthetic approaches such as these, and with the most authentic cultural styles possible. The literature has many references that encourage the use of music, languages, and all the arts to support virtually every conceivable strand and objective in the curriculum and to expand each student's ability to appreciate the greater world.
RATIONALE FOR SPANISH IN SECOND LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Skills learned in one language form a foundational "common underlying proficiency" that enables students to be more successful in subsequent languages. Time spent in first language development for minority students serves to empower them academically and contributes to increased success in the school language. The integrated, interdisciplinary approach to education implied in this article is highly recommended for second language learners because it allows students to connect new knowledge to those constructs already established within them (Howard, 1988).
RATIONALE FOR MUSIC AND THE ARTS IN BILINGUAL EDUCATION
The United States is a culturally diverse nation, and its arts education should reflect our culturally diverse society. Children should be familiar with their own ethnic heritage and with the arts of the many ethnic groups represented in our culture. The teaching materials selected for use in the classroom should consistently and systematically include a balance of diverse periods, styles, forms and cultures. The visual and performing arts allow us insight into the thoughts and feelings of those who have preceded us, providing invaluable windows through which to understand the many cultures that have and do exist in our own nation and throughout the world." (MENC, 1993)
LANGUAGE ARTS
All knowledge about a piece (whether a song, a work of art, literature, or expository text) and its setting prepare a student to comprehend and appreciate it at deeper levels. All literacy is enhanced by attention to developing a schema that includes appropriate experiences, knowledge and attitudes. Each word and concept in a text carries for each person a unique semantic script based on personal experiential, cognitive, and affective components (Raskin, 1985). Each effort by the teacher to prepare students with the skills, knowledge and attitudes prerequisite to understanding, will be greatly rewarded by increased interest and comprehension by the students. Skills of listening and analyzing music do transfer to listening and analyzing literature and the other arts and sciences (Howard, 1987).
SPEAKING
Singing and discussing, the students practice the oral arts in a musical environment. Inviting the students to speak about common experiences is also the first step to a "language experience" approach to reading. Their language can also be put into a rhythmic setting that lend to choral speaking, rapping, or dramatic reading. Rhythmic, choral, and dramatic language can help produce results in oral language development. Language expression, language, styles of speaking, speaking for communication, speaking for enjoyment of listening:
discuss differences, plays and musicals, discuss affective aspects, stimulate speech, rhythm and speech, coordinate verbal and non-verbal aspects of communication, flexibility, fluency, sound poems, responsorial singing, creative songs, question and answer songs, dialogue songs, role playing, reading the lyrics, etc.
LISTENING
Listening to lyrics and the various aspects of the music and its performance, students practice the many skills of listening, including auditory perception (detect minor changes in volume and pitch of musical sounds or speech sounds), auditory discrimination (notice differences between musical sounds or between phonemes), auditory memory (recognize and recall musical notes/phrases or verbal phonemes/phoneme sequences such as rhyming words, alliteration, etc.), auditory association (of sounds to what produced them in music or sounds with letters in reading), auditory blending (sequences of notes create musical phrases, sequences of phonemes create words and sentences), listening for understanding and action, listening for critical analysis and discussion:
listen for main idea or detail, distinguish opera from operetta, listen for melody, rhythm, harmony, voices, instruments, read poems to musical background, play music to set mood, create imagery, listen for interpretation, high-low, same-different, fast-slow, up-down, etc.
WRITING
Whether writing music or writing about music, students will enjoy writing in the musical environment. Musical experiences promote eye-motor coordination, form constancy, figure ground:
write to or about musicians, write songs, change words or verses to songs, write stories about songs, write stories in response to music listening, write musical drama, TV shows, commercials, handwriting exercises related to music such as title or lyric copying, spelling, alphabet, etc.
READING
Much of the literature mentions the direct support that music gives to reading readiness and specific reading skills. Visual reception, eye coordination, left to right orientation, discrimination between graphemes, letter recognition, visual memory (recognize, recall, and produce graphemic sequences (sight words), association, sequence, building schema, vocabulary (recall meanng and function of words and morphemes), semantics, syntax (understand common sentence patterns, alterations and expansions), predicting, special uses of words, critical analysis, contextual analysis, styles of reading, pre-reading strategies:
bulletin board, newspaper reading, research in library, vocabulary in context, recall, effective vocabulary, songwriting to teach literature concepts, sing or listen to songs from the period or subject of the literature, etc.
THE ARTS
The Nature and Value of the Arts (MENC)
Although classroom teachers may promote language and content development with an aesthetic approach, the success of this method may be enhanced by giving attention regularly to specific arts instruction. Each skill developed in the arts will contribute to the total development of the student, and through transfer of skills, will also contribute to the other content areas.
DANCE
Music naturally supports dance. Students should be given the opportunity to dance to musics of many lands and times as well as be instructed in the styles of their own time:
creativity, movement, response, coordination, rhythm, balance, ballet, opera, musicals, eurythmics, pantomime, folk dance, modern dance, muscular control, mood interpretation, fast movement to drum patterns, etc.
ART
The infinite variety of art media and styles can support music, and music can support the learning of art concepts:
draw (or other media) to music, draw musician or composer being studied, make posters to announce events, create scrapbooks of experiences in the musical theme, etc.
MUSIC
Classroom teachers can conduct many activities in support of school music objectives. Remember, due to the transfer of skills, time spent in musical and other arts activities is time well spent in support of the entire curriculum:
play instruments, sing, guest artists, compose, clap rhythms, ethnic styles, listen, read and write musical notation, trace the contour of the melody, contour a melody for original lyrics, etc.
Creation and Performance
The songs in this volume are all original creations, designed around themes for special purposes, with styles of the culture being represented. For students to compose in a similar way is exciting and rewarding for them. To prepare them for creative experiences, they must listen to many songs in the target style, and be alert to the forms and mediums of performance. Students of all ages should have opportunities to perform various styles of music, and to create original expressions.

SCIENCES
Cultural and Historical Context
Participants in a musical or other artistic experience may intensify the aesthetic quality of the experience the more they know about it; therefore, the arts objectives are enhanced by knowledge of the sciences. The sciences may be enhanced by an aesthetic approach, as an alternative learning style. Just as the producers of training film in biology or history will enhance the presentation with stunning photographs and appropriate background music, the teacher may use various media to improve instruction. Singing may sometimes be just the right variation needed to improve a lesson, especially if the song covers the topic and is performed in the style most representative of the cultural and historical context of the concept being taught.
SOCIAL STUDIES
This is one of the largest categories. Music can support the many facets of social studies because it is the study of people and places and that is what music describes:
geography, sociology, public affairs, other languages, history analysis, opinion, culture style, songs about careers in general, music careers, economics, cultural atmosphere, political climate, contemporary issues, common themes, etc.
MATH
Musical rhymes and jingles can be used effectively as mnemonic devises for math facts. Math can be used to support music related projects such as instrument making. The literature supports music listening as a reward for completion of math or reading assignments. Music listening does not affect math performance whether done during lessons or tests:
jingles and rhymes, counting songs, contingent reward for completion, instrument making, etc.
SCIENCE
Music, its production, its instruments and voices can be studied from a scientific view. Much literature has appeared in the medical journals in the last few years about the physiology of musicians. Many songs and symphonies deal with plants, animals, geology, space and water:
weather, plants, animals, water, ecology, anatomy, physics, acoustics, communication, instrument manufacture, research techniques, instrument design (invite a piano tuner to take apart and explain the pianos), instrument care (including special chemicals), physiology of musicans, etc.
HEALTH
A great deal of the literature reports the therapeutic value of music and musical participation. Children should be trained to enjoy every aspect of music activity including appreciation as well as participation:
use of leisure, music appreciation, participate with others, exercise (dancing, marching, show choir), sense of community, sense of accomplishment, control emotions, express anxiety, sensitivity, drug education, disease control, hygiene, diet, appropriate recreation, etc.

Ferrer, Mariana Murguía; Dan Gómez; and Roy E. Howard. Language With Music: Teaching Classroom Subjects With Musical Methods. Silver City, NM: Cantos Para Todos. 1993.

Gonzo, Carroll. "Multicultural Issues in Music Education", Music Educators Journal, February, 1993, pp. 49-52.

Howard, Roy E. "A Creative Musical Approach to Teaching English as a Second Language ", Selective Proceedings of the 1986 Rocky Mountain Regional TESOL Conference. Albuquerque, New Mexico, May, 1987, pp. 54-63.

Howard, Roy E. "Broadening the Teacher's Perspective About Language and Culture", Journal of Educational Issues of Minority Language Students. Vol. 3, Fall 1988, pp. 21-25.

MENC. National Standards for Music Education (draft, Music Educators National Conference), "Soundpost", Vol. 9. No. 3, January 1993, pp. 20-29)

Raskin, Victor. "Jokes: A Linguist Explains His New Semantic Theory of Humor", Psychology Today. October, 1985, pp. 34-39.

Roy E. Howard, Ph.D.
Gallup Graduate Studies Center, Western New Mexico University
e-mail | Vita