Music plays an important role in learning a second language. Similar areas of the brain are activated when listening to or playing music and speaking or processing language. Language and music are both associated with emotions, the combination makes it a powerful way to learn a second language.
Why is music so helpful to learn a second language?
Songs are fun
We know that children, especially small children,
really like music. They relate to it as entertainment and find learning
vocabulary through songs amusing. Songs associated with hand and arm gestures
are even more powerful in engaging children.
Songs increase retention
Most of us are able to remember several children
songs we learned as kids. Music helps retain words and expressions much more
effectively. The rhythm of the music helps memorize, as well as the repetitive
patterns within the song.
Songs place vocabulary in context
A song is also a little story. Children learn new
words and expressions in the context of a story within the song. This will more
easily captivate the attention of kids learning a 2nd
language. Words make sense faster when you learn them in the context of the
lyrics in the song than when you learn them by themselves.
Here are 7 tips we used so far to help our
children Elena (7) and Pablo (4) learn languages with music, 10 minutes at a
time.
Tip #1: Sing while giving the bottle
With both Elena and Pablo, before they
turned 1, I used to give the last bottle of the day around 11pm. I made it a
habit to sing every time, both to relax them, get them to sleep, and have them hear
French songs.
Tip #2: Finish the bedtime story with a
song
For about a year, I used to sing the same
songs to Pablo in French at bedtime (“Un crocodile”, “Dans la maison un grand
cerf”, “Dans la foret lointaine”). He was under two years old and he knew the
lyrics by heart.
Tip #3: Play tag with a song
We like “Aline”, a French hit from the 60s
that has very clear lyrics. We would play “tag” with it: during the refrain,
the kids had to leave “base” and I would chase them in the living room. The
kids would ask to play the game almost every evening (and they knew the lyrics
really well!)
Tip #4: Role play with a song
There is a great Spanish song Cristina
used frequently with the kids: “Hola Don Pepito, hola Don Jose”. It is a short
dialogue between 2 characters, with simple lyrics. The music is engaging and
made both Elena and Pablo want to sing with Cristina back-and-forth, Cristina
and the kids taking turns and role playing one of the 2 characters.
Tip #5: Dance and learn
YouTube has great videos of songs where
you can dance. Elena and Pablo learned the alphabet in French with Chantal Goya’s
“L’Alphabet en chantant”. It is a fun song where you have to mimic the letters
with your hands and arms. They learned the alphabet in French much faster than
me trying to teach them.
Tip #6: Sing together in the car
Make a routine out of a specific car ride:
going to school, coming back from school, going to the park, getting
groceries,… You can listen to your favorite songs in the target language on one
of the car rides. This is why Elena and Pablo know the lyrics of “Les Champs
Elysees” from Joe Dassin by heart.
Tip #7: Family karaoke
We learn Chinese as a family. We love “Tian mi mi” of Teresa Teng. We found a YouTube video with Tian mi mi lyrics on
the bottom of the screen. Everyone in the family can sing the song now. Singing
it in our Chinese neighborhood restaurant even got us free desserts.
If you have a way to use music to teach your kids a
second language, please share your comment below.
We shared this post originally in Multilingual Living under the title : "Music to help children learn a new language: 10 minutes at a time".
