Learning a second language through singing
By Sunny McKinnon
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE
Learning a foreign language, so say the experts, can help protect the brain against the troubles of growing older.
However, for all its benefits, learning a foreign language takes time and effort. Lots of homework and tests. Studying vocabulary and conjugating verbs and learning tenses. Too much work and not enough fun.
But what if you could learn a language through music? It would certainly be easier. And more fun. And, according to Eagle’s Trace resident and longtime language teacher Renate Donovan, the learning would stay with you.
“In our years of teaching languages to children, my daughter and partner Patti Lozano and I discovered that in our lessons, when we included music, that was what would remain with the children. The songs stuck,” says Donovan. “And with adults, it works the same way. Singing the melody and the words fixes the language in your mind.”
A polyglot in the house
Born in Vienna, Austria, Donovan’s first language was German. Her second, learned during the two-and-a-half years she lived in Brazil, was Portuguese. When she moved to the United States, she learned English and began taking Spanish, ultimately earning university degrees in both Spanish and German.
The idea to teach language through music started with Donovan and Lozano’s classroom experiences. Donovan was coordinator of foreign languages for Spring Branch Independent School District, and Lozano was the district’s instructional television teacher for elementary students.
“There were not sufficient funds for a live language instructor for the children in elementary schools in Spring Branch, so together we developed a video program to teach them Spanish,” Donovan says. “We incorporated songs into the curriculum, and when we tested the children at the end of the year, they remembered the songs, both the melodies and the lyrics.”