Abstract:The term social circus refers to pedagogical circus activities that are used to foster collaboration and interaction between the participants. This paper is based on a research project that aimed to analyze how the embodied nature of social circus activities is related to second language use and learning. The participants are adult second language speakers of Finnish with emerging literacy, and the data has been gathered with the methods of video-ethnography and analyzed using multimodal conversation analysis … Show more
“…In addition, diverse contemporary initiatives from international workshops, such as Choir improvisation, “Singen ohne Noten” (Singing without sheet music), and Global Choir Leadership, have influenced the planning. Earlier research on phonetics and Finnish as a second language have contributed to the linguistic orientation focusing on pronunciation and phonetic aspects (Aho et al, 2016; Virkkunen & Toivola, 2020); the courage to use the language (Mustonen, 2015; Tammelin-Laine, 2014); and spoken language (e.g., Lehtonen, 2015; Ruuska, 2020) through embodied approaches (e.g., Eilola, 2020; Lilja et al, 2020). Furthermore, studies in linguistics that discuss the benefits of visual facilitation for second language learning (e.g., Gaboury & Lessard, 2020; Smotrova, 2017) and the contributions of active language use in language ownership (Lehtonen, 2015; Ruuska, 2020) have served as references for the language approach.…”
The topic of language awareness in intercultural music education has received surprisingly little attention in discussions on meaningful and responsive musical practices, despite language being an ubiquitous issue that every music educator encounters when entering a multilingual learning environment. This study explores a language-aware perspective that is embedded in a dynamic and dialogical choir practice drawing on the direct social needs of adult choir participants with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The analysis sets the practitioner experiences, planning, and implementation of the choir practice against the theorisation of activity systems and the concepts of boundary object and boundary crossing, in particular. The theoretical exploration considers how a dual meaning choir practice (a) integrates musical and linguistic activity, (b) crosses boundaries between the disciplines of music and language education, and (c) justifies change in music educational thinking. The study suggests that a dual meaning choir practice provides meaningful musical activity for adult immigrants, expanding the understanding of musical practice and the profession of music educator by blurring the dichotomous thinking of music and music education as being either instrumentalized or existing only for purely musical purposes. The study further advocates that a hybrid musical practice can widen professional understanding with novel insights, out-of-the-box perspectives, and new opportunities.
“…In addition, diverse contemporary initiatives from international workshops, such as Choir improvisation, “Singen ohne Noten” (Singing without sheet music), and Global Choir Leadership, have influenced the planning. Earlier research on phonetics and Finnish as a second language have contributed to the linguistic orientation focusing on pronunciation and phonetic aspects (Aho et al, 2016; Virkkunen & Toivola, 2020); the courage to use the language (Mustonen, 2015; Tammelin-Laine, 2014); and spoken language (e.g., Lehtonen, 2015; Ruuska, 2020) through embodied approaches (e.g., Eilola, 2020; Lilja et al, 2020). Furthermore, studies in linguistics that discuss the benefits of visual facilitation for second language learning (e.g., Gaboury & Lessard, 2020; Smotrova, 2017) and the contributions of active language use in language ownership (Lehtonen, 2015; Ruuska, 2020) have served as references for the language approach.…”
The topic of language awareness in intercultural music education has received surprisingly little attention in discussions on meaningful and responsive musical practices, despite language being an ubiquitous issue that every music educator encounters when entering a multilingual learning environment. This study explores a language-aware perspective that is embedded in a dynamic and dialogical choir practice drawing on the direct social needs of adult choir participants with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The analysis sets the practitioner experiences, planning, and implementation of the choir practice against the theorisation of activity systems and the concepts of boundary object and boundary crossing, in particular. The theoretical exploration considers how a dual meaning choir practice (a) integrates musical and linguistic activity, (b) crosses boundaries between the disciplines of music and language education, and (c) justifies change in music educational thinking. The study suggests that a dual meaning choir practice provides meaningful musical activity for adult immigrants, expanding the understanding of musical practice and the profession of music educator by blurring the dichotomous thinking of music and music education as being either instrumentalized or existing only for purely musical purposes. The study further advocates that a hybrid musical practice can widen professional understanding with novel insights, out-of-the-box perspectives, and new opportunities.
Language and music are closely tied in singing. It has even been argued that without language there is no song. However, can music and language learning through singing also be seen as being closely tied without first highlighting the boundaries between these disciplines? This study emphasizes a nonhierarchical approach to music and language learning by intertwining musical and linguistic activities in a choir context. The study explores the extent to which singing in a language-responsive choir can encourage productive second language use and enhance the sound hearing, phonological processing, pronunciation, and spoken language skills of adult choir participants with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The research material consists of individual pre-, middle-, and post-interviews and Phonology pre- and post-tests that were conducted with volunteer choir participants during 2019–2020. The analysis encompasses both thematic and statistical approaches. The findings are reflected through a hybrid choir practice that draws on a three-way dialogue between choir participants, the choir conductor, and the second language teacher. The results suggest that active and holistic second language use in a language-aware choir context decreases phonological challenges in second language auditory processing and verbal production, including spoken language. The findings of the interviews and the Phonology tests were in line with each other.
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