Rachel Barker
Professor Cook
English 1103
November 1, 2013
Literacy and Culture: Music
I remember when I was in about fourth grade and I had just gotten my first laptop.
One of the features that came on the laptop was a program called World Book, and when
it would first open it would play music from various cultures all over the world. It was in
Spanish class one day when I discovered the strange music, and I was so interested with
it that I immediately showed all my friends. Before long, the teacher had to stop teaching
because nobody was focusing anymore; they were all listening to the “weird African
music”. Thankfully I didn’t get n trouble for starting the newest distraction, but I started
to wonder if music was so different from here to Africa, I wonder how it changes
throughout other cultures around the world. It wasn’t until many years later, when I met a
guy from England that I discovered that some music is known all over, and used as
literacy.
“Turn it up a little bit” Daniel my British friend said. We were in the car driving
to the beach together, and the radio was playing. “How do you know this song?” I asked,
“What do you mean how do I know this song, its huge in England!” He replied. I was
confused as to how he seemed to know every song that had been playing in the car so far.
It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks, what if, music from the U.S. is known all over the
world? I know that it is popular in English speaking countries, but what about other
places?
I had those questions in my head as I travelled to Belize over the summer, and I
heard the girls at the orphanage singing traditional Christian hymns that my mom likes to
sing. Those were obviously English songs, and although English is the second national
language of Belize, almost everybody spoke Spanish, so we sometimes had to resort to
using singing those songs as a way to connect with the girls.
Another thing that amazed me about the orphan girls in Belize, was a song they
sang by Celine Dion titled, “My Heart Will Go On” from the major motion picture
Titanic. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t think it was so strange that they were singing it, but they
had translated it into Spanish in a notebook and they taught it to all of us volunteers. It
was amazing to see them take music from our culture and adapt it to theirs, so when I left
Belize, I was showing off to all of my family that I knew that song in Spanish.
Recently I was in the car with a friend who is of Indian descent, and he played a
song for me. I knew it immediately and started to sing along, and out of nowhere the beat
changed and they started speaking another language. I asked him if they were speaking
Hindi, and he said yes. I actually liked how they took a popular American song, and
turned it into a “Hindi” remix. It was something new I had never heard before, but it
opened my eyes to new possibilities.
The same way people learn about music from other cultures all over the world, is
helping children’s minds grow in the classroom. In a recent article called “Author’s
Camp: Facilitating Literacy Learning by Music”, Debra Pane and Angela Salmon discuss
the importance of children being literate through music education with an experiment
conducted. “Music is inherent to human beings and the first intelligence that a human
develops (Gardner, 1982) (Pane, Salmon, 2011)” This shows that music is the earliest
form of literacy for humans, so it is almost automatically programed into them to
understand and interpret. They found that using music on students while learning resulted
in “enhanced equitability, heightened creativity, increased learning, and prolonged
engagement in the literacy learning environment. (Pane, Salmon, 2011)”
Going along with the previous article, “Read with a Beat: Developing Literacy
Through Music and Song” by Gayla R. Kolb is an article discussing how music
influences a child’s learning by relating to their likes. “Children especially, are captivated
by the music in their environment. (Kolb, 1996)” She is trying to say that children are
easily influenced by music, so it is easy to use it as a teaching tool. She also goes on to
say, “Through music, children experience a wholeness of language. (Kolb, 1996)” Which
is even more evidence that a form of language/literacy used all over the world in different
cultures and languages is music.
I found an article from the University of Ottawa in Canada that talks about the
same kind of things going on in Canada. Teacher and Professors are doing studies and
determining that incorporating music literacy into an educational setting increases
learning. It states, “From the time they enter pre-school, all children have musical
knowledge- they have preferences of certain kinds of music, some songs that they can
sing, and a basic understanding of rhythm and melody. (Bolduc, Fleuret, 2009)” When
you think about your upbringing and what types of music your family had in the house,
this is true, but it also varies on the area and culture you were raised in. In the program,
with a group of five year olds, they conducted a 15-week experiment using music to help
encourage literacy, and at the end of it they found that that children’s reading and writing
skills were greatly developed. This shows how in different cultures they are also having
the same thoughts on local music influencing learning that we are here in America.
In an article published in 1993 titled, “Music as Means to Enhance Cultural
Awareness in the Foreign Language Classroom” by Judith Failoni, it is discussed how
bringing the cultural music of the language being learned into a classroom greatly
increases students’ ability to learn that language. She says, “Since music does not exist in
a vacuum, it provides an interesting mirror of the history, literature and culture of a
country. (Failoni, 1993)” and later talks about how the American youth are interested in
music, so if a teacher can harness that interest, they will unlock the doors to many
students’ learning. She also says that listening comprehension and pronunciation skills
are enhanced from listening to the cultural music.
Citations
Pane, Debra, and Angela Salmon. "Author's Camp: Facilitating Literacy Learning
Through Music." Journal of Reading Education 36.2 (2011): 36-41. J. Murrey
Atkins Library. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.
Kolb, Gayla R. "Read with a Beat: Developing Literacy through Music and Song." The
Reading Teacher Sept. 1996: 76-77. J. Murrey Atkins Library. Web. 31 Oct.
2013.
Bolduc, Jonathan, and Carole Fleuret. "Placing Music at the Centre of Literacy
Instruction." The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat (2009): 1-4. National
Education in Canada, May 2009. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.
Failoni, Judith W. "Music as Means to Enhance Cultural Awareness in the Foreign
Language Classroom." Mid-Atlantic Journal of Foreign Language Pedagogy 1
(1993): 98-104. ERIC. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.