Using Music to Accelerate Language Learning: An Experimental Study

Even before the fl urry of interest in studies investigating the ‘Mozart Effect’ (Rauscher et al., 1993 & 1995), a signifi cant amount research in arts education has focused on the possibility that music, and the study of music, can positively infl uence children’s overall academic achievement. In the last decade or so, academics have analysed and augmented the body of literature on this subject, and journalists have reported these fi ndings, often less than accurately, to an eager public. The notion that engagement with music is ‘improving’, even magically so, has entered the popular consciousness, and claims such as ‘Music lessons help children climb the intelligence scale’ (Miller, 2004) abound amongst newspaper headlines. To some observers of this phenomenon, the proposition that music has practical uses outside its own curriculum is highly appealing (Cutietta, 1995). To others, the mere construction of extrinsic arguments in favour of teaching arts subjects represents an admission of defeat, and perhaps even a contributory factor in the marginalisation of these art forms themselves (Gingell, 2000). The truth, of course, is that despite the growing mass of research evidence in the fi eld, many of the questions concerning the relationship between music and general academic progress are still hotly debated. This empirical study attempts to address one of these questions: it asks whether music, employed as a teaching tool in the modern foreign languages (MFL) classroom, can help to accelerate pupils’ language learning. Specifi cally, it sets out to test the hypothesis that learning words and phrases through the medium of song will improve teenage pupils’ ability to memorise and understand key vocabulary items in French.