World Language: A Journey through Music and Movement
The greatest experiences come from a single spark, an idea caught by the right person in the right moment; a flick of an impulse that arises to find some human hands to carry it into fruition. This is just how our “world music and language” class arose at Otto Specht School this past year. Our magical music teacher speaks French, several teachers speak Spanish, and we have a few German speakers on our faculty, so we were well equipped to offer a different multilingual experience each trimester, deepening our schoolwide commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and inviting students to greater cultural understanding and compassion. And of course our students- singers, songwriters, instrumentalists, and performers- were eager for more time to sing, dance, and delight in new sounds and language, while expressing their own musical talents and gifts.
Learning a second language can often be a struggle for neurodivergent students, especially in traditional settings, because of the five cognitive processes needed. When engaging with a second language, students need to access phonological processing/differentiation, working memory, attention/engagement, social analysis, and affect. These can seem like barriers in many educational settings, but we have flexible and innovative teachers who dance daily between form and freedom to meet the students and offer meaningful experiences that kindle an intrinsic love of learning. We thought - how better to access and develop these important skills than through a world language music class with passionate and responsive teachers!
We decided to frame the class around movement and music, immersing the children in singing, playing instruments, dancing, games, stories, and visual art. We began our first trimester with French. Students sat together on the carpet awaiting the teacher who entered strumming his guitar and singing a bright “bonjour.” He joined us on the floor to sing a good-morning song in French, which the students quickly picked up and eagerly joined in on. We then all stood up to put our song into movement, and the students delighted in making up their own gestures or filling in key words the teachers would leave out. Wholly unaware of their auditory processing and discernment skills, their vocabulary development, their listening and pronunciation practice, we sang and moved together, awash in the new sounds and loving relationships with friends and teachers. We then began learning a dance together, as a group or in partnerships, and the students twirled, hopped, and laughed together, singing the new words.
Through dance and movement games, students learned sequencing and multi-step processes, and developed their capacities for attention and engagement. They navigated social analysis while skipping through a tunnel of their peers or chasing a friend around the circle trying to tag them before they got ‘home’. We played “I spy,” hide and seek, and memory matching cards. The students picked up meaning despite the words being in a new language. They drew beautiful pictures of things that were ‘Bleu’ or acted out ‘animales grandes/pequeños’ for their classmates to guess. The students began seeing patterns and relationships within the language and between English and new language words. And after months of these sessions together, it was so special to hear them telling their schoolmates, other teachers, or parents “Well, I speak a little Spanish!” or "French is my favorite language!”
After all our good work, this dynamic journey of sound, speech, and play, we would get to the best part of class - our free jam improv band. Each student chose an instrument- the wooden xylophone, congas or bongos, maracas, tambourines, or shaker egg. Some days, we added a Djembe or ukulele, a recorder or castanets, and usually our singers would grab the chalkboard eraser or a water bottle to use as a personal microphone. Our expert music teacher and band leader started strumming some chords and rhythms on the guitar, students and teachers joined in with their instruments, and someone would stand up to start singing a song that flowed from the depths of their soul or the twinkle of the stars above. Lyrics like ‘what’s in your heart, won’t you tell me?’ ‘In the magical forest, I will help you’ ‘What will you be? You can just be you, I can just be me!’ - beautiful, powerful songs emerged, words flowed, and community was formed. We shared a sense of belonging, purpose, and a feeling that the world is a good place to be because we’re all in it together.
After each artist got their fill of sharing, we closed with a goodbye song in the new language and sang our teacher out the door with smiles on our faces, warmth in our hearts, and a resounding ‘see you next time, next time, next time.’