Université d’Ottawa - Faculté d’éducation

From Ears to Mouth:

Music and the Development of French Language

Jasmin Meere & Julie-Line Puckering

PED 3151 - Enacting Collaborative Inquiry in Professional Practice
Tracey Crow & Louise Hall
February 27 2020
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3151 - Action Research Project

Our question for this research project was: can music be used as a tool to help students

develop their L2? This research was done in two early french immersion classes. The L1 for

many of the students in these classes was English. The research was conducted by playing a song

every morning and every afternoon. Students would be allowed to sing, dance or actively listen

to the songs. Ideally, students would be able to pick up keywords that would be used in their

development of the french language. This research project started in the beginning of October,

and continued until the end of January. Due to strikes, there is some data that was missing,

however we discovered that the majority of students would utilize words that they heard in the

songs that were played. We believe that music can be a powerful tool for educators when it

comes to developing childrens’ L2.

Over the course of 5 months, we have observed five consistencies involving the use of

music in our practicum. The first general observation that we made was that students would

humm the melodies of songs that they learned during lessons and assessments to remind

themselves of key words. This was particularly evident during a health assessment,when students

were asked to label body body parts on a figure. As we walked around the class, we could hear

students humm the song “​Les os, it en faut!​”, which they had learned earlier in the weke. They

would also humm “​Tête, épaule, genoux et pieds”​ , which is a movement song that kids enjoyed

dancing to during DPA. This ties into the observation that students were more inclined to use

words that they learned through song, rather than during lessons where music wasn’t involved.
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Since they enjoyed singing, students were more inclined to repeat, and then apply words that

they learned.

A third observation we had was that students with different learning styles and learning

levels participated during the morning singing time. Not every student would participate every

day, but even those who did not sing along were involved in active listening, which in turn,

meant picking up key words. Between our two classes, there were only three students who did

not pick up vocabulary through song. Two of these students are ELL. Although they understood

what was happening due to the images on the screen, they were not able to orally use the key

words in context. However, when asked to match images to key words,they demonstrated a clear

understanding. The other student who was not able to understand key words and concepts had

many difficulties with literacy, and needs a lot of support.

The fourth observation that we made was that students had a better understanding of

words when songs were accompanied by actions. One of the most popular songs “​La danse des

Pingouins'​ ' involved following along to a dance, while naming movements that the students

were doing i.e. ​toucher les pieds, saute and ​tourner en rond​. Students were able to identify and

use the movement words during physical education, as well as during french lessons. This was

also true of another song “​Jouez au hockey​”, where children did movements to a song that was

about hockey. This turned out to be one of the favourite songs, as many students were able to

relate to the key words, since they played or watched hockey as well.
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The final observation was that students enjoyed doing work when they were listening to

music. It didn’t have to be a well known song, or a song with lyrics. Playing instrumental

versions of Disney songs helped keep students motivated to work, as they enjoyed listening to

the music. Nature sounds, such as waterfalls, wind blowing through trees and fireplaces also

worked for background sounds. We believe that the students enjoyed listening to nature sounds

because they are calming, as well as reminding them of activities that they had done. For

example, when listening to the fireplace, one student thought that they were listening to popcorn

popping. They told us a story about when they went to the movies with their family, and they say

the popcorn machine that was making fresh snacks. The student told us that they were looking

forward to seeing a new movie that was coming out that weekend. It was really interesting for us

to see what they students associated each sound or song with.

In order to enhance professional practice, we can combine the use of music with other

subjects. We did combine music with health and science, when we were learning about the body

parts. These lessons were combined with assessments and activities that were related to the

health and science curriculums. Students demonstrated a better understanding of concepts when

they sang or danced along with the songs that used applicable vocabulary. If we had the time, we

could have seen if we would be able to obtain the same results with other subjects, such as visual

arts and social studies. Many of the songs that we chose were fun, catchy songs that used

vocabulary that was often heard during French lessons, such as songs about hockey, greetings

animals and numbers. It would be a good idea to see if we would be able to discover songs that

can be intertwined with more specific topics.

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3151 - Action Research Project

The biggest gap in this research was the grade limit. This research was only done in grade

1 classes, however, it could be done across all primary and junior grades. This would have been

an interesting research topic to be done with a middle french immersion class, as they are also

starting an almost a full-time French program. We think that, had this research been done with

older children, it would have produced similar results. The resources that we would have used

would be different, as we would have used songs that were more appealing to older students. We

could also incorporate this research in the music curriculum, and ask older students to come up

with their own songs, based on given topics. This would help teachers assess french language, as

well as musicability.

Another gap that we could have looked more into was songs to support ELL students. As

we were both in early french immersion classes, we chose songs that were simple to repeat and

sing along to. However, the ELL students did not sing along to the words. Both students were

still struggling with English vocabulary, and too shy or not confident enough to sing along. As

mentioned above, it was clear that these students still had a good comprehension of the words,

however, they did not speak those words without prompting. We feel that this research should be

done in a school where English is not the primary language spoken (such as an embassy school),

to see if similar results would be produced.

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Resources

Evaluation of An Early Intervention Music Curriculum for Enhancing

Prereading/Writing Skills ​Jayne M. Standley, Jane E. Hughes, Music Therapy Perspectives,
Volume 15, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 79–86

Does Music Instruction Help a Child Learn to Read?​ Robert A. Cutietta, The Data Bank

Implementation of Music Activities to Increase Language Skills in the At-Risk Early

Childhood Population,​ Seeman, Elissa, 2008

Music in the Language Classroom​, G. Bartle, 2018

Using music to accelerate language learning: an experimental study​, Robert Legg

Oxford, Brookes University

Comparing the rhythm and melody of speech and music: The case of British English and
​ he Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 119, 3034 (2006)
French, T