The Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Benefits of Childhood Creative Dance for Spanish

Speaking Immigrants in the United States

Riley Lathrop

Dr. Donna A. Dragon, Instructor

Creative Dance for the Child

March 27th, 2018

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Dance education should be an integral piece in every child’s development. One group of children

who could benefit from creative dance are Spanish speaking immigrants in the United States; the social,

emotional, and cognitive needs of children who are Spanish speaking immigrants tend to not be met.

Although immigration has been ubiquitous through anthropological history, the fierce controversy in the

United States’s current media and conversation places my views passionately towards helping the

valuable children with brimming, yet often unnourished, imaginations. I am drawn to empowering

people who are discriminated against, for no conceivable reason, by others. Verbal language persistently

divides the world into subgroups. This research is vital to the Spanish speaking immigrant population

because the issues they face need to be met and cared for. The experiences of creative dance in a public

school for Spanish speaking immigrant children with limited English proficiency will benefit their

social, emotional, and cognitive well being. Questions that are central in proving this claim include: how

can creative dance in a public school setting benefit Spanish speaking immigrants socially, emotionally,

and cognitively? and, what are the social, emotional, and cognitive challenges facing immigrant children

in public schools?

The sources included in this bibliography include the article entitled “Boosting Language Skills of

English Language Learners through Dramatization and Movement” by Christa Greenfader 2013, “Effect

of a Performing Arts Program on the Oral Language Skills of Young English Learners” by Christa

Mulker Greenfader, Liane Brouillette, and George Farkas 2015, A book called Immigration and mental

health : stress, psychiatric disorders, and suicidal behavior among immigrants and refugees by Leo

Sher and Alexander Vilens 2010, “The Dynamic Interface Between Neuromaturation, Risky Behavior,

Creative Dance Movement, and Youth Development Programming.” by Leon Rodgers and Charne

Frucron 2016, and “A Nonverbal Language for Imagining and Learning: Dance Education in K-12

Curriculum” by Judith Lynne Hanna 2008. All of these sources were found using the Maxwell library
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database at Bridgewater State University. Keywords that were used to find these sources included

“dance,” “immigration,” “ELL,” “ESL,” “Hispanic,” “children,” and “mental health.”

The 2015 Greenfader source will help me prove that a creative movement program in a public school

enhances cognition and memory in order to help the students learn English, and explain the zone of

proximal development through the social nature of creative dance classes. The 2013 Greenfader piece

contributes the importance of creative dance as a means to reduce depression through connecting

students with their own culture, since many of their other experiences are isolating them. The source by

Hanna highlights the nonverbality of creative dance and how this plunges into the multiple intelligences

in a way exclusively linguistic learning can not. Rodgers et al. will provide me a bridge between the

challenges of risky behavior Hispanic immigrants face and the outlet creative dance can provide as a

place to learn about energy channeling in order to minimize risky behavior. The Sher et al. book

provides information on the self identity loss, anxiety, depression, and post traumatic stress disorder

specific to Hispanic immigrant children, and the needs such as peer support and problem solving skills

which creative dance can provide.

After researching and analyzing, I have found that the cognition aspect will be the most significant

portion of my paper. The learning of English was a pervasive thread among the goals of each piece.

Creative dance is generally not a field directly researched and related to immigrants. Dance has, in

research, been related to learning a second language; however, the specific trauma, isolation, and

development of Hispanic child immigrants in the United States I could not find in direct relation to

creative dance. This makes me feel even more passionate about the importance of this research. There is

also more information on adult immigrants and children of immigrants rather than actual children who

have immigrated to the United States in their own lifetimes. This sparks my interest in using current

news and the educational situations of immigrants to connect with my creative dance research.
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In future research, I would use the benefits found in this research to construct details of a creative

dance class for Spanish speaking immigrants. Missing from research is data from 2018 on the situation

Hispanic immigrants are placed in elementary schools in the United States. While I will be able to

explain the benefits of creative dance, the details of current elementary school systems will be missing. I

believe my five sources in this annotated bibliography combine like a puzzle and work together

cohesively to build a case for creative dance in the public school education of Spanish speaking

immigrants in the United States.

This annotated bibliography would be valuable to parents of Spanish speaking immigrant children,

school administrators and educators, and ESL program coordinators. This type of complex,

advantageous literature is not often disseminated through the population that the research would actually

benefit. I feel there is often an absence of widespread information on alternative learning methods

tailored towards a specific group. The programs I read about that tested teaching students who speak

English as their second language through dance were small scaled, and remained within a region of

California. It is important for public school administrators to acknowledge, understand, and appreciate

this research since public schools are where the majority of Hispanic immigrants will be in their

education. Using creative movement class in a public elementary school as a way to teach Spanish

speaking immigrants can not only benefit the children socially, emotionally, and cognitively, but be a

vehicle to dwindle discrimination and build relationships between groups of people who are repeatedly

divided.
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Greenfader, Christa Mulker and Brouillette, Liane and Farkas, George. “Effect of a Performing
Arts Program on the Oral Language Skills of Young English Learners.” Reading
Research Quarterly. Volume 50, Issue 2, April-June 2015, pp 185-203.

“Dramatization provides a tangible context for decontextualized language” (Greenfader et al. 2014, 188)

In this article, Greenfader et al. provides information on the effects a performing arts program has on
the oral skills of English language learners. The use of gesture, expression, and movement in
combination with language create the cognitive learning theory that says multisensory events offer
multiple modalities for the storage and retrieval of information (Greenfader et al. 2014, 186). Language
is acquired best when the student explains the meaning with movement, rather than with simply more
words. Movement and expression provide a way for students to use their own experience and emotions
to grasp the meaning of a word, rather than attempting to memorize it without context. Grounded
cognition theory sees semantic memory as connected to perception and action (Greenfader et al. 2014,
188). The authors also mention how increased cognition will build emotional confidence and increase
social skills of English language learners. The social nature of a movement class improves cognition by
nurturing the zone of proximal development, because it bridges the gap between developmental level
when working independently, and the developmental level when working with peers (Greenfader et al.
2014, 190). The article’s point is to provide evidence that a performing arts program can enhance the
English language skills of English language learners, but also provide alternative perspectives to this
argument.

The authors present this as an informational research paper, citing outside sources. This source
shows bias in that the authors display more information on the benefits of a performing arts program
over the cons, but it could also mean there is more evidence towards the argument of a benefit the
program brings. The authors do reveal some information that does not support the argument that a
performing arts program would benefit ELL students. The authors do still assume that arts integration
will be effective for all learners, through the Teaching Artist Project. This article is reliable because it is
peer reviewed and published by the Reading Research Quarterly. Christa Greenfader has her Ph. D in
educational policy and social context and works with the University of California Irvine (Greenfader
2014).

This source offers statistics to prove the effectiveness a performing arts program has on the
comprehension of the English language; this source directly relates to the cognitive element to my
argument. This source also describes why the social aspect of a dance or movement arts class is vital to
the success of students. This in turn supports the social benefits of creative dance. This source, unlike
my other sources, provides alternative views. It touches on the idea some people have that language is
solely a mental construct and not a social construct. These counter arguments will help guide my
argument. The science used in combination with examples of class lessons confirms my belief in
creative dance’s ability to boost the cognitive abilities of English language learners. After reading
specific numbers such as increased English reading test scores after an arts program was implemented, it
makes me wonder more about the emotional benefits of creative dance. Does an improved cognition
always correlate with or cause an emotional benefit? I also question how willing public schools currently
are to integrate arts.
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Greenfader, Mulker Christa and Brouillette, Liane. “Boosting Language Skills of English
Language Learners through Dramatization and Movement.” The Reading Teacher
Journal, Volume 62, Issue 3, 2013.

“By imaginatively touching, seeing, and experiencing the significance of the

words in the text, children inject themselves into the situation described by the
author and grasp the meaning of events in human terms. This allows each child to
go beyond the limitations of his or her English language vocabulary and engage
with literature on the child’s actual developmental level” (Greenfader et al. 2013,
179).

Greenfader and Brouillette’s main argument is that incorporating dramatization and movement into
classroom curriculums will improve the comprehensive language abilities of English Language
Learners. This article provides information on the weaknesses of traditional teaching approaches many
schools hold on to. Dance and drama tap into the multiple intelligences, thus using various approaches to
aid the cognition of verbal language. Through dance, students comprehend language easier since they
are embodying the words. Dramatization helps students place their own experiences, culture, and
understanding into the story, which helps students connect with material and comprehend easier. The
bodily kinesthetic element is what transfers knowledge from short to long term memory. The Teaching
Artist Project (TAP) is an arts and literacy program that combines English language development
concepts with drama and dance (Greenfader et al. 2013, 173). The point of this article is to prove why
when this dance program was implemented into California schools, the students showed higher English
proficiency from Hispanic students compared with students who were not given this dance program.

Greenfader and Brouillette’s goal is to explain the Teaching Artist Project and provide examples of
lessons, as well as statistics that prove its effectiveness. The authors assumes that dance and
dramatization will aid in the cognitive processes of all students, especially English Language Learners.
Greenfader and Brouillette want parents and educators to read this article and take action towards TAP
programs in schools. She wants more teachers to foster the language development of students through art
activities. Greenfader is a doctoral student in educational policy and social context in the School of
Education at the University of Irvine, California. Brouillette is an associate professor in the School of
Education and co director of the Center for Learning in the Arts, Sciences, and Sustainability at the
University of Irvine (Greenfader et al. 2013).

This source provides a specific example of a dance arts program that was effective in improving the
cognitive abilities of English Language Learner students. This source gives example lessons that were
used to help ESL students aged k-2 learn English through dance and dramatizations. This source also
provides statistics on how effective the lessons were when the students were assessed in comparison to
students who did not receive the TAP lessons. This source focuses on the cognitive element of my
argument. This source lacks sufficient information on the social and emotional benefits. This source
makes me think, how does the English language improvement that occurs from using the TAP program
possibly improve the social and emotional well being of students? The authors discuss strategies such as
embodying words and creating sounds with the body to tell a story. I am wondering what other strategies
are effective when learning language in children ages k-2?
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Hanna, Lynne Judith. “A Nonverbal Language for Imagining and Learning: Dance Education in
K-12 Curriculum.” Educational Researcher. Volume 37, Issue 8, November 2008, Pp
491-506.

“The verbal realm of the mind takes pride of place in schooling, and nonverbal cognition has been
overlooked” (Hanna 2008, 491).

This article argues that children learn by doing, and nonverbal communication is just as important if
not more important than verbal communication when learning. Nonverbal communication through dance
dives deeper into the student’s development and provides opportunity for a higher developmental level
to be shown beyond what verbal communication alone can. Hanna explains why dance improves
cognition and emotional channeling by discussing brain science and development. Dance improves
emotional channeling and well being because the multisensory awareness brings access to different
kinds of emotional expression and the connections dancers can make with their own culture eliminates
feelings of isolation (Hanna 2008, 492). This article also touches on the cognitive benefits of dance as it
explains the areas of the brain that control gesture develop together with the areas that control speech,
thus dance can help students learn a second language such as English. Solutions to problems take many
forms. Dance provides students the opportunity to solve problems beyond verbal solutions.

Hanna believes that dance education will benefit all because of its nonverbal nature. She values
dance and uses the science of the brain to argue the emotional and cognitive benefits of dance. Hanna
sees acting and moving as necessary to use as a supplement for verbal learning. This article was
published by the Educational Researcher through the American Educational Research Association.
Judith Hanna has her PhD in Anthropology from Columbia University and has contributed significant
research to the fields of dance and sociology (Hanna 2008). This source is peer reviewed as well as the
sources listed in Hanna’s references.

This source provides advocacy for the importance of nonverbal communication through dance while
other sources give significant time to explaining how dance can help students learn a verbal language. I
think the nonverbal aspect to dance is important since it spreads beyond just linguistic intelligence and
can enter the realm of visual spatial and bodily kinesthetic intelligence. While other sources use the eight
intelligences as the means to reach the goal of verbal language, Hanna sees learning using the eight
intelligences as the goal. This makes me wonder how the developmental level of nonverbal
communication is measured. In public schools, testing is done almost solely linguistically. Intelligence
testing is done in a sedentary manner with pen and paper. There are clear right and wrong answers
measured through words. What strategies would a public school use to measure students’ developmental
levels non linguistically?
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Rodgers, Leon and Frucron, Charne. “The Dynamic Interface Between Neuromaturation, Risky
Behavior, Creative Dance Movement, and Youth Development Programming.” American Journal of
Dance Therapy. Volume 38, Issue 1, June 2016, pp 3-20.

“Movement oriented introspection expands students’ expressive repertoire by

constructing a visual representation of feelings and beliefs. This, in turn, allows
students to rectify emotionally toxic beliefs, redefine negative internal and
external stimuli, reexamine transitional object relationships, and mitigate the
deleterious effect ego defenses can have on psychological and social
development” (Rogers et al. 2016, 9).

This source provides connections between risky behavior and dance movement, and uses an
experiment to prove that a dance program has the ability to help young people avoid risky behavior. The
explanation of the specific program focuses on the emotional and social benefits dance brings. The
authors use scientific reasoning regarding the brain and its functions to explain the effects risky behavior
has on neuromaturation, or the development of the brain. This article uses the term kinesics, which
means the way movement serves as nonverbal communication to explain the importance of dance at the
developmentally early years of life (Rodgers 2016, 7). The program explained called “Moving in the
Spirit” is based on creative self expression theory and social learning theory. This article recognizes
suppressed material as a cause of psychological distress.

The goal of this piece is to prove that dance has the ability to mitigate risky behavior. The authors
are trying to prove that dance is beneficial to the development of a healthy young mind, especially one
that may use aggression or risky behavior as a current outlet of expression. The authors believe that
kinesthetic expression can be an outlet that replaces risky behavior like drug use and aggression. The
American Dance Therapy Association published this source, and it is peer reviewed along with the
references in this source’s bibliography (Rodgers et al. 2016, 3).

This source gives me a connection between immigrants and dance in that the risky behavior of
immigrants described in the book by Sher and Vilens is also described in this source, but with
nonspecific groups of people. The importance of emotional regulation is emphasized here, which is not
as present in the sources written by Greenfader. This source helps to specify why Hispanic immigrants
in particular need dance. While all children may benefit from creative dance, the risky behavior that has
been proven to be prevalent among immigrants is a key reason this group needs to be helped. This
source affirms my belief in creative dance having a strong place in public schools. The traumas and
anxieties written about in this piece expand to immigrants as well as many groups. Children need to
learn ways to channel their energy in a healthy way to avoid risky behavior.
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Sher, Leo and Vilens, Alexander. “The Effects of Immigration on the Mental Health of
Adolescents: Depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Substance Abuse, Delinquent
and Suicidal Behavior among Immigrant Youth” Immigration and mental health : stress, psychiatric
disorders, and suicidal behavior among immigrants and refugees. Nova Science, 2010. N.Y. pp. 87-
94.

“ Studies have suggested that achievements in schools, bonding with teachers,

caring and supportive relationship from parents, supportive peer relationships, good
problem solving skills, positive sense of self-efficacy and positive outlooks are
some of the major protective factors influencing the mental health of youths” (Sher
et al. 2010, 92).

Sher and Galler argue that immigrants are at a higher risk to experience mental health issues, but
there are certain preventative measures that can be taken. The identity formation process of immigrants
can be hindered because of stressors related to immigration including loss of peer group, loss of reliable
parental figures, and the loss of cultural identity. Factors such as these cause internal symptoms such as
anxiety, depression, and post traumatic stress as well as external symptoms like substance abuse,
aggression, and delinquency (Sher et al. 2010, 90). This proves the need for dance as an alternative
outlet of expression. Protective factors include peer social support systems, greater knowledge of host
language, positive sense of self-efficacy, and good problem solving skills. This directly connects with
the inquiry based approach creative dance ideally has. The point of this chapter is to provide causes of
risky behavior in immigrant youth, and offer ways to prevent it.

The authors’ goal is to combine previous and outside research to prove that immigrants have high
risk factors to develop mental health issues which can turn into external issues. The authors value the
emotional well being of immigrants. They believe that it is important for immigrants to be supported
with the right resources to help them thrive socially, emotionally, and cognitively. This book is
published by Nova Science, and is peer reviewed. The author Leo Sher is from the Columbia University
Psychiatric Institute and the author Dana Galler is from Yeshiva University.

This source gives me specifics on emotional and social struggles of immigrants. This source proves
that immigrants do have increased stressors in life, and preventative measures can help decrease the
effect of these stressors. This source focuses on the psychology of immigrants, and with this I can
connect the mental health issues with the strengths of creative dance. This source has affirmed my belief
that a creative dance class will be effective in benefitting Spanish speaking immigrants socially,
emotionally, and cognitively. This source does not provide the bridge into dance, but does provide
preventative measures for immigrants that match aspects of a creative dance class. This source will need
to be paired with my sources regarding dance as beneficial for emotional, social, and cognitive learning.
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Bibliography

Greenfader, Christa Mulker and Brouillette, Liane and Farkas, George. “Effect of a Performing
Arts Program on the Oral Language Skills of Young English Learners.” Reading
Research Quarterly. Volume 50, Issue 2, April-June 2015, pp 185-203.

Greenfader, Mulker Christa et al. “Boosting Language Skills of English Language Learners
through Dramatization and Movement.” The Reading Teacher Journal, Volume 62, Issue
3, 2013.

Hanna, Lynne Judith. “A Nonverbal Language for Imagining and Learning: Dance Education in
K-12 Curriculum.” Educational Researcher. Volume 37, Issue 8, November 2008, Pp
491-506.

Rodgers, Leon and Frucron, Charne. “The Dynamic Interface Between Neuromaturation, Risky
Behavior, Creative Dance Movement, and Youth Development Programming.” American Journal of
Dance Therapy. Volume 38, Issue 1, June 2016, pp 3-20.

Sher, Leo and Vilens, Alexander. “The Effects of Immigration on the Mental Health of
Adolescents: Depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Substance Abuse, Delinquent
and Suicidal Behavior among Immigrant Youth” Immigration and mental health : stress, psychiatric
disorders, and suicidal behavior among immigrants and refugees. Nova Science, 2010. N.Y. pp 87-
94.