The Potential Role of Music in Second Language Learning

Another interesting article 'The Potential Role of Music in Second Language Learning' present musicians as people more able to notice differences between pronunciation. It explains the music role in learning a new language. From the first few lines of this article, we get to know that, 'The effects of musical activities on non-musical domains have recently sparked much research. Whereas the benefits of music for native language abilities are well established, the effect on the second language (L2) is not yet fully explored' (Zeromskaite, 2014). I think that the role of music is very big in this context as while learning the second language through music we develop not only our singing voice but it also affects on our speaking voice. 'It has been found that musically able adults detect and identify foreign language lexical tone variation better than adults without musical background' (Zeromskaite, 2014). Does it mean that for musically able person is easier to understand how foreign language and the rhythm of it works? It might be true as I tried to explain the whole project and connection the language with music to non-musical person and she couldn't get the sense of it, it was really hard to explain how we can hear different rhythm and notice what's going on with our mouth while singing in different languages. I've heard once that when I speak in Polish I don't really move my mouth and when I speak in English I move my mouth very clearly and it's so weird. But I sing in that way so I'm trying to speak like that too, it's coming from my musical practice, I haven't done it because I wanted to speak like other English native speakers I've learned it from music practice. 'Music training may play a significant role in human language development by aiding a number of perceptual and cognitive processes required for language acquisition. Thus, integrating music training into L2 programmes or encouraging concurrent music and language training can potentially improve foreign language pronunciation, receptive phonology and reading skills' (Zeromskaite, 2014). This part of the article explains how I'm trying to improve my second language, music helps with pronunciation in the very natural way so I can use it later in my speaking voice.

#speaking #pronunciation #english #polish #project #music #language