Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching
Volume 15 (2024) Issue 1
pp. 95-122
Music Activities for Language Learning in the Spanish Classroom
Manuel Vidal & Christine Ericsdotter Nordgren (Stockholm, Sweden)
Abstract (English)
Although it is widely recognised by language teachers that the use of musical activities supports language development in both children and adults, studies show that teachers do not use them as much as they would like. This gap can be disadvantageous to both learners and teachers. The purpose of this study was to collect examples of music activities that actually take place and are regarded as beneficial for language development in Spanish in a Swedish school context, and what conditions are central to them being used. The study is based on a survey and follow-up interviews with Spanish teachers, and the results show that a wide variety of activities are used, both with a focus on communicative and cultural competences, and on providing stimulating settings for learning. This high level of use suggests a smaller gap between teachers' beliefs and practices compared to previous studies, possibly indicating that music has a more prominent place in the Spanish classroom than in other foreign language classrooms. The choice of music for the learning activity emerged as a particularly important factor for the activity to work as intended.
Keywords: Spanish, modern languages, language learning, music, cultural competence, communicative competence
Sammanfattning (Svenska)
Olika typer av musikaktiviteter kan gynna språkutvecklingen för såväl barn som vuxna, men flera studier visar att lärare inte använder dem i den utsträckning de skulle vilja. Detta glapp kan vara till nackdel för både inlärare och lärare. Syftet med denna studie var att samla exempel på musikaktiviteter som faktiskt blir av och bedöms fungera positivt för språkutveckling i spanska i svensk skolkontext, och vilka förutsättningar som är centrala för att detta ska ske. Studien baserar sig på enkätsvar och uppföljande intervjuer med spanskalärare, och resultaten visar att en stor variation av aktiviteter används både med fokus på kommunikativa och kulturella kompetenser, och för att främja förutsättningarna för lärande. Denna höga användning tyder på ett mindre glapp mellan övertygelse och praktik inom just spanskämnet, vilket kan tyda på att musik har en mer given plats i spanskaklassrummet än i andra språkämnen. Musikval framstår som en särskilt viktig faktor för att aktiviteten ska fungera med avsedd effekt.
Nyckelord: Spanska, moderna språk, språkinlärning, musik, kulturell kompetens, kommunikativ kompetens
1 Introduction
Positive correlations between music activities and different areas of language development have been demonstrated in both first and second language learning (Engh 2013, Salcedo 2010), ranging from phonological awareness, pronunciation training, fluency, and word learning to memory functions, cultural understanding, and motivation for language study. The many commonalities between music and language in sound structures (Slevc 2012) and cognitive functions (Patel 2008) are thought to explain many of these effects.
The positive correlations are recognised in language education theory and practice, and studies from several parts of the world show that language teachers generally have confidence in the benefits of music activities (Alisaari & Heikkola 2017, Bokiev & Ismail 2021, Engh 2013, Tegge 2018, Tse 2015). At the same time, the same studies show a discrepancy between teachers’ beliefs about the positive effects and their actual classroom practices, in which music elements are often absent. One reason for the discrepancy between teachers’ theory and practice is suggested to be a lack of teaching and training during teacher education (Alisaari & Heikkola 2017). Another is that many teachers experience a conflict in that they intuitively feel that the use of music benefits language learners, but lack adequate theoretical arguments and systematic empirical evidence to justify the use of music to policy makers and superiors (Engh 2013). A third reason may be that many teachers lack access to functional learning materials for musical elements (Tse 2015).
In any language classroom, there are both individual and structural factors that influence the conditions for music activities to be realised and for them to work. For example, if language teachers are native speakers of the target language and/or generally enthusiastic about music themselves, they bring important resources that can facilitate and enrich the pedagogical approach. Institutional factors such as management support and cross-curricular infrastructure vary greatly between Swedish schools and can be crucial for the methodological legitimacy of using music in language teaching. Another aspect is that some target languages may be easier than others to relate to in teaching, depending on tradition and on popular culture trends in the respective surrounding society. Easy access to music does not automatically make the use of it effective in the classroom, but it can facilitate teachers’ planning and implementation, and increase students’ receptivity, exposure and curiosity. Another aspect is that music may have a different status and function in the literacy development, history and general education of a particular language or language area, which may be reflected in the teaching materials and generally influence the role of music in the classroom.
Based on the positive effects for learners and teachers' positive attitudes, the purpose of this study is to document which music activities Spanish teachers actually use, how they make their choices, and what factors they believe play a role in making the activities successful for language learning in the Swedish school context.
This study consists of a questionnaire and follow-up interviews with Spanish teachers in Year 6 to upper secondary school. The context for the teachers’ choices and experiences is drawn from language education theory and school-governing documents in Sweden. The choice of Spanish teachers is based on the following assumptions in relation to the description of conditions above:
Spanish is the largest modern language in the Swedish school context, which should facilitate finding informants for the study. Statistics from the Swedish National Agency for Education (2022) for modern languages within the framework of language choice show that in the 2021 / 2022 school year, Spanish was chosen by 52.8% in Year 6 (followed by German (20.5%) and French (19.4%)) and by 43.2% in Year 9 (followed by German (16.2%) and French (13.8%)).
Spanish teachers in Sweden may have a higher proportion of first language speakers than other modern languages, which could contribute to greater familiarity and effectiveness in music selection and organisation. It is difficult to find reliable statistics to support this claim, but teacher educators and practising teachers often hold it to be a fact.
Spanish is the second most common language in the global popular music context, which makes it easy to relate to in the classroom. Statistics from market monitor Luminate show that of the world’s top 10,000 streaming songs, 54.9% were in English, 10.1% in Spanish and 7.8 % in Hindi (Stassen 2024).
A great cultural importance of music has been documented in many Spanish-speaking areas, particularly in Latin America (Olsen & Sheehy 2008). This may contribute to increased pedagogical legitimacy for the use of music activities in the language classroom.
The assumptions underlying the choice of Spanish teachers as a respondent group may have an impact on the results, so an overarching question is also whether teachers see music as having a special place in Spanish as a modern language.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Language Teaching for Communicative and Cultural Competence
Language teachers’ practices need to be understood in the light of language education theory, and in relation to school policy documents. Although there is a wide variety of theories and methodological approaches, it is possible to identify a general consensus on the conditions for language learning. These include language exposure to appropriate and varied input, opportunities for interaction and practical use of both receptive and productive skills, learner motivation, and adequate feedback on language development (Whong 2011). The teaching of modern languages in Swedish schools is regulated by the curricula of the Swedish National Agency for Education, which are designed according to the guidelines of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe 2001, 2020). The CEFR focuses on communicative and cultural competence and includes descriptors for levels of reception, production and interaction in the target language and with cultures in which the target language is spoken.
Communicative and cultural competence are seen as interdependent. The language teacher is thus required to teach the four linguistic language skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening as well as cultural awareness, which is sometimes referred to as ”the fifth language skill” to emphasise its fundamental importance for language learning (Tomalin 2008). However, cultural awareness as a learning object is less clear-cut than the linguistic competence areas are, and has had different names and content in Swedish curricula. In the primary school curricula from 1962 and 1969, and in the language used by many active teachers, the word "realia" is used to refer to knowledge of the geography, history, society and aesthetic expressions of the target language countries or regions. This was replaced in the 1980 curriculum by "cultural and social orientation" (Authors’ translation from Swedish ’Kultur- och samhällsorientering’) In current curricula, this area of competence is described in terms of ”providing students with opportunities to develop knowledge and understanding of different living conditions and social and cultural phenomena in areas and contexts where the language is used” (Swe: ”ge eleverna möjligheter att utveckla kunskaper om och förståelse för olika livsvillkor samt sociala och kulturella företeelser i områden och i sammanhang där språket används”) (Skolverket 2011) (1). The conceptual change has been influenced by Swedish educational trends, but it is also true that ‘culture’ in itself is a complex concept, used in different contexts with different meanings (Fornäs 2012).
Teaching target language cultures is thus expected to include space for both individual and collective development, and music activities are one of the ways in which this can be achieved. In Spanish-speaking cultures, music as an aesthetic-cultural expression is considered to be difficult to detach from the overall image of the culture, and its expression through song, dance and a wide variety of instruments is closely intertwined with both language and history (Olsen & Sheehy 2008). In the 20th century alone, music in Latin America was greatly influenced by the many political movements that took place, such as the emergence of the tango in Buenos Aires around World War I, and protest music in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile in the 1960s. In the Caribbean region of Latin America, e.g. in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, musical expression has also had political and social significance serving as a political tool, with some music being authorised and supported by governments, while other music was banned or censored. Spanish language teachers thus face the challenge of conveying a variety of cultural functions of music in historical and current events.
2.2 Aesthetics And Aesthetic Learning Processes In Language Subjects
With regard to the aesthetic meaning of the concept of culture, the CEFR lists "Aesthetic uses of language" as an example of tasks that learners should be enabled to handle in order to meet communicative demands in different domains. The aesthetic uses of language include singing nursery rhymes, folk songs and pop music (Council of Europe, 2001: section 4.3.5). In the Swedish curriculum for modern languages, songs and poems are included as main content within language reception both in primary and secondary schools. It states that an overall goal is that students in Swedish schools should be able to “use and take part in many different forms of expression such as language, art, music, drama and dance, and have developed knowledge of the society’s cultural offerings” (Swe: ”använda och ta del av många olika uttrycksformer såsom språk, bild, musik, drama och dans samt har utvecklat kännedom om samhällets kulturutbud”) (Skolverket 2011). This indicates that songs should be counted as objects of learning in each language, and that they, along with other aesthetic forms of expression, have intrinsic value in the literacy process and identity building in the target language.
However, studies have shown that aesthetic forms of expression and learning processes are often used instrumentally as a route or tool to other learning goals, rather than as objects of learning in their own right. In a comparison of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish curricula for first language studies and for English studies, Thorgersen (2014) shows that aesthetics have a significantly larger place in the curricula for first languages than those for second languages, whose acquisition is described more mechanistically. In the same text, Thorgersen also argues that students are ill-prepared and thus deprived of opportunities for interpretation and experience of authentic aesthetic expressions, since these are being treated in school as outcome-based and predictable entities. In the subject ‘Swedish as a first language’, Dahlbäck (2016) shows that even if teachers’ views on language and content affect their practices in aesthetic forms of expression, they do not affect their view that the written language is superior to both verbal language and aesthetic forms of expression. This is reflected their statement that the purpose of using aesthetic expressions ”was not primarily to obtain certain knowledge (...) but to create community and enjoyable activities” (Swedish ”inte i första hand för att erhålla och visa kunskap (..) utan för att skapa gemenskap och som lustfyllda aktiviteter”) (Dahlbäck 2016: 15). This approach probably affects teachers’ pedagogical choices and also students’ attitudes towards aesthetic learning activities. Samuelsson et al. (2011) argue that the view of aesthetic subjects and learning processes is negatively affected when these subjects mainly are used as 'facilitators' (2) for high status subjects such as maths and written language development.
2.3 Psychological Aspects of Music
Learners’ encounters with, receptivity to, and processing of music as an aesthetic experience are important to consider in their own right. From a music psychology perspective, language teachers who use or would like to use music in their teaching need to be aware of how different learners may react physically, emotionally, intellectually and socially to music, and how these factors may in turn affect the learning situation. Bossius & Lilliestam (2011) argue that people are socialised into a musical habitus consisting of musical tastes and habits, and hence encounter music with certain prior knowledge and expectations. This of course applies to both students and teachers.
Theories about different types of listening are also relevant to language learning. According to Lillienstam (2012), established classifications of listening strategies and types of listening are not particularly well supported empirically, but may still contribute to an understanding of different directions and functions in listening. One example is Wiggen’s description of the difference between listening to music as a soundscape (Swe: ”klangkuliss”) or listening to music as content (Swe: ”innehållslyssnande”) (Wiggen 1971). Soundscape mode refers to a situation where the listener knows that something is being played, but not necessarily what; listening for content refers to a situation where the music speaks directly to the listener and captures their attention. Another example is Green’s description of the difference between distracted listening for pleasure and purposive listening for imitation when performing a piece of music (Green 2002). One problem with these divisions is that vocabulary such as soundscape and content suggests a ranking of what is the 'right' way to listen, which seems to be to focus solely on the music and do nothing else at the same time. Bergman (2009) instead uses the term parallel listening, in which it is not clear or static whether a person is listening to music while doing other things, or doing other things while listening to music. Lilliestam (2012) emphasises that listening is not only different between people, but also within each person, and that approaches that divide people into different listening types or listening strategies can therefore be normative and limiting. A dynamic interplay in people’s listening can affect music activities in the language classroom in several ways. If a teacher chooses to have pupils listen to music in the background while they are engaged in another activity such as reading or writing, listening to music can be a weaker, equal or stronger activity than reading and writing, both experientially and intellectually. The teacher’s instructions on how students are expected to listen - for example whether they should focus on the text, rhythm, free associations or other things - can be of great importance for the listening and learning taking place in the classroom.
2.4 Language Learning and Motivation
Motivation is of crucial importance for learning a foreign language and constitutes a major field of research in language education (Lamb et al. 2019). In Gardner & Lambert’s classic division into integrative and instrumental motivation, integrative motivation relates to the language learner’s genuine interest in the group of people who speak the target language and the culture they represent, and instrumental motivation relates to the practical value and benefits of learning the target language (Gardner & Lambert 1972). Gardner (1985) showed that a positive attitude towards the target language and target language speakers increases the motivation to learn the language. Mattsson (2017), however, argues that there is a difference between learning a second language and a foreign language. In the latter, which is the context for modern languages in Swedish schools, the ethnolinguistic group does not exist in the environment, and the instrumental motivation factor then becomes more significant.
Obviously, a common division of the concept of motivation is between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and their importance for learning (Bruner 1966, Deci & Ryan 1985, Gärdenfors 2010). Intrinsic motivation is largely based on informal learning and is driven by curiosity, interest and achieving goals together with others. Extrinsic motivation relates to formal learning and is associated with various forms of reward, such as the ability to forgo a small reward now for a larger reward later, which is important in school. According to Gärdenfors (2010), a central issue for schools is how to promote students’ inner motivation. This is of course not only interesting for language subjects, but as modern languages are elective rather than compulsory in the Swedish school context, they are more dependent on students' motivation and active choice. Studies show that lack of motivation is a strong reason why modern language learners drop out of language teaching (Cardelús 2015, Francia & Riis 2013, Lärarnas Riksförbund 2013).
3 The Study
This study is based on teachers’ own statements about their own teaching practice, and our interpretations of these. Perceptions and judgements about one’s own teaching practice can, for personal and structural reasons, differ greatly between teachers. In Borg’s description of language teachers’ cognition (2003), three influencing factors are listed as crucial to how methodological choices and practices are determined and developed by teachers at an individual level: the teacher’s experiences as a pupil in school, the teacher’s experiences as a student at the teacher training college, and the teacher’s experiences as a teacher in a school and classroom context. These influences are important to bear in mind when interpreting the responses in the study, but although general background questions were asked in our questionnaire, the aim was not to link each response to the teachers’ underlying rationale for their teaching practice, but primarily to document their own description of it.
3.1 Method
3.1.1 Data Collection
The data was collected through a survey distributed to an open forum for Spanish teachers working in Swedish primary and secondary schools, and through follow-up interviews with five of the teachers who responded to the survey. The extended time frame since the beginning of the study in 2018 allowed us to conduct a thorough and in-depth investigation, ensuring that the data collected and analysed is comprehensive and includes recent developments.
The survey consisted of both background and thematic questions. It began with multiple-choice questions about the teachers' background, their relationship to the Spanish language, to music in general, and how often (if at all) the teacher used musical activities in the classroom. This was followed by open-ended questions about which activities were used, why teachers chose these activities and what outcomes they could see from the activities. Finally, open questions were asked about whether the teachers felt that they had opportunities to develop their work with music activities, and, if so, how they would like to do so. Quantitative responses were summarised in tables and diagrams, and qualitative responses were coded and sorted thematically.
After an initial analysis of the survey responses, follow-up interview themes were formulated, exploring the context and implementation of the music activities more in depth. The interviews were conducted through video calls. They were semi-structured in order to give space for spontaneous input and to create a conversational atmosphere. The interviews were transcribed at word level, and qualitative content analysis was used to find meaning units, codes and categories in the material according to the model described by Graneheim & Lundman (2004).
3.1.2 Informants
The survey was completed on a voluntary and unpaid basis by 63 active teachers of Spanish in Swedish primary and secondary schools, years 6 to 12. A summary of their background data is presented in Table 1:
Table 1. Teachers’ Background Data in the Survey.
The majority of the teachers had a teaching degree (95,2%), also taught other subjects (85,7%), enjoyed being a Spanish teacher (average 84 on a scale of 0-100) and valued music as very important to them as individuals (average 82 on a scale of 0-100). Almost half of the teachers surveyed had grown up in a Spanish-speaking culture (44,4%), either in a Spanish-speaking country or not.
If the subset of teachers exceeds the total number of teachers in each category, it is because they fall into several categories, e.g. teaching both practical/aesthetic subjects and other languages.
As a final question in the survey, the teachers could indicate whether they would be willing to answer additional questions. 45 respondents (71,4%) answered this question in the affirmative, all of whom were invited for an interview. Out of these, five teachers agreed to take part in interviews lasting approximately one hour. The representation of teachers in the group was therefore not controlled for background or teaching characteristics, but based on self-selection. As a group, they turned out to represent quite different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and had different purposes and frequencies of use for music in the language classroom. However, they were more similar in age, all over 50 and all currently teaching Years 6-9. Their features are described in Table 2. Their real names were encoded as Sara, Daniel, Maria, Carolina and Eva, and they were given profile icons throughout the analysis. They were compensated with a cinema ticket and informed that their personal data would be treated according to Swedish research ethics procedures (Hermerén et al. 2011).
Table 2: Interviewees
3.2 Survey Results
The data from the survey showed that 95.2% of the respondents (60 out of 63) had used music for language learning (henceforth MLL) in their Spanish classrooms. There was wide variation in how often they used MLL: 37% used it once a week or more, 38.1% once a month and 25.4% once a term or less. The three teachers in the survey who had never used MLL stated that they would like to do so, given the right conditions for it. In the survey, three respondents bypassed the questions related to active use of MLL. Therefore, the results described below are based on 60 teachers’ responses.
No correlations or significant differences could be found between the teachers’ use of MLL and their personal background data, or the age groups they taught. Therefore, the survey results in Table 3 are combined into one informant group:
Table 3: Selected Survey Results
3.2.1 Musical Dimensions
Listening and singing were the musical dimensions most frequently used by teachers, often in combination, while dancing and playing an instrument were used only sparingly. The free-text comments showed that many teachers included watching music videos when referring to listening, and that singing often meant singing along to recorded music with vocals rather than singing to instrumental music. As the questionnaire was filled out anonymously, it was not possible to follow up whether a teacher included watching in listening or differentiated singing from singing along. The original dimensions were therefore extended to listening with or without a music video and singing or singing along in the results.
3.2.2 Learning Goals
The MLL activities were motivated through two main types of teacher-defined learning goals:
focusing on the object of learning, and
focusing on the classroom settings for learning.
When the object of learning determined the use of MLL, the activity was based on the textual or genre content of the music, in addition to its musical characteristics. Examples of this were practising grammatical tense in song lyrics, treating song lyrics as an authentic source of language use, or getting closer to a certain culture in the Spanish-speaking areas of the world.
When the classroom settings for learning determined the use of MLL, teacher beliefs about cognition and motivation emerged. Within cognition, teachers referred to how music positively affects the brain and body in learning, for example, by strengthening memory and building phonological awareness. Several teachers also described how music relaxed pupils and created a sense of belonging and inclusion, making it easier to participate in group activities. In this context, it was also pointed out that a ‘mediocre’ singing voice in a teacher was not an obstacle for successful MLL; on the contrary, this tended to have a motivating and prestige-reducing effect, making the students sing along with more ease.
3.2.3 Learning Outcomes
74.6% of the teachers stated that they had observed positive results in their students’ language learning which they connected to the use of MLL activities. Their thoughts on why are summarised in the following four points, linked to music as a key to the learning object and to the classroom settings for learning:
It provides access to the context/cultures of the language;
It creates joy and / or motivation;
It promotes concentration and / or captures interest;
It provides variety, and reinforces and consolidates learning by engaging multiple senses.
80.1% of the teachers in the study stated that they could see potential for using MLL activities more in their classrooms, and 73.1% indicated that they would like to develop this work. The most important factors for MLL activities to work are summarised in the following four points, linked to structural and individual conditions:
Available technical equipment (e.g. speakers, projector, computer);
Time for planning and implementation;
Access to good working materials, such as music lists and teacher’s guides;
Being open and interested as a teacher.
Tech and time depend mainly on structural framework factors, such as the school’s financial priorities and pedagogical profile. Access to materials is also structural, but also dependent on individual factors, as is taking an interest as a teacher. If ready-made materials are missing or inadequate, the teacher has to find and prepare music for use in the classroom. Hence, a teacher who does not have a cultural background or a personal interest in music from Spanish-speaking areas will have to put in more work to use MLL than would a teacher having these qualities. This would be especially true for teachers in the higher grades, where the support for MLL in the teaching materials is reduced.
3.2.4 Teachers’ MLL Catalogue
Not all teachers specified their MLL activities in detail, but from the information available, four activity groups were identified:
Skill-based activities focusing on language form;
Discussion-based activities focusing on content and cultures;
Experience-based activities focusing on the music per se;
Setting-based activities focusing on a favourable learning environment.
The data in Table 4 show that the most frequently used MLL activities were focused on song lyrics. For example, 58% of the teachers used listening and singing or reading along to the lyrics with a focus on words, expressions, and grammar; and 32% of the teachers used listening for understanding or analysing content:
Table 4: Overview of Teachers’ Music Activities for Language Learning (MLL Activities)
3.3 Interview Results
The above interview themes were focused in the context and implementation of the MLL, addressing the choice of music, the efficiency of MLL for different language skills, and whether MLL activities were used in a similar way across language classrooms and teachers in their schools.
3.3.1 Music choice
The analysis of the interviews showed that teachers returned to their choice of music time and again when describing their practices and teacher beliefs. This trend was also evident in the free text comments from the survey, suggesting that teachers felt that the choice of music for MLL was a key factor in the design of the activity in order for it to be successful, both in terms of student learning and in terms of teachers' willingness and enjoyment of implementing MLL.
To reflect and respect the importance given to music choice, the songs mentioned in the interviews are given space in the following results section, and are listed and commented on in Appendix 1.
3.3.2 MLL for Focus on Form
In lower grades, teachers tended to use songs from Spanish textbooks created for pedagogical purposes. These songs are usually made up of simple melodies with vocabulary related to a specific topic, such as numbers, colours, and days of the week. The teachers felt that this type of pedagogical song was effective for language learning. As an example, Eva said she only had to start humming a song they had sung together in class to “trigger the students’ vocabulary” (Swe: ”trigga igång vokabulär hos eleverna”) She had also experienced that her students started to sing during written tests, in order to remember what they had learnt through songs.
One particular song, “Eso es el amor” by José Angel Iglesias from the 1970s, was mentioned both by Daniel and Maria as a song ‘having everything’ for beginners’ language practice: a simple melody with simple yet poetic lyrics that rhyme; clear grammar content in the form of a list of personal pronouns; delimited vocabulary areas such as seasons, flowers and celestial bodies; and great potential for the students to create illustrations. A quote from the lyrics of this song illustrates this:
Tu, yo, la luna, el sol
Ella, el, la rosa, el clavel
Primavera, la espera, verano, la mano
Otoño, un retoño, invierno, un infierno
Eso es el amor, sí señor
In higher grades, teachers felt that textbook songs were sparse and that they changed in character from highlighting linguistic to cultural features. This transition was not appreciated by the teachers, who expressed that there were too few songs in the textbooks for the higher grades and that the songs that were available did not work well in the classroom.
The teachers’ music choices for higher grades were mainly motivated by how the lyrics could illustrate and consolidate grammatical structures, fixed expressions and whole phrases. In Maria’s experience, famous hit songs were particularly suitable for students to learn words and chunks:
Table 5: Quotes Connected to Focus on Form
3.3.3 MLL for Content and Culture in Spanish-speaking Areas
The MLL activities used by the teachers for content and culture were connected to music representing cultural and dialectal diversity in the Latin American countries and Spanish regions, and to upcoming events and traditions. For example, songs related to football were used during times of different championships, such as national anthems and the Ricky Martin hit from the 1998 World Cup, “La Copa de la Vida”. In Daniel’s classes, Spanish-language Christmas songs worked so well that students wanted to sing them all year round.
Several teachers talked about how they felt music could convey non-verbal language linked to cultural identity, and how they believed music was an unusually distinctive cultural identity trait in Spanish-speaking areas. The belief that joy and music are culturally linked in Spanish-speaking areas was particularly salient. It was reported that students from other language classes had commented on how much more fun they found learning Spanish after listening to the music played in the Spanish classroom. This revealed that all teachers believed that MLL activities occurred more often in Spanish classrooms than other language classrooms. The teachers’ reasoning for this, in addition to the importance of music as a marker of culture and identity, was that many Spanish teachers have Spanish as their first language, which can make it easier to find good and up-to-date music material. They also pointed out that due to the place of Spanish in popular music, it was easier to find up-to-date materials in Spanish than in other modern languages.
It was also highlighted that teachers whose first language was Spanish were able to convey cultural identity through music, and that an authentic identity could make students feel familiar with another cultural identity. However, it was also pointed out that heritage was not enough to make a particular learning activity work, although it could make a positive contribution.
Within the theme of teaching culture and content, the challenges mentioned were how to do this without reinforcing stereotypes and how to approach different aspects of authentic cultural content for young language learners. One such aspect was that teachers felt that many of the lyrics were too banal, with a lot of slang and English elements, and that the accompanying videos were inappropriate in the classroom as they alluded to sex in a macho way. Teachers addressed this either by using the lyrics as a basis for discussion of cultural and social differences, or by simply eliminating certain music that they felt was inappropriate, especially for younger learners. The Luis Fonsi hit “Despacito” was a recurring example in this context. Another aspect of using authentic cultural content was exemplified by Maria, who used the song “La Ojita Verde de la Coca” to initiate discussions on how coca leaves in different Spanish speaking areas are used to keep hunger at bay and to get more energy, while they are strongly associated with drug addiction among Swedes.
Table 6: Quotes Connected to Content and Culture
3.3.4 MLL Activities for the Creation of a Favourable Learning Environment
When the choice of MLL activities was based on motivational factors, teachers referred to genre-specific qualities in the music they chose. The genres that seemed to be particularly useful in increasing students' enjoyment of a given lesson were those from different parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, whose musical content consists of catchy rhythms and singable melodies, such as salsa, cumbia, merengue and reggaeton. These were found to produce emotional reactions of cheerfulness and excitement, along with physical reactions of a spontaneous desire to move. Teachers expressed that this music acted as a boost of joy and that it was difficult to sit still when hearing salsa, giving examples of how students wanted, and were allowed, to dance when working with this type of music. However, there were also examples of other types of songs, from other times and other musical styles, which worked very well as motivators. Here, the teacher’s own positive relationship with particular music was evident, which can spill over into the classroom.
When teachers wanted to increase student activity and participation, the choice of music was often left to the students themselves. In almost all cases, this music was popular music from Latin America that they listened to in their free time, which presented both opportunities and problems regarding linguistic content and levels. When students were motivated in terms of music selection, there were several examples where they learnt a text without understanding or caring what it meant. In addition to personal value, this had positive effects on pronunciation quality and automatisation:
Table 6: Quotes Connected to Learning Environments
3.4 Discussion
3.4.1 The Role of Music in the Spanish Classroom
Out of the 63 teachers who participated in the study, 95.2% responded that they used music in some way in their Spanish classrooms. The remaining 4.8% responded that they do not use music, but would like to, given the right conditions.
There are some methodological considerations to be made when reflecting on this data:
The respondents were self-selected, i.e. they signed up voluntarily to an open call for participants. This method has a built-in risk that people who are interested in a particular area will be exposed to and actively choose to participate in studies of the area, creating a potential bias in the data.
The study was based on teachers’ descriptions of their practice, not on observations of their practice. It is well known that as human beings we tend to describe what we think we are doing or would like to do, which does not always correspond to what we are actually doing, thus potentially introducing bias into the data.
Only Spanish teachers were asked to participate in the study. This might have communicated an image of Spanish teachers being particularly interesting or resourceful with respect to using music in their classrooms, possibly making the respondents feel the need or wish to live up to that image, which would also create a bias in the data.
Nevertheless, the results have some descriptive value for the practices of interest to us.
We made four assumptions when selecting Spanish teachers for our study:
It would be easy to find participants;
There would be a high proportion of L1 speakers in the teacher group;
It would be easy for teachers to relate to Spanish language music in the classroom given its presence on the global music market, and
There would be use of music in the classroom to reflect its importance within Spanish speaking cultures. All these assumptions were confirmed to some extent.
As for finding participants, the fact that as many as 63 teachers, representing a professional group with a very heavy workload, chose to respond to the survey without compensation, can be considered an adequate response rate (1).
It makes the results interesting from a quantitative perspective, even if the sample is too small for sophisticated statistical analysis. The assumption of linguistic background in (2) also turned out to be true, as almost half of the participants had grown up in Spanish-speaking cultures and were therefore native speakers of the language they were teaching.
We did not find differences between the type of activities that teachers with and without a Spanish-speaking background chose to use in their classrooms, but several of the teachers interviewed considered their linguistic and cultural background to be an advantage in conveying cultural identity and belonging. Regarding the assumption of the availability and presence of Spanish-language music in streaming media (3), teachers confirmed this and were generally very positive about it, both in terms of selecting music for the classroom and motivating students to listen during and outside school hours. Music is a natural and important part of many (young) people’s lives, and the teachers interviewed believed it would be harder for teachers of German or French to find and connect with music through the popular culture channels that reach Swedish school children. It also emerged that music often attracted students to study Spanish, and that students in other modern languages commented on how fun it seemed to study Spanish because of the music in the Spanish classrooms.
As for (4) and for the general comparison with other language classrooms, the fact that 95.2% of respondents used music when teaching Spanish might confirm that the Spanish language teaching tradition relies on and actively conveys the importance of music for guiding learners into Spanish-speaking cultures. Other self-selection studies have reported high levels of teacher interest in MLL activities without strong links to their own classroom practice, and our data do not suggest that teachers over-reported the frequency of MLL use. This means that the gap documented in other studies between teachers’ beliefs about the positive impact of music on language learning and their own use of music in the classroom (Alisaari & Heikkola 2017, Engh 2013) was smaller in our study. In our results, it was in the end not a question of if music was used in the classroom, but rather a question of how often, for what purpose and with what songs it was used. It cannot be excluded that this result is language-specific to Spanish.
To continue on this point, the participant teachers gave a wide variety of examples of musical expression and how these contribute to illustrating and understanding the contemporary and historical diversity of Spanish-speaking areas. Kramsch (1995) argues that cultural understanding includes a subjective activity in which language and culture merge, and that teachers therefore should teach language as culture, and not language and culture separately. Many of the teachers in our study seem to have this kind of cultural understanding as a criterion of choice for music, especially for conveying joy in and with music. This also highlights how such meaning-making activities can provide conditions for the identity-building aspect of learning a new language. From this point of view, it might be interesting to conduct a comparative study with other major modern languages in Swedish schools.
3.4.2 Listen, Sing, Dance and Play
By far the most common use of music in the Spanish classroom was listening, followed by singing. This is consistent with, for example, Bokiev & Ismail’s study with English as the target language (2021). Listening was also most common in Alisaari & Heikkola’s (2017) study with Finnish as the target language, but singing was not among the most common uses, despite the fact that teachers had very high confidence in the benefits of singing. This difference can perhaps be understood in terms of the cultural significance of singing and how comfortable the teachers themselves were with singing in the classroom. Teachers in Alisaari & Heikkola’s study stated that they were reluctant to use their own voices, while several teachers in our study believed that their own self-perceived mediocre singing ability contributed to the students’ lack of self-consciousness, and hence made them more relaxed in singing when the teachers sang. Our study also revealed that many teachers used singing to mean singing along. Singing along to music recordings can be a way for both teachers and students to avoid exposing their singing voices and still benefit from the positive effects of singing.
On this point, another interesting fact that emerged was that many teachers treated listening as synonymous with listening to and watching music videos on streaming media channels. The difference between listening alone and listening with video may be small from the perspective of contemporary music consumption, but it has implications for the type of language exercises that are possible and appropriate to include in the activity. Within the dimensions of aesthetics and identity development, there may be a loss of quality in the music experience when sound input is presented in combination with visual input. Sight has dominance over other senses, including hearing (Colavita 1974, Koppen & Spence 2007, Sinnett et al. 2007), which can enhance, diminish or distort aspects of the music content for the listener. The internal images that monomodal listening to music often gives rise to may be absent or strongly influenced by incoming external images. For example, an upbeat song mixed with macho video images could create conflict for the student.
A parallel can be drawn here to reading and reading aloud, where the ability to enter other people’s thoughts and create inner images is considered to be of great importance for the development of language and identity (Stensson 2006), an ability that has long been speculated to be affected by increasingly intensive image consumption through the media (Calvino 1988). Reduced reading among children and young people, particularly in the Nordic countries, is the subject of political and scientific discussion (SOU 2018), but the very use of images in digital communication in the contemporary Swedish context brings other major benefits for identity development, for example, through the visibility of previously marginalised groups (Ehlin 2015). The potential positive effects of using music videos are also strong. A short video can be the start of important classroom work, it can be an engaging listening exercise and / or a basis for practising grammatical patterns (Cenoz & Gorter 2006, Marone 2018). Students are also often enthusiastic about working with streaming media, searching for text, and creating and sharing their own activities around music videos (Trier 2006). As a cultural artefact, music videos are examples of so-called authentic materials for language learning, i.e. materials created for a purpose other than language learning, and thus have many benefits for language teaching (Benitez-Galbraith & Galbraith 2021).
However, authentic materials also present pedagogical challenges. As the teachers in this study confirmed, there may be moral concerns and conflicting opinions about what is appropriate to show in the classroom in terms of sexist, racist, violent or destructive content such as some music videos contain. Here it is up to the teacher to guide students to develop cultural sensitivity and critical thinking, and to counteract the reinforcement of stereotypes. One possibility is to show other short videos alongside the music video that relate to the environments, music and artists in the videos. We argue that the visual communication of music videos can contribute to both communicative and cultural language development, but also reinforce certain perspectives and stereotypes and create a constraining framework for identity formation. Awareness of the differences in listening with or without video or other images can create a balanced variation in use.
After listening and singing, there was some dancing and instrumental playing in the classroom. Here it has been difficult to find comparable results in other studies. The fact that there is still dancing and music-making here may also be a linguistic effect specific to Spain and Latin America, which have an unusually rich culture of dance and instrumental music, with different rhythms played on special (rhythm) instruments in close harmony with specific dances. Of the teachers who mentioned playing instruments in the classroom, this involved students playing rhythm instruments or the teacher playing an instrument and the students singing. When it came to dancing, the number of teachers mentioning this was small, but based on the above discussion on music videos, it is reasonable to assume that the presence of dancing in the classroom is greater than the few dance MLL activities shown, as many videos contain elements of dancing. The discussions on how students spontaneously wanted to move and dance when listening to certain types of music also increased the presence of dancing in the classroom. There is evidence that music played at a certain tempo makes it hard for people not to move to it, which has been linked to the human ability to empathise (Zelechowska et al. 2020). In the scientific field of dance and neurological processes and plasticity, positive links have been found with memory functions and a stronger sense of body sensations coming from within (interoception) (Christensen & Chang 2018), which is of great importance for the development of pronunciation in new languages (Catford 2001). From an evolutionary perspective, it has been found that humans have a unique connection between the ear and the leg (Grahn & Brett 2007), and are thus ‘hard-coded’ to move synchronously with sound (Christensen et al. 2017). This means that the urge to move observed by our teachers is likely to occur in many more classrooms, given the right music conditions. This could be an important finding to be promoted in view of its potential for language learning.
4 Conclusions
There were two main groups of MLL activities: those that focused on the learning outcome, i.e. communicative and cultural competence in Spanish, and those that focused on the settings and frameworks for learning, such as increasing motivation or strengthening memory.
The most frequently occurring MLL activities represented skill-based activities in linguistic competence areas, particularly combining music with written exercises in grammar, vocabulary and translation. This is not surprising data from language classrooms and these activities can be very useful for language learning. Current research with English as a target language shows that song lyrics represent a variety of grammatical constructions and genres that make learners aware of the complexity of language, contrary to previous perceptions that song lyrics are based on simple language and risk entrenching ‘wrong’ grammatical patterns (Werner 2019). However, it may be worth reflecting on the space of music in different exercises. If, in a 20-minute Spanish lesson, a teacher plays a song for three minutes and then has students translate or fill in a gap for 17 minutes, how much of the music's potential for learning has been used? When planning activities, it might be warranted to think separately about the musical part and the text-based part in order to create a good balance and variation between them. Otherwise, as Dahlbäck (2016) points out, there is a risk that the written language elements will dominate the aesthetic expressions and learning processes, even if the teacher's intention was a fruitful combination. Reducing music to written text can also give language learners an overconfidence in their written language skills. In a way, this would contradict the teacher's beliefs on how music in itself has a motivating, memory-strengthening and rewarding function for both students and teachers. Thus, in the school context, where external motivation and reward systems often drive instruction (Gärdenfors 2010), and given that many dropouts from Spanish classes in Swedish schools are due to lack of motivation (Cardelús 2015), it may be worth noting that music activities with more space for their actual sound component can be both rewarding and promote internal motivation among learners. In Cardelús’ study, students clearly voiced that the most important factors for motivation are “having good teachers and a functional and communication-oriented teaching”, and that, conversely, “an overly form-oriented and grammar-based teaching” inhibits motivation (Cardelús 2015: 156).
It should be emphasised that the survey results show how teachers used a particular activity, but not which activities they preferred. It is reasonable to assume that teachers listed the activities that they felt were best for learning, but it may also be the case that teachers used activities because they were feasible given time and resource constraints. Our results from both interviews and surveys show how teachers designed their MLL activities in a proficient and professional way, but also how they were limited by individual and structural conditions. Of the teachers who used music in their language teaching, 78.3% responded that they could link positive results in their students' language learning to the activities and 76.7% responded that they would like to develop the use of music further. This suggests that something is holding them back. Based on the teachers’ responses about conditions for MLL activities, the lack of time for planning may be a major factor.
The purpose of this study was to catalogue which, how and why music for language learning (MLL) activities were used by Spanish teachers in a Swedish school context. We have compiled a teacher’s MLL catalogue and analysed teacher beliefs about their practice. One of the most striking findings for us is how important the choice of music is for MLL activities to actually take place and have the intended language development effect. Not surprisingly, the music itself is important to the activity. Music is not a neutral pedagogical tool, but a form of communication with intrinsic characteristics. What is remarkable about this study, however, is the great practical knowledge and perspectives that teachers have when selecting music for different learning goals or learning frameworks, and by extension, how this knowledge might be transferred to teachers who would like to use MLL activities but lack experience. Having access to a catalogue of suggestions for relevant and effective songs can facilitate entry into the use of MLL activities and develop teachers' ability to make their own choices in dialogue with students in their own unique classrooms. Other studies express the need for greater knowledge of and access to appropriate songs, preferably with methodological guidance. (Bokiev & Ismail 2021, Tegge 2018). This justifies us in sharing the appendix of the music list.(Appendix) compiled from the survey and interviews with teachers of this study. It is not intended to be a comprehensive list of educational materials, and music is certainly trend and time sensitive, but we hope it could be useful as a resource for other teachers in the field, making the positive effects of MLL activities available to more language learners.
Appendix
Annotated List of Songs from the Teachers in the Study
References
Alisaari, J., & Heikkola, L. M. (2017). Songs and poems in the language classroom: Teachers’ beliefs and practices. Teaching and Teacher Education 63, 231-242. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.12.021).
Benitez-Galbraith, J., & Galbraith, C. S. (2021). Narrative Engagement, Enjoyment, Learning and Theme Comprehension: Using an Authentic Music Video in an Introductory College Language Classroom. RELC Journal 52 (3), 397-411 (https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688219874136).
Bergman, Å. (2009). Växa upp med musik: Ungdomars musikanvändande i skolan och på fritiden. Institutionen för kulturvetenskaper, Göteborgs universitet (http://gupea.ub.gu.se/dspace/handle/2077/20314).
Bokiev, D., & Ismail, L. (2021). Malaysian ESL Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices Regarding the Use of Music and Songs in Second Language Teaching. The Qualitative Report 26 (5), 1497-1521 (https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4350).
Borg, S. (2003). Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching 36 (2), 81-109 (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444803001903).
Bossius, T., & Lilliestam, L. (2011). Musiken och jag: Rapport från forskningsprojektet Musik i människors liv. In: Ejeby, E. (Ed.), Musiken och jag. Ejeby, 123-145.
Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Belknap Press.
Calvino, I. (1988). Lezioni americane: Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio [Sex punkter inför nästa årtusende: amerikanska föreläsningar]. Garzanti.
Cardelús, E. (2015). Motivationer, attityder och moderna språk: En studie om elevers motivationsprocesser och attityder vid studier och lärande av moderna språk. Institutionen för språkdidaktik, Stockholms universitet.
Catford, J. C. (2001). A practical introduction to phonetics (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2006). Linguistic Landscape and Minority Languages. International Journal of Multilingualism 3 (1), 67-80 (https://doi.org/10.1080/14790710608668386).
Christensen, J. F., Cela-Conde, C. J., & Gomila, A. (2017). Not all about sex: Neural and biobehavioral functions of human dance. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1400 (1), 8-32 (https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13420).
Christensen, J. F., & Chang, D.-S. (2018). Tanzen ist die beste Medizin: Warum es uns gesünder, klüger und glücklicher macht. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.
Colavita, F. B. (1974). Human sensory dominance. Perception & Psychophysics 16 (2), 409-412 (https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203962).
Council of Europe. (2001). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge University Press.
Council of Europe. (2020). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Companion Volume. Council of Europe Publishing.
Dahlbäck, K. (2016). Lärares uppfattningar om betydelsen av estetiska uttrycksformer i svenskämnet. Nordic Journal of Art and Research 5 (2), Article 2 (https://doi.org/10.7577/if.v5i2.1851).
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Plenum P.
Ehlin, L. (2015). Becoming Image: Perspectives on Digital Culture, Fashion and Technofeminism. Stockholms universitet: Institutionen för mediestudier (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su).
Engh, D. (2013). Why Use Music in English Language Learning? A Survey of the Literature. English Language Teaching 6 (2), 113-127.
Fornäs, J. (2012). Kultur. Stockholm: Liber.
Francia, G., & Riis, U. (2013). Lärare, elever och spanska som modernt språk: Styrkor och svagheter - möjligheter och hot. Fortbildningsavdelningen för skolans internationalisering, Uppsala universitet.
Gärdenfors, P. (2010). Lusten att förstå: Om lärande på människans villkor. Natur & Kultur.
Gardner, R. C. (1985). Social psychology and second language learning: The role of attitudes and motivation. Edward Arnold.
Gardner, R. C., & Lambert, W. E. (1972). Attitudes and motivation in second-language learning. Newbury.
Grahn, J. A., & Brett, M. (2007). Rhythm and Beat Perception in Motor Areas of the Brain. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 19 (5), 893-906 (https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.5.893).
Graneheim, U. H., & Lundman, B. M. (2004). Qualitative content analysis in nursing research: Concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness. Nurse Education Today 24(2), 105-112 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2003.10.001).
Green, L. (2002). How popular musicians learn: A way ahead for music education. New York: Routledge.
Hermerén, G., Gustafsson, B., & Petterson, B. (2011). God forskningssed. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet.
Koppen, C., & Spence, C. (2007). Seeing the light: Exploring the Colavita visual dominance effect. Experimental Brain Research 180 (4), 737-754 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-0894-3).
Kramsch, C. (1995). The cultural component of language teaching. Language, Culture and Curriculum 8 (2), 83-92 (https://doi.org/10.1080/07908319509525192).
Lamb, M., Csizér, K., Henry, A., & Ryan, S. (2019). The Palgrave handbook of motivation for language learning. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lärarnas Riksförbund. (2013). Språk är framtiden: En rapport om engelska och moderna språk : [rapport från Lärarnas riksförbund]. Stockholm: Lärarnas riksförbund.
Lilliestam, L. (2012). Att lyssna på musik: Från lyssnartypologier till intervjuer med verkliga människor. Swedish Journal of Musicology / Svensk Tidskrift Foer Musikforskning 94, 25-48.
Marone, V. (2018). Teaching English Through Music Videos. In The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching. Hoboken: Wiley & Sons, 1-7 (https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0849).
Olsen, D. A., & Sheehy, D. Edward. (2008). The Garland handbook of Latin American music. New York: Routledge.
Patel, A. D. (2008). Music, language, and the brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pramling Samuelsson, I. (2011). Konsten att lära barn estetik: En utvecklingspedagogisk studie av barns kunnande inom musik, poesi och dans. Stockholm: Norstedt.
Salcedo, C. S. (2010). The Effects Of Songs In The Foreign Language Classroom On Text Recall, Delayed Text Recall And Involuntary Mental Rehearsal. Journal of College Teaching and Learning 7(6), 19-30.
Sinnett, S., Spence, C., & Soto-Faraco, S. (2007). Visual dominance and attention: The Colavita effect revisited. Perception & Psychophysics 69(5), 673-686 (https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193770).
Skolverket. (2011). Läroplan för gymnasieskolan 2011. Stockholm: Skolverket. (https://www.skolverket.se/undervisning/gymnasieskolan/laroplan-program-och-amnen-i-gymnasieskolan/laroplan-gy11-for-gymnasieskolan; 20-06-2024)
Slevc, L. R. (2012). Language and music: Sound, structure, and meaning. WIREs Cognitive Science 3 (4), 483-492 (https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1186).
SOU. (2018). Barns och ungas läsning: Ett ansvar för hela samhället. Stockholm: Norstedts juridik.
Stassen, M. (2024, January 23). India could become the world’s biggest music streaming market by volume in 2024—Overtaking the USA. Music Business Worldwide. (https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/india-could-become-the-worlds-biggest-music-streaming-market-by-volume-in-2024/; 20-06-2024).
Stensson, B. (2006). Mellan raderna: Strategier för en tolkande läsundervisning. Daidalos.
Tegge, F. (2018). Pop songs in the classroom: Time-filler or teaching tool? ELT Journal 72 (3), 274-284 (https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccx071).
Thorgersen, K. (2014). Outcomes-Based Aesthetics? Reflections over Aesthetic Communication and Outcomes-Based Learning Based on a Study of Six Syllabi. English Teaching: Practice and Critique 13 (2), 19-34.
Tomalin, B. (2008). Culture — The fifth language skill. British Council: Teaching English. (https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/culture-fifth-language-skill; 20-06-2024).
Trier, J. (2006). Teaching With Media and Popular Culture. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 49(5), 434-438 (https://doi.org/10.1598/JAAL.49.5.7)
Tse, A. Y. H. (2015). Malaysian Teachers’ Perspectives on Using Songs in English Language Teaching. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity 5 (1), 87-89 /https://doi.org/10.7763/IJSSH.2015.V5.428).
Werner, V. (2019). Lyrics and language awareness. Nordic Journal of Language Teaching and Learning 7 (1), Article 1 (https://doi.org/10.46364/njmlm.v7i1.521)
Whong, M. (2011). Language Teaching: Linguistic Theory in Practice. Edinburgh University Press.
Wiggen, K. (1971). De två musikkulturerna: [Elektronmusik]. Stockholm: Sveriges Radio.
Zelechowska, A., Gonzalez Sanchez, V. E., Laeng, B., Vuoskoski, J. K., & Jensenius, A. R. (2020). Who Moves to Music? Empathic Concern Predicts Spontaneous Movement Responses to Rhythm and Music. Music & Science 3, 2059204320974216 (https://doi.org/10.1177/2059204320974216).
Authors:
Manuel Vidal, M.A.
Licensed Teacher in Spanish, Swedish as L2, English and Philosophy
Källbrinksskolan
Källbrinksvägen 55
141 31 Huddinge
Email: manuel.de-sousa-vidal@huddinge.se
Christine Ericsdotter Nordgren, Ph.D.
Language Centre Director, Lecturer of Linguistics and Voice Sciences
Stockholm University
Department of Linguistics
106 91 Stockholm
Email: christine.ericsdotter@su.se
____________________________________
(1) The curriculum was updated to LGR22 after the study was carried out, but the wording is the same.
(2) Authors’ choice of translation from Swedish ”hjälpgumma”, literally a word for an ’all-rounder’ who helps out with any kind of work.