A quiet, gentle lullaby can calm a fussy baby, as all parents know. A magnificent symphony can make us swell with excitement as adults. However, music can also influence how we learn. Music is one of the few activities that requires the use of the entire brain. It is inherent in all cultures and can have surprising benefits not only for language acquisition, memory improvement, and attention focusing, but also for physical coordination and development. Music promotes learning and improves communication. We've learned a lot about how the brain develops in recent years. Babies have billions of brain cells when they are born. Those brain cells form connections with other brain cells during the first years of life. The connections we use on a regular basis become stronger over time. Children who grow up listening to music form strong musical connections, which strengthen their language skills.
Music is very important in learning both our native language and additional languages. Music and language development are inextricably linked. Long before we can say the words, we can imitate the rhythm and musical structure of our mother tongue. Most of us can recall several songs and nursery rhymes from our childhood. Music significantly improves our ability to remember words and expressions. The rhythm of the music, as well as the repeated patterns within the song, aid in word retention. Singing songs in their second language can benefit bilingual children in particular. Even if most of the words are unfamiliar at first, children can benefit from mimicking the words in a song by practicing producing sounds in the new language. As the song is practiced over and over, the sounds eventually give way to actual understanding. We learn language through music in this way.
Multilingual people frequently have exceptional musical ability. Similarly, musical people excel at foreign language learning because of their superior ability to perceive, process, and reproduce accents. Understanding how music can help with language learning is important because listening to music requires both sides of our brains to be active, making it easier to remember information that is simply read.
Music friday night funkin and songs are essential components of all Helen Doron courses. "Music is extremely important for language learning," says Helen Doron. We learn intonation, syntax, rhyme, pre-reading abilities, and everything else through music. Through music, learning becomes much more integrated into our very being."