Season Two Episode 42
ESL and Kodály
Lauren Bain
Lauren: I think initially when I first experienced it I saw how literate children could be. They were doing things that I had just been able to do sort of in college and it was, while personally that was embarrassing, it was also exciting like wow! Kids can actually do this rhythmic and melodic stuff. That was the initial draw and what makes me excited about it is that kids can be very child appropriate and developmentally appropriate, but also at a very high level musicianship. They, even now as I work with it a whole lot more and I live with it and teach it, I see the connection that you can make with their own culture. 'Cause you know when you go back to what Kodály actually believed, he really applied to Hungary - it was about creating a sense of national identity and preserving the Hungarian language through their music and how we can take that and adapt it to our own American culture or the culture of the students that we're teaching. And I love that I can connect to students and not just through the music - not through music alone, but through their music. You know, I have a lot of Spanish speakers. I teach in a dual-language program and I'll do a lot of Spanish songs and the first time I'll do one here or there, there will always be a kid to to go 'Mi mia!' you know. 'Mi pia sang this to me!' 'Mi abuelita!' Or they know it and their eyes light up and they just are instantly connected and that's what we want our children to be is connected to the music.
So with children, when we're teaching them music, I look at all of them basically as ESL students in a sense because they are learning the language of our music. So when I can remove even words from something like if we're singing - I'm going to start with something easy like Snail, Snail (singing): Snail, Snail, Snail, Snail. And let's take the words out and sing on 'loo' (singing): loo loo loo loo. And we're doing movement to that. That removes that barrier of language so that they can become just focused on the music, but also it's not just about the music. It's, you know, when I have ESL students, it's about teaching them content and supporting them so when we're doing the English songs the more purposeful repetition we can, it's that practice of - the idea of fluency and you hear that with reading teachers a lot. It's the fluency of reading. How quickly can they speak and read those words at the same time? I look at that with music too. Building vocabulary and vocal fluency when we're singing the songs or moving to them. And then of course when we apply it to the literacy aspect of it - when we see staff notation or rhythmic notation and we practice that. That's the reading fluency. So there's a lot of connections to the way the general classroom teacher will teach ESL students and then also the way that we can do it through the Kodály process, you know, using lots of purposeful movement; lots of visuals to represent what we're talking about. That's really how I connect with our ESL students. That was a very long answer... (laughing)
Music reaches the part of the soul that truly nothing else can. And just to be a part of that for sure. So finding, definitely, authentic sources is a big part of what I do and once you collect them, you have them! You don't have ... or you become more aware of how to find better sources for sure. Like Vamos a Cantar. I use that one a whole lot. By Faith Knowles. It's available...it's kind of at $60 - it's pretty expensive, but very, very valuable. It's a big spiral bound book and it's organized according to simple melodic all the way through the most difficult melodic. Very much like a folk song collection would be. It's a phenomenal resource.
ESL and Kodály
Lauren Bain
Lauren Bain teaches K-5 elementary music at Carl Schurz Elementary in New Braunfels. She earned a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and Music Education from Trinity University in San Antonio. She also holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from Trinity University. Lauren received her Kodály certification from Texas State University, and her Orff-Schulwerk certification from Trinity University. She was named the New Braunfels ISD District Elementary Teacher of the Year in 2018, TEA’s Region 13 Elementary Teacher of the Year in 2019, and was a finalist for the HEB Excellence in Education Award in 2019.
She has served on music curriculum writing committees for both North East ISD and New Braunfels ISD. During her first 5 years in New Braunfels ISD, she field-tested kindergarten music curriculum for the latest publication in cognition and music education research by Oxford University Press entitled Kodály in the Kindergarten Classroom by Dr. Micheál Houlahan and Dr. Philip Tacka.
Lauren served as the Vice President for the Kodály Educators of Texas (2011-2016), and is currently the President. She has presented at OAKE and AOSA national conferences, TMEA, and the 2014 CEDFA Summit, as well as workshops in central and south Texas since 2009. She is the Level 1 Musicianship and Pedagogy Instructor for the Rio Grande Valley Kodály Program in McAllen, TX.
TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW:
Jessica: Lauren, thank you so much for talking today.
Lauren: Absolutely! I'm glad to be here.
Jessica: I'd love to know a little more about your music experiences and how you became a music educator.
Lauren: Well, I'm going to be really honest. I never wanted to be a teacher. It was one of those things like what do you want to be when you grow up? Anything but a teacher. I think I just had this misconception of what teaching was. I just assumed it was routine and boring and you wore like vests with apples and pencils on them and you just like ugh! why would you want to do that?! So I went into college to be a music major just definitely not going to be a teacher. I was a pianist so maybe I was thinking piano teaching too. So I had the opportunity... I think I had to pick an elective like my sophomore year and I picked Intro to American Schools. That'll be easy. Something like that and then it was really interesting! I was like hmm...this is kind of interesting and you got to go out to a school and observe and I was like 'this is a real classroom' like you know, how exciting! And then you know my junior year I think I had the opportunity to be a piano substitute teacher and that was the moment like 'oh I can really connect with an individual with the passion of music because I absolutely love music. Music changed my life, but that was the moment I was like I can connect my passion for music with people. I always wanted to help people and be involved in making people's lives better. I just didn't know what that would look like and it's obviously with teaching! Now... so that's how I got into teaching to be honest!
Jessica: And did you go ahead and switch your major from music to music education?
Lauren: Yes, I was like a general B.A. in music so I decided to do and I was leaning towards piano performance and so I added - I did music ed and piano performance at the same time so lots and lots of hours, but good.
Jessica: From there, when did you learn about the Kodály approach?
Lauren: So you kind of learn a little bit like you touch up on all the kind of philosophies in your elementary undergrad studies, but it was through student teaching actually is where I learned. I student taught with a Kodály teacher and I was like (gasp) that's how you do it! You know. I just wanted to know how do you do it! And then that's just how I got introduced was through my student teaching experience.
Jessica: Did you go ahead and get your levels right away?
Lauren: Uh no I waited a year. After I graduated, I got married and it was crazy summer so I just did my first year of teaching and then I did my Level One after. And then I did them back to back, you know - I, II, III for the next three summers so yeah almost immediately yeah.
Jessica: So while every approach brings something meaningful to our classrooms, what do you think it was about the Kodály approach that gave you passion about using it with your students?
Lauren: I think initially when I first experienced it I saw how literate children could be. They were doing things that I had just been able to do sort of in college and it was, while personally that was embarrassing, it was also exciting like wow! Kids can actually do this rhythmic and melodic stuff. That was the initial draw and what makes me excited about it is that kids can be very child appropriate and developmentally appropriate, but also at a very high level musicianship. They, even now as I work with it a whole lot more and I live with it and teach it, I see the connection that you can make with their own culture. 'Cause you know when you go back to what Kodály actually believed, he really applied to Hungary - it was about creating a sense of national identity and preserving the Hungarian language through their music and how we can take that and adapt it to our own American culture or the culture of the students that we're teaching. And I love that I can connect to students and not just through the music - not through music alone, but through their music. You know, I have a lot of Spanish speakers. I teach in a dual-language program and I'll do a lot of Spanish songs and the first time I'll do one here or there, there will always be a kid to to go 'Mi mia!' you know. 'Mi pia sang this to me!' 'Mi abuelita!' Or they know it and their eyes light up and they just are instantly connected and that's what we want our children to be is connected to the music.
Jessica: Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about what that's like for you teaching in a dual-language program. So how does using the Kodály approach help those ESL students learn not only music, but helping with their cultural songs as well?
Lauren: So when you think about, I've actually been interested a lot in ESL and the connection to Kodály teaching and when I was studying for my ESL exam, I was like this is exactly how we teach music. Like the connection to the good teaching that we use to teach students who don't know English was very similar to the way that I teach through the Kodály process. And the fact that when you think about music is a language and we all think about that. We all know that and recognize that as educators, but really music is sound associated with a symbol of some kind. And you think about any language - it's sounds associated with a random symbol so how do we start teaching children language to begin with? Well, we practice it a lot. We speak it. We model and they copy and that's a lot of what we do initially in the beginning stages of learning a concept through music as we are singing and we're copying each other and we're doing movement associated with things. With purposeful movement. We're doing lots of meaningful repetition. You know, repetition, I think, can have a bad name at times like the drill and kill / kill and drill, but that meaningful repetition.
So with children, when we're teaching them music, I look at all of them basically as ESL students in a sense because they are learning the language of our music. So when I can remove even words from something like if we're singing - I'm going to start with something easy like Snail, Snail (singing): Snail, Snail, Snail, Snail. And let's take the words out and sing on 'loo' (singing): loo loo loo loo. And we're doing movement to that. That removes that barrier of language so that they can become just focused on the music, but also it's not just about the music. It's, you know, when I have ESL students, it's about teaching them content and supporting them so when we're doing the English songs the more purposeful repetition we can, it's that practice of - the idea of fluency and you hear that with reading teachers a lot. It's the fluency of reading. How quickly can they speak and read those words at the same time? I look at that with music too. Building vocabulary and vocal fluency when we're singing the songs or moving to them. And then of course when we apply it to the literacy aspect of it - when we see staff notation or rhythmic notation and we practice that. That's the reading fluency. So there's a lot of connections to the way the general classroom teacher will teach ESL students and then also the way that we can do it through the Kodály process, you know, using lots of purposeful movement; lots of visuals to represent what we're talking about. That's really how I connect with our ESL students. That was a very long answer... (laughing)
Jessica: No! It was a great answer! I was thinking before you got to the visual aspect of it 'cause the Kodály approach talks a lot about kinesthetic, aural, and visual representation and what the way you're presenting and so hitting on all of those for our ESL students, I would think, would be important so that they can - just like any student really - so they can feel it in their body, see it in their body, and hear it.
Lauren: Absolutely.
Jessica: Do you find that by having those three: the visual, aural, and kinesthetic - that it helps all of your students?
Lauren: Those three absolutely - kinesthetic, aural, and visual - are absolutely critical and essential and vital to teaching any child. We talk about, "Oh our ESL students need them." Yes, they absolutely do, but so do our regular ed students. If we go back and think about music as this language that we have to teach - if we keep that in the forefront of our minds, what do you need to do to learn a new language? You need to feel it in your body, in your mouth, in your ears. You need to hear it in your ears. You need to hear it from other people. You need to see representations of course before...we're doing pre-literature at that point because we haven't labeled it yet. That's absolutely key. If I don't do those three steps before I label a concept, a lot of my kids are not going to fully understand that concept and I want them to know it. I want them to feel it. I want them to hear it. I want them to create their own visual representations of it before I even put a label on it because then they already know everything about it. You know it's that whole sound to symbol approach that's big in music education that's important.
Jessica: And for your young ESL students, do you really differentiate for your young ESL students compared to your students who are not ESL? Is there a big differentiation or does it make you just more cognizant of making sure you're teaching well to all students by being diligent and making sure that your lessons are supported with the visual, aural, and kinesthetic? Does that make sense?
Lauren: Yes, it does. We used to have... well our... anyways it's a long story; it doesn't really matter, but our school used to be divided between English classes and the Dual-Language classes and now we do this merging of everybody so I really have ESL students in every class, but you're absolutely right. It does make me more aware and vigilant about providing those supports for the students. But really I do pretty much the same thing for every lesson, but when I know I have a heavy concentration or students who have just come in from - we've got a lot coming from Puerto Rico, El Salvador, and Mexico - when I've got those newer students I'm even more careful in that lesson to provide a lot more, of course. Especially when it comes to language barrier 'cause a lot of my instruction is English. That's what I speak. A lot of the songs that I do are in English so they're automatically going to be overwhelmed with that so the more support I can provide for them when they're in those lessons - absolutely. But for the most part I provide all of that in every lesson. If that makes sense.
Jessica: Yeah. And you touched on this too about Kodály wanting to be...capture the heritage of the Hungarian people and keeping that - the language of the people and using their Mother tongue, you know, as their first experience with music so... and I think you touched on this as well - using songs in the languages of your students to help them learn musically. So do you find that you incorporate or that you look for authentic folk material in your students' languages?
Lauren: Absolutely. You make mistakes as you go along like 'Oh it's a song in Spanish!' And you find out it's - they're like 'ehhh' or like 'that's not really one that we would do' or it just doesn't feel or sound authentic so I've definitely made that mistake before and so learning to be really... it can be really frustrating at times because finding authentic sources is not always easy to do, but when you do they just (gasp) "They did this...and my grandmother...they just." It connects them to their family and then of course family is a huge part of our heritage and culture.
Music reaches the part of the soul that truly nothing else can. And just to be a part of that for sure. So finding, definitely, authentic sources is a big part of what I do and once you collect them, you have them! You don't have ... or you become more aware of how to find better sources for sure. Like Vamos a Cantar. I use that one a whole lot. By Faith Knowles. It's available...it's kind of at $60 - it's pretty expensive, but very, very valuable. It's a big spiral bound book and it's organized according to simple melodic all the way through the most difficult melodic. Very much like a folk song collection would be. It's a phenomenal resource.
Jessica: How do you handle it when students are new to your...when students are new to your school and they're older students who maybe haven't had the musical training like your younger students would have had? How do you help them kind of immerse into the music classroom learning the musical language really?
Lauren: Right. That is...that's a huge question because that happens every year all the time I think for all of us. One thing that is a bigger struggle for my older students who move in is that, you know, we've just - I've been at my school for ten years so it is a singing culture that kids just...that's what we do in music class is we sing. So when you have a new kid come in who maybe hasn't had that background in singing, that's the most uncomfortable part for them. I usually try to have a private conversation like on the way out of music class. So like, "Hey, I know this was probably different maybe than your other music classes. I know being new in a school is tricky. You're going to see we have a lot of fun. We play games. We play instruments. We do a lot of singing and sometimes it's uncomfortable to sing, but you know all of us do so like I want you to try it cause it's really...." I have some sort of pep talk like man I know it's new. Basically the idea is empathy. It's hard to be new, but we're going to have fun so I do expect you to start trying a little bit so once you feel comfortable.
And I don't try to put kids on the spot in front of other kids. It's never never helpful for them. And it's usually about building a relationship. It usually takes a month or two to really get them out and to make sure they're paired with kids who are strong and compassionate at the same time. I usually have a couple of those kids that can be a support and then of course you know that differentiation when you're adding layers of tricky rhythms or melodies - finding a way to make it simpler for them so they can have (gasp) "You can have a special part and it's like (singing) so-mi-so" - or something like or (speaking rhythm) ta ta ta-di ta. Something like that where they can still be successful and still make music 'cause that's the goal.
Jessica: Absolutely. Anything else that you can think of on the...about ESL and Kodály that you can think would be valuable?
Lauren: I think movement is sometimes underrated. The value of how important it is to move and not just even the beat. Where are we putting that rhythm? Are we going to put it in our hands? Is it something they can visually see and then copy the movement? Are we going to put it on our shoulders? Are we going to put it on our head or in our toes? When we're singing the melody and we're showing the shape, you know, on the board or in the air or with a partner, how can that movement be so closely connected to what we're doing conceptually? Like high and low or some sort of rhythmic so that they really understand exactly what we're focusing on regardless of the language barrier. They get the same idea and when I ask questions they can maybe internally (snap) understand what we're doing based on the movement. I'd say movement is a big underrated thing with our ESL students.
And kids need to move. My goodness they sit all the time in class so I want them to be wiggly and have fun in my room, but even if you don't have ESL students you still have students with special needs. You still have students that are dyslexic. That have a myriad of disabilities for those supports - the visuals and the movement and just all of that - the fluency. You know, kids that struggle to read. Those things are still incredibly invaluable for those students too and that's why, you know, I did a presentation at the National Conference about ESL and Kodály because it was just, to me, I think the misconception is that people think ESL - Ooh I'm teaching Spanish or I have to teach just in Spanish or it's about the language when really it's about the language of music and if you think about it all of our students are ESL when it comes to music. Or I guess MSL (Music as a Second Language). And so all of those things are valuable for all the students because we all have students that need that differentiation and that's what it's built into the process which is amazing.
Jessica: And what an amazing gift to have - it's like you said earlier - music does things for our soul and its' such an incredible way about learning about life really. Engaging in life and so what a great opportunity for students to learn more about themselves and their family and just to learn the musical language and engage in music and all of that. I think that's a good thing to keep in mind that we're really teaching the musical language. I like the acronym MSL.
Lauren: Maybe someone else has said that before, but I didn't even think about it. MSL - yeah!
**To hear more of our conversation, check out Season Two: Episode 43 where Lauren shares about Kodály and Kindergarten.
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