Teaching Comprehension through music
Spear-Swerling (2019) explains that for students to comprehend texts they must be provided with lessons that activate prior knowledge, teach vocabulary, and allow students to actively read texts. Activating prior knowledge is a teacher-led activity which helps situate students with big ideas and develop background information. If students have no background knowledge of social justice or French culture, reading comprehension will be substantially more difficult. Exposing students to new vocabulary also sets them up for success as less time will be dedicated to deciphering unknown words and more time can be spent on comprehending their meaning within the context of the text. When actively reading, the goal is to have students engaging with the text by asking questions, summarizing and analysing the text (Spear-Swerling, 2019).
“Music can be integrated into a more true-to-life way of learning language. It assists learners not only with acquisition of vocabulary, but also mastery of language-relevant information”
(Khaghaninejad & Fahandejsaadi, 2016, p. 54)
When listening to songs we obviously want students to understand the lyrics but also interpret the messages and the deeper meanings behind the lyrics. Songs are artistic forms of text and can carry much deeper meaning through various literary devices. Comprehension of the songs can be presented in varying capacities based on the student’s age and reading abilities.
Comprehension Lessons and Activities
Many songs contain deeper themes such as social justice, mental wellbeing, global conflict etc. "Au feu rouge" is a song that follows the journey of a fictive Syrian refugee to France. The provided Powerpoint helps to provide background knowledge for later analysis. Students listened to the song, read the lyrics and worked together to respond to the comprehension questions. We were also able to discuss metaphors and other literary devices.
Adapted from Kelly Houlihan's (2021) original documents.
This artist biography allows students to read together and then demonstrate their comprehension of the text. This text also served as a model for when students researched and created their own artist biography.
The various parts of this project allow students to demonstrate different degrees of comprehension. They need to be able to summarize the song in 4 sentences, as well as be able to choose keywords and relevant citations.
