Using a music-based framework to support oral language and writing in the English classroom

This presentation outlines an Australian study conducted in three school contexts which explored oral language through music education principles for writing development. Principles from Orff Schulwerk and Kodàly music pedagogies were applied through a LIRIC (listening, interpreting, rehearsing, improvising and composing) framework to explore language as an aesthetic musical resource.

This completed PhD research study conducted in Australian NSW and Canberra schools over two years, explored the potential for music and music education principles to support oral language for writing development in the primary classroom. While oral language is often emphasised as an important basis for literacy development and as a key to equity outcomes, connections with music and song are still not generally emphasised in the literacy classroom, in western-influenced Anglophone settings. Yet, spoken language and music share a prosodic connection in human development, both in evolutionary and anthropological terms and as seen in child development. A LIRIC (listening, interpreting, rehearsing, improvising and composing) model was developed in three primary school classrooms, combining pedagogical principles from music and English, but which heavily drew on Orff Schulwerk and Kodály methods. Teachers and students explored language in musical and aesthetic terms to appreciate and experiment with prosodic cadence and rhythm, and their significance for the meanings of created texts. The findings indicate that a classroom which applied a music pedagogy-based approach through the elements of LIRIC directly supported oral language and writing development. Benefits through the elements associated with creativity - rehearsal and improvisation - were reported by teachers and students. These benefits included an increased sense of agency, writing fluency, peer collaboration, and risk-taking. This study also showed that generalist teachers without music expertise could apply the LIRIC principles and found them beneficial. These highlight the further potential for oral language and music connections to be applied in research, policy and practice.