Why Music is the Perfect Tool for Language Learning Beyond Words

Here’s something few have considered when trying to find relatively easier ways to study or learn English:

Music is a language…and Language is Music.

If you are an ESL teacher, you can use the elements of “metalanguage” to help students acquire & pronounce new vocabulary; speak more clearly & confidently; and develop a better ear for listening to conversations in English.

If you are an English language learner, let me break the concept down for you and show you how to use the language of music to help you add more clarity, confidence, and fun to what you’re studying.

Music & Metalanguage

“Metalanguage” can involve the underlying characteristics and concepts we can use to describe or analyze the various facets of how a language sounds or works.

When you tie this metalanguage to music, studying and acquiring another language becomes more effective, enjoyable, and very memorable.

In fact, I came to understand this connection by helping some Chinese students way before I ever became a teacher!

Here’s the story, and here’s how you can use metalanguage & music to help you vastly improve your language learning (or teaching) in record time:

My Life In Music

First, you have to know Music has been a part of my life since I was 12 years old.

I played piano and trumpet individually and in orchestra, concert, and jazz bands all through my teenage years.

I eventually gave all that up for studying guitar, and eventually graduated from a professional contemporary music school in Minneapolis.

And after that, I got the chance to join a variety band that toured the American South and then spent 8 months playing for U.S. troops stationed all over South Korea.

In all this time, you can be sure I had tons of music lessons and learned a lot of ways to study it from some amazing teachers.

But I would have never guessed that when I left my music career behind and was considering going back to school to become an ESL teacher that I would continue to take those lessons to heart and share them all over the world!

How A Life In Music Prepared My For Teaching

About a year before considering going back to school, I decided to take a trip to Beijing, China.

My hotel was near Tiananmen Square and a major market where I read there were some amazing places to get Beijing Duck.  So, on my second night in China, I made that my mission.

Now, while I was on my way to Tianemen, I was stopped by four college students who asked me where I was going and wanted to do.

“We will be happy to show you where the best duck restaurant is if you would be so kind as to teach us some English,” they offered.

Remember:  I wasn’t an English teacher…I hadn’t really considered being one at all yet!

Nevertheless, I said yes.

Not knowing what to say or do–let alone teach–I first simply had a casual conversation that eventually led to teachable moments.  Here’s what I did:

When there were words that were hard for them to pronounce, I asked them to tap on the table how many syllables they heard.  Next, listen to the percussiveness of how the parts of the words are stressed more softly or loudly than others.

In between bites of delicious and succulent Beijing Duck, we discovered together that if you listen very carefully to how native English speakers utter sentences, there are differences in pitch as well as in volume.

A simple example was the rule that when you ask a yes/no question, the voice goes up at the end of it.  But that was just the beginning.  

As they listened to me speak, or when they wrote down sentences they wanted to learn, I told them to listen to each word or phrase and hear how the voice went up or down in implicitly meaningful ways.  

Sometimes they were expressed more loudly or softly than other parts of a sentence for specific reasons.

So, as we dined, I asked them to write out the sentences we were learning and map them out using arrows that went up and down in pitch, and symbols for long and short, loud and soft to see and practice the musicality of English when I was long gone.

But they still had a heck of a time putting longer sentences together into clear and coherent speech…until I remember my music lessons from long ago!

In music, there are not just pitches and notes.  There are also beats and rhythms under them.

The English language is no different.  It too has tempo and steady rhythmic flow.

I asked them to use their index fingers to tap on the dinner table in sync to mine.  We then spoke the words of our difficult or long sentence by first breaking it into pieces.  

Next, I showed them how to practice their speaking skills EXACTLY how I learned difficult musical phrases playing trumpet or guitar as a kid.

We start with a slow, steady beat, still tapping on the table.  

Say your phrase or sentence fragment and try to match your speech to the tempo.

When you can say it 3 times perfectly, you can increase speed a bit.  Then repeat the practice.

After you have learned the fragments and phrases of your sentence, not connect them together a little at a time…still tapping a tempo, starting slow and building, and only changing speed when you have done it three times correctly.

And if you can’t do it three times correctly, you must lower your speed until you can!

When dinner was over, we hardly realized the time had flown by.

The Chinese college students told me no one had ever taught them such an incredibly fun and memorable way to work out the difficulties of learning, pronouncing and speaking English like that before.

As we parted, the enthusiasm and gratitude they showed me was something I had never experienced before.

I never did go across the street to Tiananmen Square… but that was the very first English lesson I ever gave…and it transformed my life ever after.

Music Pedagogy & ESL Teaching Are Not So Different

I have used these principles of music pedagogy and practice with ESL students from all over the world–people of all ages and abilities.

In fact, I have learned a few more metalanguage-meets-music tricks up my sleeve since the first time.

Understand: 

This is another example of using your “why” to help you overcome and daunting “how” that you experience.  Moreover, it’s an illustration of how your passion can help transform the lives of others in ways you can’t even imagine just yet.

Language learning doesn’t have to be boring, complicated or frustrating.  There are a few simple (but not necessarily easy) hacks to improve your English rather quickly…

And one of them is when you remember to realize that Music is a language, and Language is Music.

Brandon Bufe, MA TESOL

(Founder of Endgame Academics)

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Thanks for stopping by.

I empower high school & university students (and their parents!) to reach their true potential by mastering their mindset and academic English communication skills while learning to navigate the culture of American academia.

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