Workshop Description
The connection between music and language has been studied extensively, and teachers have used music successfully in their language classrooms for decades. Evidence suggests that using music in a language classroom would result in an accelerated acquisition of language compared to classrooms in which music was not used (Wallace, 1994). Further, integrating music into language classrooms helps to teach implicit cultural knowledge, in addition to increasing linguistic competency and proficiency, familiarizing L2 learners with speech patterns of native speakers and improving pronunciation.
In this workshop, we will discuss some strategies we use in our language classrooms to incorporate music/songs to teach new words and phrases, stress patterns, intonation, pronunciation, and culture among others.
About the presenters
Shahyar Daneshgar is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies in Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He teaches Introductory and Intermediate Persian and directed readings as well. He has also taught culture courses for the Department of Central Eurasian Studies and the former International Studies Program. Presently, he is overseeing the creation of an Azerbaijani Textbook for Communicative Purposes for college levels. In addition to teaching, Shahyar is a musician and has been performing locally, nationally and internationally. He often uses songs in his lessons to engage the students in class activities. His students often participate in extracurricular activities and programs such as the Nowruz celebration at IU. Shahyar uses songs and music as a tool for teaching both grammar and cultural elements in his classes
Tserenchunt Legden is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies, IU. She has been teaching Introductory, Intermediate, and Advanced Mongolian at IU since 2004 and Summer Intensive Mongolian since 2007. Her research interests include second language acquisition, teaching Mongolian as a foreign language, phonology of Mongolian, language curriculi and textbooks, and bilingual dictionary. Tserenchunt is certified ACTFL OPI Tester in Mongolian. Tserenchunt has published a three-volume Sain baina uu Mongolian language textbook series for foreigners in 1999-2002 (co-authored with Sharon Luethy) and developed Mongolian language learning modules with Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region (CeLCAR). She also compiled an English-Mongolian and Mongolian-English pocket dictionary with Dr. Uvsh Purev. Tserenchunt’s current projects include developing new elementary- and intermediate-level Mongolian language textbooks and creating an online course in Mongolian.