With the recent addition of a dedicated music room at Wellington College Bilingual Shanghai, teaching partners Sarah Peel and Peihua Wang explain how music opens children’s minds to learning, and why it’s vital that children are given the chance to participate in music making early in their education.
Music is connected to almost every element of learning in ways both subtle and obvious. From birth, music is part of how a child learns language, explores their motor skills and physical abilities, and develops a social and cultural understanding of their family and community. Music supports a child’s curiosity, encouraging independent thought, creativity, self-expression, and empathy. It is part of who we are, and for this reason above all others, it is vital that early years pupils are given the opportunity to explore music in a way that is hands-on, creative, joyful, and positive. In our music sessions, we work together to introduce young children to the joy of making music together, while they discover and develop new skills.
Nurturing independence and creativity
At the heart of what we do is the message to young children that music is for everyone to experience and enjoy as part of life. Our classes are not just about learning to appreciate music. Making music is for everyone as well. Too often these days, people assume playing music is just for professionals that perform on TV and in concert halls. When we make music together with children our goal is not to create performers and future stars. It is to use the act of making music to explore and support learning. To achieve this, instrument play music must be explored without any anxiety about the result. It is about having a go and learning from the process, not the quality of the final performance.
Our approach is to always encourage pupils to try new ways of singing, moving, or playing instruments as part of exploring how musical sounds are created. Rather than telling children what to do with a musical instrument or their own voice, we guide and encourage experimentation, so they can make discoveries on their own. For example, instead of saying: “This is how you play this instrument,” we describe how a child is playing, then ask questions that encourage be active learners: “What sounds can this make? Can you show me another way to play? Can you find a way to play it loudly? What about quietly?”. This process is much more engaging for young learners, developing the independence they need to be successful learners later in life as well as an opportunity for genuine creativity. If a child simply follows a teacher’s instructions, they are mimicking a performance. We want our children to have the chance to learn and create on a much deeper and more meaningful level.
We were very careful with our choice of instruments when equipping the music room. Young children are often quite energetic, eager to explore, but not always as gentle with instruments as older musicians. The instruments needed to be robust and capable of being handled roughly on occasion, but still sound musical and pleasing to the ear. There’s nothing worse than giving a child an instrument and then immediately saying: “Don’t do this, don’t do that, no no no no no”. Children must be able to have the freedom to explore instruments however they choose, as long as it’s done safely of course. High quality, durable instruments that are easy to clean make this possible. Our small hand drums have a tough, reinforced inner plastic linings are a good example. The children love them and delight in pounding out rhythms with them, but they are strong enough to be explored without a chorus of “Don’t! No!” from the adults in the room. We’ve also created a “music kitchen” on the balcony outside our room. It’s equipped with all manner of pots, pans and kitchen implements donated by the families and staff in our setting. During visits to the music kitchen, the children are free to let loose and experiment however they like, finding sounds in everyday objects. It’s very different to any kind of formal instrument, and there’s no expectation of making “the right sound” in this area. We find this often eliminates any nagging fear of failure or making a mistake in the child’s mind. It helps children build confidence and be willing to take risks when learning new skills, something essential for learners of any age.
The music programme offers children the opportunity to hear and explore both traditional Western and Chinese instruments, including the guzheng, dizi, piano, guitar, ukulele, and many more. The idea is not only to share what a variety of instruments sound like, but also how they feel, how they make sound, and how these sounds compare to one another. Every instrument is introduced in an accessible, hands-on way. When we introduced the dizi, a long bamboo flute, the adults breathed into the flute while the children discovered how wind instruments work by covering and uncovering different holes to hear the sound change. Our goal is to introduce as many instrument families as possible during the children’s time with us. Bringing traditional Chinese instruments into the classroom is an important part of this in our bilingual and bicultural setting. Instruments from China are closely linked to the culture of our community, as well as the music, literature, and poetry the children are learning in the classroom.
Differentiating sounds and tones
Music is an engaging and natural way to help children learn to differentiate between sounds. We listen to specific instruments, play guessing games and explore the tonal qualities of different sounds while considering how they fit together to create a melody. This skill is essential to understanding language as well, in Chinese or English. Differentiating sounds is a key skill children work on as part of phase one phonics. Before children can blend and reproduce specific sounds into words, they must be able to hear them and understand what it is they are hearing. We believe strongly that music can support learning in this key area of language development, and should be considered a fundamental part of any bilingual early years setting.
To build strong sound discrimination skills, we use contrasts, such as loud and quiet, high and low, stop and go, fast and slow, to help our young learners learn to listen and differentiate. Stark differences are easy for young learners to recognise and differentiate and connected to basic musical concepts that will support good musicianship in the future.
Language acquisition is also reinforced in our classes through our dual language approach to teaching. We lead classes in both Chinese and English, switching back and forth as is appropriate, depending on who is leading the activity or song. Often, we offer the same song in both languages to reinforce new vocabulary. The children love to be creative with language: they are constantly playing with lyrics, translating between the two languages, or playing with words from both languages to create their own versions of songs. This language play stimulates the imagination and allows children to practice vocabulary in a fun, low-risk way, without the stress of being wrong or giving a wrong answer.
Developing physical skills
Children are not designed to sit still! Music inspires movement. When we hear music we tap our toes, clap our hands, shake our hips, or run a little faster at the gym. Young children feel music just as strongly and are in the process of discovering how their bodies move and work. Music and dance are rooted in rhythm, influenced by tempo and are highly expressive. Expressive movement activities, playing hand percussion instruments, or carefully plucking strings all challenge children to develop and refine their motor skills through regular practice and repetition.
Supporting every area of learning
Our intention for music at Wellington College Bilingual Shanghai is to support learning across all areas. Whether we are dancing, singing, experimenting with instruments or finding rhythms in the music kitchen, our goals is always to encourage children to learn through music, explore new ideas, and use their creativity to work together. As the children learn music, they are developing key skills across all learning areas that will allow them to be capable and independent learners as they grow older.
Music offers children the unique opportunity to gain confidence, take risks, explore new paths and most importantly, love learning. It’s not just tangible skills and musical knowledge children learn through music. We want to help children know that it’s okay to play and experiment, it’s okay to make mistakes and there are many “right” ways of learning. As educators, we believe this approach helps all children learn and succeed in music, in school and in life.
