However, in order to understand its multiple benefits and utility, I consider that it would be appropriate to deal with another issue before: the connection between music and our brain, or the importance that music has at the time of learning.

Image from: jonlieffmd.com/blog/unique-effects-of-music-on-the-brain

There are lots of studies and neurologists which have argued and demonstrated that there is, indeed, a real and direct relationship between these two elements: music and our memory. For instance the neurologist Petr Janata, as Hsu (2009) said, developed the first study using music to look at autobiographical memory. He carried out a brain-scan study to discover the most active part of the brain when we heard a familiar piece of music. He found that it is the prefrontal cortex, and he also found that it is the same region that lighted up in other of his studies, in “response to self-reflection and recall of autobiographical details” (Hsu, 2009). So he discovered the music-memory link. Related to it, he pointed out the benefits of music for people suffering from Alzheimer adding that “the prefrontal cortex is among the last brain regions to atrophy” (Janata cited by Hsu, 2008). In the same line, according to Oliver Sacks (2008) “the past which is not recoverable in any other way is embedded, as if in amber, in the music, and people can regain a sense of identity…”.

Moving away from scientific studies, and focusing on the educational field, the effectiveness of music at the time of learning is something that most of us have experienced by ourselves. Especially in foreign language lessons, because songs are fantastic tools to learn vocabulary and grammar structures.

However, as I said before, I discovered a tool which is even better than songs! It is Jazz Chants. They were created by Carolyn Graham 30 years ago, when she discovered that the rhythm, intonation and stress of natural spoken English language, are the same than the ones of a concrete type of music, Jazz. Due to that fact, apart from reinforcing vocabulary and grammar, with Jazz Chants you also practice something that in words of the BBC (2006) is “crucial for communication”: intonation and stress of natural English spoken language.

Other advantages that Jazz Chants have, are that the possibilities with them are endless (you can make a Jazz chant about almost anything!), and that everyone is able to do one! In fact Carolyn Graham offered the “magic recipe” for creating them:

• Choose a topic of interest to your students
• Write 3 words about that topic
• Separate words by sounds (even with grammar chants)
• Organise the words following a “magic rule”: 2 sounds word, 3 sounds word and 1 sound word, and add a little bit of repetition. You can also add grammar pattern between that words. And that’s it! You have it!

Finally, one of my peers and me reached to the conclusion that an example of a content that can be surely and successfully learnt through Jazz Chants, are the grammar structures of the Trinity exam that nowadays bilingual pupils have to be tested on.

If you want to learn more about this fantastic tool and its creator, you can visit the following links:

• Official website: http://jazzchants.net/home,
• Interview with Carolyn Graham: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_nPUuPryCs,
• Other projects in which Carolyn Graham is involved: http://www.childrenspicturedictionary.com/
• Examples of Jazz Chants of another author: http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/listening/jazz-chants/mp3-files-and-recording-scripts/

Hsu, J. (2009, 24 February). Music-Memory Connection Found in Brain. Live Science. Recovered from: http://www.livescience.com/5327-music-memory-connection-brain.html

Sacks, O. (2008). Musicophilia – Alzheimer’s/The Power of Music [Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdYplKQ4JBc

BBC (2006, 16 March). Intonation. British Council. Teaching English. Recovered from: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/intonation

Jazz Chants official website: http://jazzchants.net/

Graham, C. (2010) Teaching Jazz Chants – Carolyn Graham [Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_nPUuPryCs

When we saw in the seminar the video of a class doing a jazz chant, I was surprised about the “strange” letters in the room, so I want to search about what language is this and why Jazz Chants are there. Finding at home for more Jazz Chants, I discover that this language is Filipino and they are from the Republic of Philippines.

And you can be thinking: “Why Jazz Chants arrive in Philippines?”. Well, I continue finding about it and I found that, from 2008 to 2012, there were the “National English Jazz Chants Festival” supported by the Department of Education of the Government of Philippines, so it shows that the government understand that Jazz Chants are a good methodology to help children to learn English, so they create a festival to develop it.

I think this is a good way to introduce new techniques and new tools to learn English, also in countries where English is the official language. Can you think something like this (a festival) in Spain? Or even in Alcalá, Madrid or Guadalajara?

Maybe you think this is not possible nowadays because children doesn’t have the level required to do it, but this can be a stimulation for them to learn English and understand that learning a new language can be fun. If TV series like “Dora, the Explorer” or the official exams of Cambridge can motivate children to be interested in English and to obtain a good result for them, this “funny” things can be a good thing to increase their motivation.

Is Competition good for kids?

This festival made me think about if competition is good or bad for children. The American author, Alfie Kohn says that “If one child wins, another cannot. Competition leads children to envy winners, to dismiss losers.” so that can make that we think that competition is bad for children because allow them to “put stickers” on their classmates about who is good at something and who is not as good as the others at other things, but he also says that “Co-operation (…) is marvellously successful (…). Children feel better about themselves when they work with others instead of against them”.

Many specialists on children said that healthy competitions are good for children, but all the competitions are “healthy”? What makes a competition “healthy”?. If a healthy competition is about working in groups to not demotivate students, I think we are not doing what we have to do, because in real life, they are going to compete alone, and if we used to our children to be always in groups for everything, maybe we are preparing them for an unreal future.

Link to a video of the winners of 2011 edition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bzhB4MqgEY

Link to their Facebook page (there are information only till the 4th NEJCF in 2011) http://www.facebook.com/pages/National-English-Jazz-Chants-Festival/113346822069127

Link to a webpage where there’s a debate about competition and children: http://www.ineos.com/articles/inch-issue-5-2013/debate-is-competition-good-for-kids/