cohesion - European Centre for Modern Languages

neighbouring countries have similar musical rhythms and that music is a cultural
element that can contribute to the demolition of barriers.
In order to enable pupils to further elaborate on the soothing nature of music, the
teacher encourages young pupils to talk about fairy tales or myths with relevant
content. For example, The Magic Flute, i.e. the story upon which Mozart’s well-known
opera was based, can be discussed. To explore the content of the story, the teacher can
present pupils with information concerning the writer Emanuel Schickaneder’s idea of
integrating the concept of the power of music and its influence on both humans and
animals into the libretto and developing it through the lines of his written work.
Task 2
Initially pupils are presented with a leaflet announcing the Edinburgh pop festival and a
poster advertising the Museum of Popular Instruments in Plaka, Athens. This material
aims to expose pupils to different sources and to encourage them to talk about music
festivals organised in the village or at the resort where they spend their summer holiday
as well as about their favourite kinds of music. Furthermore, pupils can be encouraged
to talk about the musical instruments on the poster. Perhaps they have such instruments
in their homes. They could share their knowledge about particular instruments or even
play an instrument which they know. Finally, they could also explain why they would
like to learn how to play a particular instrument.
Then the pupils can co-operate in teams in order to further reflect upon folk music and
its role as a unifying principle as well as to engage in activities allowing them to use
the English language in order to communicate meanings relevant to the topic under
discussion. To this end, the teacher asks pupils to form groups of 3-4 and to decide on
which of the five continents they are going to focus on. Then they find information
concerning musical instruments that the people use to play local music. Moreover, the
teacher asks pupils to search for the names of instruments in local languages/dialects on
the Internet and to translate and present them in class. Alternatively, in co-operation
with the music and the art teacher, pupils could construct musical instruments using
material found in most homes. For example, two paper plates, with loose beans inside,
can be glued together along the edges to form a rattle. While clay flowerpots, wire and
a broom handle can be used to make pot chimes.
Moreover, pupils (in pairs of groups) can be asked to produce posters on which they
express their opinions about music by producing comprehensive statements, such as
“music unites people”, “people love to listen to different kinds of music”, etc. Pupils
can also be encouraged to draw illustrations which express their statements on posters.
In this way the theory of multiple intelligences (reading, drawing, visualising, etc) is
taken into account to the benefit of the pupils. Later the posters can be displayed in the
classroom so that the pupils can admire the work of their peers and discuss the
statements with the writers.
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