Jordan Armstrong & Sarina Li: Annotated Bibliography Mnemonics & Primary School Students

Schn, D., M. Boyer, et al. (2008). "Songs as an aid for language acquisition." Cognition 106(2): 975-983. This journal article outlines the benefits of using musical mnemonics for language acquisition, through providing already known information about the brains ability to process mnemonics effectively, and also providing the results from an experiment conducted to see if musical memorization was more effective than verbal. Initially, the article presents the obvious challenges of learning a new language. One of the major challenges to overcome is being able to extract words from what can seem like a continuous stream of incoherent syllables. In the experiment, participants were given 7 minutes to memorise as many incoherent syllables as they could, that were being presented to them through oral communication. Another group of participants also had 7 minutes to memorise the same syllables, only the syllables were presented to them through song. The results show that the brain was much more efficiently able to memorise the syllables through music. This is due to the fact that recognizable patterns were much easier to extract, as changing syllables resulted in a change of pitch. Word boundaries become much clearer through song. This further crystalises our reasons for supporting implementing musical mnemonics into primary school classes, as it has been tried and tested. The fact that it is a time efficient classroom musical tool is supports our research that it is a positive classroom method. The article summarises by stating that for learning to be optimal, emotional, structural and linguistic functions of learning materials must be in balance. Whilst covering all the strengths of musical mnemonics in the classroom, some limitations are clear. A fair counter argument is not presented, nor is it suggested that any other method apart from mnemonics could be helpful in teaching language. It also does not focus on children, but more on the average adult brain and memory. It also does not take into account issues such as learning deficits in participants, which could be an important issue to cover from an educators perspective. Jackson, Nina; Gilbert, Ian (2009). The Little Book of Music for the Classroom : Using music to improve memory, motivation, learning and creativity. Retrieved from http://www.eblib.com This book covers many primary school classroom topics, such as maths, science, English and also learning second languages. The book offers many interesting discoveries about a childs ability to remember through music, that are based on scientific research. For example, the book references research by Georgi Lozanov, who discovered in the 1950s that to best utelise music as a learning tool, pieces with a tempo that is as close to the average heart rate, is the most effective way for the brain to effortlessly imprint information. This is helpful research, as it is vital to know the optimal conditions for the effectiveness of mnemonics, to be able to claim that they are effective learning tools for primary school children. Furthermore, it states that the effortless imprinting is especially helpful to use as a learning tool with children with learning difficulties such as dyslexia. The book also offers a long list of different pieces that can be used as basis of musical mnemonics, based on their tempos, which is once again an important resource to have to support the effectiveness of musical mnemonics in the classroom. There are a number of different classroom activities to go along with the music also provided as well, to trial the effectiveness of the topics discussed. The quality of the information provided could be further improved with more recent research on the topic of mnemonics, such as up-to-date statistics, and comparisons to other methods of learning. However, the book fits in with our research, as it gives us a

more extensive list of reasons to support the use of mnemonics in primary school education, through providing research and ideas that we have not yet encountered in other similar literature.