Basic principles to keep in mind when planning a music lesson or a non-music lesson with music activities

One of the first things to keep in mind when planning a music lesson is that you should include as many opportunities as possible for learners to engage with and actively listen to, move to and create/perform music throughout the lesson. The CAPS for Creative Arts, performing arts in the foundation phase defines the following topics (please see the summary of CAPS topics and outcomes in the prescribed textbook, chapter 6)

The CAPS document further clearly indicates that the chosen performing arts topic (as defined within Creative Arts), must correlate with and support the Life Skills topic of the term and week. With this in mind, and by studying the performing arts topics, it becomes clear that foundation phase teachers are encouraged to include elements of play, to encourage creativity, discovery and collaboration and to apply arts integration strategies as often as possible in their teaching. It is further important to be aware of the fact that, although we focus on music in LSKM 221, performing arts include elements of both dance (movement) and drama as well. By utilising music (and performing arts) activities as much as possible in the foundation phase and by applying various arts integration activities and strategies (also refer to the theoretical framework for integrating music in the foundation phase, section 4.3), teachers are able to foster not only social and creative thinking skills but increase learners’ motivation for learning while also learning more about themselves. Through arts integration and play, learners are encouraged to be actively engaged in the teaching and learning process by allowing them to have fun while engaging in authentic, meaningful teaching and learning activities learning within social environments and to demonstrate their understanding practically through the arts. We also need to encourage young learners’ innate curiosity and love of music and the arts in our teaching if we want to design activities which will have real-life value for these learners while promoting holistic development, non-musical learning and personal and social wellbeing.

“When learners practice metacognition, the act of thinking about their thinking helps them make greater sense of their life experiences and start achieving at higher levels” (Price-Mitchell, 2015). When we enable learners to develop their metacognitive skills, they have the opportunity to make sense of their experiences and their learning and realise the value of their learning for their everyday lives. Metacognition is an important part of the learning process as purposeful reflection enables students (and learners) to not only think about their behaviour and experience, but to also decide what to do with these experiences, to determine how certain skills could benefit them, determine how to improve their teaching, and how to improve the learning experiences of their learners in order to meet their needs. If we teach in a compassionate way, take the needs of our students (and learners) into consideration and foster compassion among learners, we contribute towards a learning environment in which they can develop emotionally, intellectually and socially while also experiencing success and mental stability. Compassionate education could furthermore 99 enhance a learner’s resilience (Berkowicz & Myers, 2014). One of the main aims of compassionate educators is to educate the whole child by focusing not only on cognitive and intellectual development but also on teaching children to be more mindful, manage stress, have self-control, reflect, be self-aware, develop physically, connect with others and to ultimately contribute towards their positive wellbeing. Through compassionate education, foundation phase learners could learn to be more focused, become resilient, have empathy and foster meaningful interpersonal relationships with both peers and teachers (Compassionate Schools Project, 2019)

A few suggestions and food for thought when planning music lessons:

 There should always be music at the beginning and end of a lesson.  Never play music (YouTube or recordings) without a specific aim. Any music that is listened to in the class must contribute towards reaching the lesson aims. Tell learners what they must listen for or what they must do while listening when playing a song in class.  Always guide learners in music listening – give learners specific criteria, specify which music elements they should focus on, movement activities to perform or questions that they need to answer through the music listening activity.  Include a variety of teaching, learning and assessment activities in your lesson (do not plan a lesson where learners only listen to music, only play on instruments, only listen to explanations by the teacher).  A variety of activities (singing, moving, listening, performing, improvisation, composition, drawing, analysis, manipulating various materials and instruments, explore unconventional techniques in art and music, individual activities, group activities, debates, games etc.) in your lesson will contribute toward accommodating the various learning styles, abilities and interests of the learners;  Keep a basic “Introduction – Teaching and learning phase – Conclusion” structure in mind as this could assist you in planning teaching and learning activities that progress from lower to higher-order cognitive levels (less to more complex)  Give learners the opportunity to make sense of new concepts and skills on their own and collaboratively before giving the answers or explaining new ideas in a lecture format. Rather ask questions that prompt learners to find the answers – let them learn from each other while you, the teacher, act as a facilitator.  Consider the types and methods of assessment that you will use for each learning activity in the lesson. Assessment should be a continuous process, must support learning and should be present throughout any well-planned lesson.  Before you want to explain something, think about whether you could rather facilitate an activity to enable learners to discover the skills/knowledge themselves or whether you could rather ask an open question (think: social constructivist principles, problem-based learning, experiential learning) which will guide learner discovery;  Encourage learners to continuously reflect on their learning and engage in critical conversation about TL and assessment activities (so must you!);  Provide as many opportunities as possible for learners to engage in experiential, PBL and play-based TL and assessment activities;  Think about the role of assessment in your lesson;  Think about how the lesson content links to real-life as well as current social and political issues (this informs your pertinent question); and  Consider the importance of peer scaffolding