Yorktown Musicians Teach Foreign Language Through Songs

It's said that children can absorb a foreign language much easier than adults. Add music, movement and theatrics and sponging up Spanish, Italian and American Sign Language is even more straightforward.

Yorktown musicians, husband and wife team, Maurice Minichino and Nanette Garcia have been doing just that with their TalknDrum Program since 2005. 

They offer TalknDrum in about 50 schools throughout Westchester, said Minichino said.

"We are not teaching language," he said. "We are doing multi-sensory activity, and within that activity, we are introducing new language. Language comes in the back door."

On the other hand, creating the program was a process that came from all sides. Garcia said she did two and a half years of research on how children acquire languages. She incorporated that knowledge to develop activities involving singing, instrumentation and storytelling for children between the ages of six months and kindergarten. With a curriculum in place, her husband's songwriting skills came into play. 

"I would be envisioning what's happening physically, verbally and instrumentally," she said of the 100 original songs TalknDrum uses.

The first school they brought this to was a temple in Cortlandt. The director of the school said, 'what a wonderful program—of course you can come and teach this,'" she recalled, but whatever the endeavor, shifting from theory to practice is always a journey. She knew right off the drumbeat that the system worked but it took a good year to tweak out all the kinks.

"Sometimes kids would be looking at me like, 'OK are we going to do something else,'" said Garcia. In turn, she and Maurice would rewrite the words, change the melody or make the song more memorable.

"It has to be cohesive with what she's teaching," he said, "And set to the attention span of children."

That limit certainly gets a spike when something like a set of maracas lands in their hands. The trick then is to keep the chiming and chanting from descending into chaos. Very structured movement with a quick pace, she said, "It's almost like you are running a play." 

Within the production, they proceed from the premise that language is itself rhythm. They break it up by the beat so that it flows naturally into their muscles and minds, she said. By the end of a half hour class, the time has easily slipped past the preschoolers.

"They don't even realize they've been with me for 30 minutes," she said.

Entering the classroom, Garcia or one of her four teachers begin with bilingual salutations in Spanish, Italian and American Sign. Put at ease, the teacher highlights the idea that having fun comes first. As a result, she said, a comfort zone emerges in which the structure flows. Hellos are then followed by colors, clothing, parts of the body and food. But seeing her is the cue that kicks in before any instruction begins.  

"As soon as they see me they start to change - they know they are going to be speaking Spanish," she said.

If schools keep the TalknDrum class beyond a year, which upgrades to a more involved curriculum, the impact follows along. By Kindergarten, she said, "They truly have a second language."

If they fall short in that regard, the experience establishes a pattern in which learning can become something they love. From there, she said, "You can learn anything."

As far as the affect it has within the multicultural society, the lessons are invaluable. All of a sudden, the students are speaking your language, she said, and now Spanish or Italian has a certain panish to it, she added. So instead of seeing differences, they share a crucial similarity. 

Their own band is Skin Against Metal, playing music in a genre they call Afro-Cuban percussion.

Music is the universal language and TalknDrum definitely speaks it.

For more info : http://www.talkndrum.com/