Using music for learning English or foreign languages: music, sound and brain wave activity

Scientists have discovered that there is a definite relationship between brain wave activity, visual (light) stimulation, and auditory or sound input. (Kandel, Schwartz, Jessel 1985) This means, in part, that sound, in this case music, can be used to alter or control the state of brain activity. For the English or foreign language teacher, this means that we can induce a more relaxed and receptive state of information acquisition in our students through music. Communication between the millions of nerve cells in the brain can be recorded by measuring the frequency of these electrical impulses. Researcher Gray Walter discovered in the 1940s that brain wave activity tends to reflect visual or auditory frequencies, more particularly in the Alpha and Theta brain wave ranges.

To better understand this phenomenon and its relationship to learning, let’s first look at the four main frequency ranges of the human brain, Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta.

The four types of brain waves

Brain wave patterns are determined by the frequency of their oscillations. Each range of brain wave activity can be associated with a particular mental state.

Beta

15 to 30 Hertz (oscillations per second are called Hertz) characterizes a brain in the normal conscious state that is actively solving problems, thinking, or otherwise consciously engaging with its environment. You are in this state right now as you read this. (I wish!)

Alpha

Nine to 14 hertz is the Alpha range during which brain activity slows down from the Beta state. You are calm, relaxed and at peace. This is also the beginning of the most creative states of the brain just below active awareness and the entry into the meditative states of the brain.

theta

From four to eight hertz, you have deepened your relaxed and meditative state. Memories of yesteryear, dream images and fantasy begin to flow in this state. You are almost, but not quite asleep. One of the most extraordinary states of consciousness, also known as “twilight” sleep that you experience briefly upon awakening or just before falling into a deep sleep. In the Theta state we can also be receptive to input beyond our normal awareness. It is widely believed that a Theta meditative state stimulates intuition and activates extrasensory perception.

Delta

At one to three hertz or oscillations per second, this is normally the slowest brain wave activity that occurs during a deep, dreamless sleep state or a very deep meditative state in some cases.

With this in mind, when we can induce a more relaxed or receptive state in our learners, they are better able to successfully mentally input, process and retain any information, i.e. learning, that we provide to them. This may be especially true for language-related input that sits in the left hemisphere of the brain and intersects through the corpus callosum with the right hemisphere where music and rhythmic skills sit. This essential crosslinking dramatically aids both acquisition and retention.

Application in Teaching and Learning Practice

Try teaching a lesson or grammar segment while playing a soft Mozart selection in the background at a low but recognizable volume. Have students practice dialogue with low volume voices by playing along. Use a song in an unrelated foreign language to “time” a milling or mixing activity. Try having students complete a concept check or other written exercise while giving them the interval needed to play the musical selection to the end. Even if they resist at first, they will adapt without further complaint within a month after you first use these processes. Within a semester, students will complain if you DON’T use music with your learning activities.

Using these techniques, learners’ motivation will increase, general learning should improve, your English or foreign language learners will probably be happy and so, my dear pedagogue, will you too.