The site promotes the use of music as a pedagogical tool in the instruction of ESL and, incidentally, other second or foreign languages. Created for current and prospective teachers, it explains the serious use of music to enhance language learning and provides suggestions for instructional materials and a forum for language teaching professionals to exchange lesson plans.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
The purpose is clear and material is adequate to orient teachers interested in the possibility of adding music to their usual instructional methods. Recommendations for tapes and CDs, and ready-made lesson plans addressing specified language skills comprise the site, which includes five articles that support the use of songs in language instruction.
Concerns:
As research in this area accumulates, more documentation in support of using songs for language learning might be included. Likewise, content could be enriched by the addition of links to research articles by others in the field. Links to scores and lyrics would also be desirable.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
The site is useful as a lesson plan resource for teachers and teacher trainers. A clear table of contents on the homepage makes the site easy to use without special instructions or technical skill.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The homepage clearly delineates the modest technical requirements of the site: An audio plug-in must be installed in order to hear MIDI and WAV files.
Concerns:
As with any site that has a commercial sponsor, the appearance of advertisements in the midst of academic resource information is distracting.
Format for lesson plans could be more user friendly. The form that one completes to contribute material to the site is well formatted, but the reports from these forms are not. As it is, without text highlighting, these are difficult to assess 'at a glance'.
Creative Commons:
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