STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

Tell us about it

• What would you add to this story? Tell us what we missed.
• Do you have photos from this event? Documents we need to see? Share with us.
• Upload photos & videos
• More ways to get your stuff online and in the paper.

More All

• Best of etc: celebrating 2008
• Big names, crowds come to Off the Hook Comedy Club
• Words of Wisdom: The origin of originality

Share and Enjoy [?]

An interesting thought came to my mind while we were attending the Sarasota opera the other night.

For those who think opera is something beyond them, think musical comedy with all the talking parts sung. That's the only distinction between the two. So lovers of musical comedy, here is an alternative source of musical entertainment for you. The Sarasota Opera Company offers slim, attractive and talented singing actors who make their shows a pleasure to watch as well listen to. Although the singers aren't Italian, they are able to sing intelligibly in that language. And that's the point of this column.

There are other teaching methods not being used in our schools that could help foreign youngsters learn our language quickly and pleasantly. Children can learn to speak English by immersing them in the language, and that means using music as part of the process. Of course, once a child can learn the basic language through understanding the spoken word, it's a much easier task to teach him how to read it.

Children's computer games can do that easily. Three-year-olds can play interactive games and, in the process, learn all sorts of simple words, like STOP, PUSH, GO, START, etc. When the game is repeated, as children love to do, they are also learning to read painlessly. Even older people can use these programs to learn, in an easy, non-intimidating way, to use a computer.

Years ago, when I was training my voice for the opera, I learned to sing in many different languages. As I learned the arias I also learned the language of the arias. Soon I was able to speak a smattering of German, French and Italian. I wasn't anywhere near fluent, but I did have the accents straight and understood some key words in those languages. Music training teaches the ears to listen.

This could be the answer to teaching both children and adults how to speak English. My daughter-in-law, who is Mexican, tells me that she learned English by listening to and mimicking the lyrics of American popular music. Of course, some of the so-called popular songs of today don't have lyrics worth learning. But it's when the music and poetry of a song's lyrics are good, the process of learning a new language becomes a pleasure.

People love to sing the same song over and over again. That kind of learning has a great impact on the memory templates in our brains.

From the day she was born, my 12-year-old granddaughter was introduced to the Spanish language of her mother's family and English language of her father's at the same time. Today she speaks both languages seamlessly, flowing from one to the other without thinking. Her mother told me she sang songs to her in both languages when she was a baby. The result is very satisfying. She's as American as can be when she speaks English and as Spanish as she can be when conversing in Spanish.

Music can be the great translator. Ideally, if a song is sung first in one language and then sung in the translated version, the listener would soon be singing and understanding both languages.

Think back to when you were in first grade or even kindergarten. What was the first foreign song you learned? It was the French ditty, "Frere Jacques." I still remember the words and can translate them into their English counterparts. Just multiply that little song by dozens of others and you have enlarged the listener's foreign language vocabulary expeditiously.

This could be a simple and inexpensive solution to teaching our many immigrant children their new language. What a great way to learn a foreign language, not just for a child, but for an adult as well.