CHAPTER 5: DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
5.5 Theme three: different musical rhymes
participants provided a series of positive examples of how they had used music to benefit the ECCE children’ cognitive, physical, and emotional health. They all agreed that music is effective in calming those children who are hyperactive or disruptive, and in supporting emotionally unstable children to learn. One participant mentioned that some children come from homes experiencing tension, crises, and other problems, but stated that she used music to calm such children and help them to learn.
Participant B elaborated further on how she uses action songs in class, and provided an example of one:
We use music virtually for all the activities, teaching colour, seasons, different animals, weather, courtesy, and actions. I have CDs of different children’s songs and select relevant and suitable ones to teach the topic. We also use simple percussion instruments such as tambourines, rattles, and drums to accompany the songs. The children are always happy when they are given instruments to play, as you can see when you enter the class.
Beside what I have said, we also have some simple songs to teach them actions of simple cleanliness and showing courtesy to elders, for example songs such as: [singing] “When we wake up in the morning, we say good morning, to mummy and daddy, we say good morning, to grandma and grandpa, we say good morning, and that make us good children”. (Interview with PB, July 12, 2019)
Similarly, Participant D shared her process of selecting and creating music:
We select music and nursery rhymes according to the theme for the day and sing to the children. We pick the topic to teach and prepare music based on the theme for the day. For example, if we are teaching them nature, such as trees, animals that live in the water and animals on land, we look for relevant songs around the topic and teach them. At times we play instrumental music where we use percussion to accompany the music, we play for the children especially when teaching them communication skills. We play instruments to teach stress and pitch when teaching them sound. (Interview with PD on July 15, 2019)
Participant E is musically sound, and uses different action music to maintain orderliness and calmness in the class. She said:
I use a lot of action music during my teaching activities. Children are very young, restless, playful and hyperactive. And a times emotional and bored, so I use action songs a lot during learning and teaching exercise (Interview with PE on July 22, 2019).
5.5.2 Children online music
Participant C elaborated further to explain that selecting the type of song to use in class depended on the theme for that week, and that virtually there are songs for all the activities in the internet:
As earlier said, I have a series of CDs on children’s music. Since I do not have much skill to compose, I make use of the downloaded songs. We have themes on parts of the body, learning colours, weeks, and seasons. There are songs to teach them all of these. We also have simple lullabies to calm them and make them pay attention whenever they are making a noise or are tired.
Among these are isiZulu songs, since the majority of my class pupils are Zulu. I make use of isiZulu songs that I downloaded from the Internet. I listen to them before using them in class. (Interview with PC on July 22, 2019) Participant D stated the same thing as participant C above
I have got a series of CD players with different recorded children’s music from the Internet, see them [she showed them to me], we apply different ways of teaching them such as story, dramatic play and virtually all the activities.
I love music, and am from a musical family, hence it is not difficult for me to know the different types of music to use for the children (Interview with PD on July 18, 2019).
Participant A claims she had partial training in music, hence she downloaded children music to use during the learning activities. She said that:
I had partial training in music. I did a diploma in music, which is not enough for me, but I search the Internet to find music that I can use to teach children, especially different videos on children’s music such as Jack Hartmann’s kiddies’videos. I also take time to practice music at home, just to gain more knowledge and to give of my best (interview with PA).
Also, participant F uses music gotten from the internet. She stated below that:
I was a trained accountant but found myself here. There are varieties of music on the Internet that can be used to support children to learn language
and communication skills and that is what we have been doing. (Interview with PF on July 18, 2019).
5.5.3 Songs to aid speech development
Some of the participants mentioned songs that promote speech development in children which they use in the teaching .and learning activities. Participant E specifically mentioned songs that help children to develop speech and communication skills:
We have songs in the form of call and response that support children to gain speech and communication skills in an easy way. We just compose the content into simple music and sing it to children and the children repeat after me. The repetitive nature of this song helps the children to learn the intended skills. We also have songs that are integrated into stories to teach them whatever skills we want to teach, we organize simple dramatic play activities to support them to learn. There is another important type of song, a movement and matching song, to teach them hand-eye coordination and to help them develop physically. As I am musically literate, I have different compositions to teach different content, such as showing appreciation, greetings, songs on how to behave well in class, and how to concentrate.
There are songs to communicate self-confidence to them, also as a Christian school, we have songs that teach them to have confidence and hope in God.
(Interview with PE on July 18, 2019)
The next educator also declares that she uses songs to support the children to develop their communication skills. She stated below that:
I have different music to teach them communication vocabularies, two-letter words, sounds, learning how to read, and how to speak. However, I wish music were included in the NCF curriculum and in the teacher training curriculum for Early Childhood Development educators. (Interview with PD on July 18, 2019)
The above responses of the participants explained the different musical rhymes and songs they employed in teaching ECCE children language and communication skills and other relevant skills. They use three major types of songs namely, action songs, online songs, and speech development songs. The participants chose songs based on the theme or content to be taught. There are songs to teach the children about different animals in the water and on the land, courtesy, colours, weather, seasons, days of the week, numbers, and so on. While these songs convey content, they also enhance language development. Those educators who were musically literate composed simple songs to teach their children, while others relied on downloading children’s songs from the Internet.
The participants stated that they incorporated songs into all the learning activities.
However, two of them confessed that there were topics that they still taught using traditional teaching methods, but that there were very few of these. They mentioned songs incorporated with dramatic play; songs to support children to develop speech, language and communication skills; movement and matching songs for physical development; songs to teach children tolerance, to help them to develop socially; and songs for cognitive development. The respondents also mentioned nonsensical songs, purely for the purpose of calming hyperactive, disruptive, and emotionally unstable children. One of the participants stated that she used a series of isiZulu songs to teach the children, because isiZulu speakers constituted the majority of her class.
5.6 THEME FOUR: THE IMPACT OF THE USE OF MUSICAL RHYMES