Product Review:
Musical Spanish
by Pola Rosen, Ed.D
Sad to say, but true: when students
are asked to name their least favorite academic subject,
study after study has shown that "language study" ranks high in their lists.
What should be an incomparably broadening cultural experience
seems to have become, in the minds of many, a sterile exercise
in rote memorization and "drill and kill." In a city
that can claim to have the most diverse population in our nation,
if not the world, the inability of our present teaching methods
to ignite the interest of a new generation in this vital resource
represents a serious failure of our educational system as a
whole.
While innumerable attempts have
been made to produce superior ways of introducing young minds
to the benefits of language enrichment, most have suffered
from either basic pedagogical flaws, or being what is often
known in layman's terms as "dry
as sawdust." It was a pleasure then to see the alternative
that Musical Spanish CD series offers beginning students.
Just as Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs advised us to "whistle
while you work," the Musical Spanish program presents
a strong series of lessons in Spanish language and grammar
set to popular music as a mnemonic device and learning aid.
In the words of the publisher, the materials are "designed
to integrate right and left brain learning techniques, to help
you to remember the words and their meaning," and are "proven
to help even students who have trouble learning through traditional
methods."
The program is contained in lesson books grouped by subject,
combined with music on audio CDs that supplement, support,
and enrich the academic content. Each (catchy) song covers
four to five grammatical points on a variety of linguistic
topics, as well as additional material available in the interactive
portions of the CDs. The series is just as appropriate for
adults as it is for children, and, in fact, may remind some
older learners of the Schoolhouse Rock shorts, familiar from
Saturday morning television in the 70's.
Although the musical style might
not be to every student's taste, it would be well worth the
struggling language learner's time to log on the manufacturer's
site, www.musicalspanish.com, where both sample lessons and
mp3s can be downloaded, and on line orders taken."#
