Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Reflective Learning Article

Reflective Learning Article
リフレクティブ・ラーニング
Reflecting on the Use of Music on Creative Writing in an L2 Classroom

音楽を用いたクリエイティブライティングのL2授業の考察

Lee Arnold, Seigakuin University
アーノルド・リー、聖学院大学
washizora@gmail.com
This song is like a feeling of a young mother going somewhere to abandon her children,
she does not have money to feed her children, so she will abandon her children in front of ahouse that looks like with a rich family inside, with a family richer than her, so probably
the children will have a better life. For me this song demonstrate the unstable feelings andthoughts that she had when she go to abandon her children. At the beginning she feel that
she is doing the right thing, with her act her children will be more happier in other family
maybe her children can achieve something great! But in the way to the place she get
regretful, she think about her living with her children, with many problems that her
children causes but which makes her happy.
(From a first-year Japanese university English writing class learner)
The composition above was submitted for an assignment in one of my first-year English writingclasses. The task was for the learners to write short stories to pieces of instrumental music, and I
assigned it out of curiosity for what it might yield from them in terms of writing creativity. I was
inspired by a conference presentation by Milne (2012) on the use of ambient music in a writingclass. In his presentation, he explained how he used such music to stimulate more heartfelt
expression in his learners and greater creativity with descriptive vocabulary and compositional
exposition. I was motivated by the promise of his findings to investigate what effect a similar
approach with music might have with my learners, and what they would produce.
Upon reading this composition, I was immediately struck by the learner’s rich, moving
response to the piece of music he chose to write about — the French jazz pianist JacquesNewsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Reflective Learning Article

Loussier’s version version of J.S. Bach’s Siciliano in G Minor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3Y_kRyuoVw8). It is perhaps all the more moving as the learner’s grammatical errors do not
detract from his ability to write with great empathy.
Indeed, a number of the learners’ stories and texts demonstrated a similar expressivenessand imagination. While some of the compositions were longer, and some were more sophisticatedthan others in terms of grammar and exposition, I considered this assignment an overall success interms of learner engagement and task realization.
Conventional Orientations of L2 Writing Instruction
The noticeable improvement in the learners’ level of engagement in this task compared with thetasks they usually did prompted me to ask why creative composition rarely, if ever, appears inmuch L2 writing pedagogy or textbook assignments. This is not to criticize any particular textbook
for my classes. Indeed, I had selected a textbook for this class and found that it was useful andeffective for other assignments. Nor can I blame the syllabus; I wrote it myself with the textbook
in mind knowing that the learners I would get would mostly be freshmen who would most likely
need the structure of a textbook. But the fact that I had to go completely outside of the syllabus
to assign a piece of creative writing struck me as odd. I wondered why creative writing was notpart of a standard syllabus, and why this had not occurred to me sooner.
Further consideration of this question also brought me to another realization—that learnercreative expression also rarely appears as an object of study in most L2 writing research. Kramsch(2006) makes the point that researchers in both TESL and TEFL seem to “have given more attention
to the processes of acquisition than to the flesh and blood individuals who are doing the learning,[…] separating learners’ minds, bodies, and social behaviors into separate domains of inquiry,”with the effect that “the cognitive and the social have been seen as distinct entities” (p. 99).
This tendency to separate the intellectual and emotional sides of the language learning
process also seems to be reflected in the conventional orientation of many second and foreign
language curricula. Hanauer (2011) observes that language instructors are more often than not“directed by the imposition of abstract standards, the requirement for particular teaching methods
and evaluation tied to external standardized tests” and that in such a mindset, “language learning[…] is defined overwhelmingly in linguistic, structural, and cognitive terms” (p. 1). Student
evaluation consequently becomes narrowed to abstract criteria, feeding in turn a research focus
that, however unintended, characterizes language learning in abstract terms. Hanauer continues
that “the experiences, emotions and symbolic transformations inherent in the process of learning alanguage are erased and superseded […] by the overriding emphasis placed on the communicativeand cognitive aims of language usage,” wherein “it seems natural to avoid any discussion of thehuman in the classroom and to emphasize the learning and testing of a decontextualizedcode” (pp. 1-2).
Smith (2013) raises a further issue with such an orientation. Speaking within the context oflearner reading, he makes the point that the bulk of reading material assigned to learners to write
about is, more often than not, creative in nature. “Among the most valued texts in any language
are creative works,” he notes, adding further that “when we give students extensive reading, we
recommend graded readers that are overwhelmingly fiction” (p. 12). Nonetheless, “when EFL
teachers ask students to produce written work, they usually ask for well-organized facts andexplicit opinions: descriptions, essays, reports” (p. 12). The gap between how learners assimilate

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Reflective Learning Article

the ideas and language they encounter and what teachers usually seek in written production isstark, all the more when teachers expect learners to engage with the material yet write within aframework that tends to exclude the most interesting aspect of the engagement — the subjective
and visceral responses of the learners.
Against such a tendency, an expressive component to L2 writing, where learners areencouraged to write freely and imaginatively in the target language, might be a worthy avenue for
exploration in practice and research. On this point, a quote from Widdowson (1993, cited by
Hanauer, 2011, p. 5) sums up what dedicated learners aim for and where such a direction might
lead: “You are proficient in a language to the extent that you possess it, make it your own, bend it
to your will, assert yourself through it rather than simply submit to the dictates of its form” (p. 5).
Creative Expression in Language Learning
A growing body of literature has nonetheless considered the subjective and creative side of L2
language learning and acquisition (Zamel, 1982; Gould, DiYanni & Smith, 1989; Carter & Long,
1991; Crystal, 1998; Hanauer, 2004; Kramsch, 2009), with the aspect of subjectivity in particularraising incisive questions on the connection between language, learning and identity. On this note,Kramsch (2006) proposed that, while the language learning process may potentially threaten
learner identity, it might also become an opportunity for identity re-creation. She characterizes
the language learner as occupying a transitional “third place,” an area “filled with memories ofother languages, fantasies of other identities” and with “linguistic anxieties and communicative
joys, of symbolic gamble and subjective power” (p. 98). Seen from this perspective, the endeavor
to master another language is bound up with one’s whole being. “Because it is not only a code but
also a meaning-making system, language constructs the historical sedimentation of meanings wecall our selves” (p. 99).
This holistic view may be anticipated in Asher’s Total Physical Response (1969); it is central
in Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983); and it is even supported by Krashen’s
Pleasure Hypothesis (1994). Unifying each of these positions is the sense that learners acquire
language when it is meaningful to them, and this occurs not through mastery of discrete clustersof techniques or through an all-encompassing methodology, but when they have the freedom tocapture and filter what they find meaningful in their own terms.
Such a view prompts questions on how creative expression may be stimulated, and it is here
where music may be relevant as a spur to learner creativity. Perhaps with Asher’s (1969) work in
mind, Murphey (1992) explores the affirmative role of music through its somatic and motivational
effects, as well as in facilitating vocabulary learning. He notes the pedagogical value of songs
given their popularity, their ubiquity in media and public spaces, and in the phenomenon he cites
from one of his previous studies as the “stuck-in-my-head” tendency of songs to echo in the mind
after listening (Murphey 1990).
Larsen-Freeman’s (2000) book-length treatment of differing teaching methodologies
examines Desuggestopedia and the role Lozanov gave to music in his original conception and nameof Suggestopedia (1978). In the approach, classical music is used to set various moods as a
background to story reading by the teacher and dialog practice and expansion by the learners. A
key principle of this methodology is to remove “the psychological barriers learners bring with themto the learning situation” through “techniques to activate the ‘paraconscious’ part of the mind,
just below the fully-conscious mind” (Larsen-Freeman, 2000, p. 81). In particular, the teacher

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dialog-reading is matched to the music so that “the ‘whole brain’ (both the left and the righthemispheres) of the students becomes activated” (p. 82). This is consistent with Lozanov’s (1978)
belief that music was effective in working through the blocks learners unconsciously placed out offear or lack of confidence.
Even before I had investigated the literature, my own excitement at what my learners wereable to produce from my trial of creative writing to music led me to consider how much more theirintrinsic interest could be motivated and engaged when a personal space was opened up for theirwriting. That such research supports my intuitions on the value of stimulating creativity in theclassroom leads me now to review some samples of learner writing.
Using Music to Stimulate Creative Writing
Inspired by Milne’s (2012) successful experience with ambient music, I decided to use instrumental
music in four of my English writing classes with mostly first-year learners at two private
universities. I chose four pieces of music, ranging from sparse to more layered in aural andinstrumental density: the Bach interpretation by Jacques Loussier, a Miles Davis jazz-fusion piece,
an acid-jazz performance by Ronny Jordan, and a short Frank Zappa composition that was a blendof jazz, avant-garde classical influences, and rock. My hunch was that different kinds of musicmight elicit different responses from the learners. My choice of instrumental over vocal music wasbased on this rationale: to create an atmosphere of discovery and fresh encounter where learners
could explore a sense of scene and experiment with characterization without distraction from song
lyrics. To bolster such an atmosphere, I deliberately selected music they would not likely haveheard before.
I played the four pieces of music on CD and iTunes in the writing classes and asked thelearners to free-write a short paragraph to each piece of music in their notebooks. For eachparagraph, I asked them to imagine a different scenario to the music and urged them to write
whatever came to their minds from what the music suggested to them.
Prior to the classes, I uploaded video files of each piece of music onto the two learnerteacher blogs I kept for each university. In class, via computers or on their mobile devices, I thenasked the learners to choose the one musical piece they liked best or thought was the mostinteresting, and expand on their original paragraph about it. I asked them to submit their work in
typed form in the following class.
Samples of Learner Writing
Overall, the written compositions varied in length and quality, with more proficient learners
tending to submit longer texts. Nonetheless, samples of this level of writing demonstrated somesurprising depictions with play of contrast within their characterizations, such as this one written
to Miles Davis’ “Portia” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nuNfDYhq6Y):
In a certain house, thief comes up. The thief gets closer to the room on his
tiptoes. When he goes into the room, there is a girl. She is a cute and beautiful
girl, and fall asleep. The man falls in love with her at first sight. For a while, shewakes up and surprises him. And he forgets an original purpose and kidnaps her.
This sample effectively conveyed, in its brevity, a scene with an unexpected twist.

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With a similar brevity, but depicting a quite different atmosphere, the following sample waswritten to Frank Zappa’s “Little Umbrellas” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5JBqKYo_Xk):
I imagine many a place with many adrenaline and laughs in the air. Many lights,
many people, many feelings, many dramas on the stage and many hopes anddreams delivered for children and teenagers! But also for adults, it breaks thecommon sense that adults do not have dreams because they lived long time togive up their dreams for "real life." In this place, those type of people can learn
that dreams are also real! This place is a circus.
In some cases, quite differing interpretations emerged from the same piece of music, such as these
two short samples based on Ronny Jordan’s “After Hours” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=NTymOEuJNIc):
This has a negative image. The boy was very fat. When he was walking, he stuck
in a hole. He was fat so he didn’t get out of a hole. He was writhing in pain.
Many people assisted him but he did not get out. He reflected on what he haddone for the day. He decided that go on a diet.
By contrast, the piece brought out a quite different setting and character for this learner:
I am Jenny. I am 24. I work as a fashion designer. There is a café I go there
almost everyday. The café’s master is a middle-aged man and he has a cutemoustache. The coffee which he made is always tastes good and the music in thecafé which he selected give me a cozy feeling. I am attracted by him unwitting
for a long time but I don’t want destroy “the master” and “the denizen”
relationship. Because I remember that he said once that he would never bemarried. So I decided that I would come to this café until it be closed.
One tendency that emerged was that the more dense the musical instrumentation andstructure the more impressionistic the writing tended to be. Such density may have hampered
imaginative processing and vocabulary choice, and raised an obstacle with learners of lower
proficiency, further accounting for the brevity of their work. By contrast, less-textured music, suchas the Bach piece, brought forth the most imaginative writing, and offered particular stimulation
to more comparatively advanced learners. Here is one submission from a more proficient learnerbased on the Bach piece (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y_kRyuoVw8):
The main melody was very beautiful but sad. I felt the sound of piano fantastic,
and I also felt something mysterious. It brought me to the world of fantasy,
separated from the reality. It made me imagine the story.
In a small town in Austria, there was the calm lake floating some redlotuses. It was in the park far from any buildings, and it was near the forests.
The silence controlled the all-time in the park. The place was not warm but
little bit cold. The season was early spring. No one was there but a crying young
girl sitting on the bench in front of the lake. She looked twelve or thirteen. Her
face was pain badly because she lost her favorite clarinet given by her
grandmother. She would often play the clarinet in the park and she loved thetime passed so slowly.

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She knew that she had to go home and tell her grandmother the truth. But she
was reluctant to do so then. She did not want to see the sad face of her
grandmother and did not have any courage confessing her mistakes. So she
wanted to stay in the place any one was not. Only stars knew where she was andwhat made her cry and stars were shining for her for a long time.
This piece, much like the sample in the introduction, depicts great tension between an idealizedstate of affairs and a harsh reality, set against an otherwise idyllic background, and characterizedwith depth and sophistication.
Overall, many of the learners across a range of proficiency were able to create a variety ofcharacters and settings for their compositions to music, commensurate with their level. The
experiment with music produced a successful collection of writing that gave the learners a novel
way to express themselves in the L2. After the assignments were completed, I gathered anduploaded some of their samples on my blogs to showcase their efforts and for all of them to readand reflect on.
Reflection and Implications
Creative expression may be the most personal of writing for learners to explore and perhaps this is
why it is so engaging and motivating. Yet it still appears to be largely untapped as a pedagogicaltool. Holistic language development in general and writing instruction in particular must
nonetheless include room for the development of expressive language for the motivational
possibilities this facilitates. An index of language proficiency is marked when learners claim
ownership of language, and such a capacity in writing is as pragmatically central to thedevelopment of well-rounded productive skills as their ability to write clear, logical essays on
factual topics. The growing body of research on creativity in language learning and the rewarding
experience of writing that I have described imply that teachers could expand opportunities forlearners to engage in exercises of creative expression.
This exploration of music for learner creative writing admittedly centered on samples ofmusic that I had selected for the moods, compositional characteristics, and sonic dynamism I knew
they possessed. In future, I would like to explore how learners not only respond to other forms ofmusic I have in mind, such as non-Western samples of music, but also music that they choose
themselves. Would they respond differently to music with which they were familiar and with which
they perhaps associated particular memories? This also raises a much larger question: What role
does non-linguistic input play in the language learning process? This question may be answered
better within the context of semiotics rather than applied linguistics. The promise this task in theuse of music for creative writing demonstrated may call for some exploration of areas where
semiotics may be relevant to language learning and acquisition.
While there is still much for me to explore in research, I have sound reasons to believe thatany materials and activities which foster creativity in writing classes may inspire more heartfelt
learner involvement, unlock learner creative potential, and provide opportunities for learners towiden an emotional linguistic repertoire and thus enhance their L2 development. This kind ofdevelopment furthers Widdowson’s (1993) dictum on learner ownership of language and serves as
an exemplary aim for teachers to direct their learners toward.

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References
Asher, J. (1969). The total physical response approach to second language learning. The Modern
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Carter, R., & Long, M. (1991). Teaching literature. Essex: Longman.
Crystal, D. (1998). Language play. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Gould, E., DiYanni, R., & Smith, W. (1989). The act of writing. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hanauer, D.I. (2011). Meaningful literacy: Writing poetry in the language classroom. Language
Teaching: Surveys and Studies, 45(1), 105-115.
Kramsch, C. (2006). Preview article: The multilingual subject. International Journal of Applied
Linguistics, 16(1), 97-110.
Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krashen, S. (1994). The pleasure hypothesis. In J. Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown University round tableon languages and linguistics (pp. 299-322). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lozanov, G. (1978). Suggestology and outlines of suggestopedy. New York: Gordon & Breach.
Milne, A. (2012). Music as a means of building vocabulary and composition skills. Paper presented
at JALT 2012, Fukuoka, Japan.
Murphey, T. (1990). Song and music in language learning: An analysis of pop song lyrics and the useof music and song in teaching English to speakers of other languages. Bern: Peter Lang.
Murphey, T. (1992). Music and song. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, C. (2013). Creative writing as an important tool in second language acquisition andpractice. The Journal of Literature and Language Teaching, 2(1), 12-18.
Widdowson, H.G. (1993). The ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 28(2), 377-389.
Zamel, V. (1982). Writing: The process of discovering meaning. TESOL Quarterly, 16(2), 195-209.
Appendix
Links to music used:
Jacques Loussier – Siciliano in G Minor (J.S. Bach): https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3Y_kRyuoVw8
Miles Davis – “Portia”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nuNfDYhq6Y
Ronny Jordan – “After Hours”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTymOEuJNIc
Frank Zappa – “Little Umbrellas”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5JBqKYo_Xk

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