HOWELL_Executive_Summary_BEYOND_WORDS

Executive Summary Page 1 of 6
Beyond Words, G. Howell
Beyond Words: Newly-arrived children’s perceptions of music learning and
music making
Gillian Howell
Master of Education
2009
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study, Beyond Words, examines the way that newly arrived children – young
immigrants and refugees from diverse backgrounds and life experiences – perceive,
describe and make sense of music learning and music making. Their perceptions
were offered in the context of the music activities in place at their school, known in
this study by the pseudonym ‘Melbourne English Language School’, or MELS.
MELS is one of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s
nine English Language Schools and Centres in the state of Victoria, and provides
full-time, intensive English language tuition for eligible new arrivals of primary school
age. The student population at MELS is diverse, with students from all over the world
enrolling at the school, usually for between two and four terms, depending on the
individual student’s need and eligibility. The site selected for the research was one
with which I, as the researcher, already had a close relationship, as I had been
working there as the music teacher for a number of years, employed by an outside
arts service provider1
to deliver a weekly creative music activities within the school.
Thus I was both the researcher and the music teacher in this project. The research
formed part of my studies towards a Master of Education at the University of
Melbourne.
This study aimed to identify and better understand the experience of music activities
for newly-arrived, non-English speaking students in this early and crucial time in their
schooling. While the students’ positive and enthusiastic responses to music classes
had been recorded anecdotally by the adults witnessing the work, little was known
about the children’s perceptions of the music activities content and delivery in this
setting. My study addressed the following questions:
• What do the students feel they learn in music, and what are the processes
through which they learn?
• What aspects of the music program most engage or motivate the students?
• What sense do they make of the music program and its existence at MELS?
A broad methodological question also emerged, asking,
• What is the most effective way to elicit responses from children of this age
(upper primary) and language background during a time of transition?
I felt strongly that any presuppositions or theories about what the students’
perceptions were likely to be would be inappropriate and presumptuous, as their
voices had not previously been sought in relation to their music learning experiences.
However, the teachers’ and my combined knowledge of the Language School setting
enabled a conceptual framework for the research to be developed, which outlined the
key assumptions and assertions relevant to the research questions. This framework
underpinned the research design.
The conceptual framework highlighted the significance of:

• The weight that the students’ differing cultural and social backgrounds and
prior schooling experiences might bring to bear on their perceptions and how
they chose to report them;
• The pedagogical approach in use in the music program at MELS, and the
students’ perceptions of music learning in relation to this;
• The links between a child’s personality and their participation in school, and
the way this participation would influence their perceptions of school (or vice
versa); and
• Their recent life experiences of transition, language acquisition and cultural
change, and the impact this could have on their capacity to respond to
questions in an interview environment.
Beyond Words was a qualitative multiple case study that focused on three individual
students from diverse cultural and schooling backgrounds, with the music program
being the issue or concern upon which they offered their perspectives. With an
orienting proposition or conceptual assumption that cultural background and prior
schooling experiences would have an important influence on the ways students were
likely to perceive and make sense of the music activities, I built a stratified, purposive
sample that reflected the three broad prior-schooling descriptions that are
representative of the student population at MELS:
• Those that have had age-consistent prior schooling, in a style of teaching that
is similar to the task-oriented, applied learning environments in Australian
schools;
• Those that have had age-consistent schooling but in a very different style of
teaching (typically, a more formal, teacher-directed approach that focuses on
rote-learning and transfer of information); and
• Those that have had severely interrupted formal schooling (or in some cases,
no schooling at all).
Three students were invited to take part in the research – Kevin, 11, from China, Lek,
12, from Thailand, and Susan, 142
, from Sudan [pseudonyms]. Both Kevin and Lek
had been in Australia for less than nine months at the time of their participation.
Susan had been in Australia for twelve months. All had been enrolled at MELS for at
least two school terms.
Interviews with the three students (each assisted by an interpreter) were the primary
source of data, held over a four-week period in August-September, 2008. Further
interviews with their class teacher and the school’s Multicultural Education Aides,
and observation of four consecutive music classes served to corroborate or provide a
contrast with the students’ reports, and provided a means of triangulating findings
and building a richer, more detailed understanding of the children’s experiences in
music.
Both within-case and cross-case analyses were utilised, with grounded theory acting
as a procedural model in identifying emergent themes. A secondary analysis that
considered the additional layers of meaning hidden beyond the children’s words in
their body language, hesitations, long pauses, and other non-verbal interactions
made use of ideas within the interpretive poetics3
approach to analysis and
interpretation of text.
This study was both discipline-oriented and methodological in its scope. Its outcomes
and conclusions focus on the conclusions drawn from the research questions, and
the issues that arose in response to the complex research setting, in which multiple
languages, culture shock, and pre-adolescent children with unknown pre-migration

experiences coincide with a subject matter that does not lend itself easily to spoken
descriptions.
Cross-case analysis of the children’s interviews revealed a number of key themes,
including a clear understanding of the music lesson content, the process being used,
and its intentions. All three students described the way that the music they play is
composed by the children themselves, that it “comes from our heads, not from a
book”. They described in detail some of the collaborative and inventive processes
they used to compose music as a group, and highlighted the way the students could
make choices about what they would play, and the egalitarian nature of the classes,
where everyone was able to have a turn playing the instruments.
The students’ descriptions of the creative processes they used to create their music,
and the emphasis each placed on the fact that they were composing the music they
performed, suggests that the creative music-making pedagogical approach was an
engaging one in the Language School context. Each student gave articulate
descriptions of the steps they would take to create a class composition, and their
teacher suggested that there was a strong sense of pride and ownership in all of their
musical outcomes.
The students emphasised the importance of the social and playful aspects of the
music making activities. They described things like the warm-up games at the start of
the lessons, the relaxed environment that allowed laughter and chatter at different
times but where the “music rules”, as Susan called them, would still be taught, and
where the emphasis was on shared group tasks, ensemble, and participation. They
felt that this approach was a preferable learning environment to those they’d
experienced elsewhere.
They felt that music learning was important as a way for new children to connect with
Australian musical culture, and with each other’s national musical cultures. More
matter-of-factly perhaps, one student, Lek, declared that the main purpose of music
in the school was simply “to have fun”.
The most challenging times for them in music had been at the beginning of their time
at MELS, when they knew very little English. However, all agreed that with more
confidence in English, everything got easier. Other challenges were to do with the
multi-tasking nature of music performance, such as the requirement to sing while
playing an instrument, or having to keep your part going in the midst of many other
contrasting parts.
The elements in the music activities that each student most strongly engaged with,
however, were the instruments. Furthermore, each child highlighted two instruments
in particular – the bass xylophone and the drums.
These two instruments are distinctive in sound and look and we can speculate the
reasons for their obvious popularity. There is a smaller, soprano xylophone in the
school but it was the “big xylophone” that the children nominated as a highlight of
their experiences. This instrument is quite tall, and has a warm, resonant tone. The
drums are traditional skin drums, some played with hands and others with sticks.
Reasons for the strong identification the students give these instruments with the
program might include:
• Their tangibility and physical presence. No other equipment or books are
used in the music classes as much as the instruments are.

• The new opportunities and experiences they may represent for many of the
children (Kevin, for example, described his previous music experiences as
“singing from a big book, sitting at desks”).
• The emotional comfort and expressive possibilities their sounds and way of
playing affords the students, from the warm nurturing bass tones of the
xylophone to the wild abandon of the drum.
• Both instruments may have familiar cultural resonances for the students –
keyboard/tuned instruments and drums feature in the traditional instruments
of many cultures around the world.
Connections can be drawn between the children’s responses in music and the
different conceptual models4
that exist to describe the way that cross-cultural
adaptation plays out for new arrivals. The orienting proposition that the children’s
perceptions of music learning and music making would be informed by their prior life
experiences and cultural backgrounds suggested that the three students’ perceptions
would prove quite distinctive, and would correlate in some way to their backgrounds.
However, this was not the case. To the contrary, their perceptions were remarkably
similar. One reason for this may be that the stresses of cross-cultural adaptation and
transition may be less prevalent in a music context than in other parts of their new
lives. The visual nature of the music-learning environment, in which so much can be
modelled or demonstrated by the teacher or peers, and to which each child brings a
pre-existing frameworks for making sense of music activities, lessens the sense of
cultural distance. Thus the cultural adjustments and culture learning that they need to
do can take place more smoothly. Indeed, some will find that this is an area of
schooling in which they immediately shine.
This study revealed several areas of methodological interest that will be relevant to
other researchers undertaking investigations with a similar cohort. With child
interviews as the primary source of data, the interview schedule was carefully
designed, progressing from questions starting with concrete referents to those
working with more abstract positioning. This is contrary to the standard accepted
wisdom5
of avoiding ‘closed’ questions with children of this age-group – closed
questions proved effective in the early interview stages to build confidence in the
young informants, while more ‘open-ended’ questions were supported with visual
aids such as DVD footage and images.
In an English as a Second Language [ESL] context, researchers need to pay
additional attention to the questions they ask and the way they frame them. ESL
teachers provide students with strong context and key vocabulary when giving
information and inviting responses to questions; however, in a research setting this
can resulting in leading questions that are highly suggestive to the child as to what
the desired response is. The Beyond Words study revealed points in the interview
transcripts where providing greater context or framing for a question resulted in a far
richer, more detailed response from the child.
Creative interviewing techniques proved an effective way to elicit rich responses from
the three informants. Images were used as triggers and prompts for more detailed
verbal responses, and also allowed for ideas to be communicated non-verbally. In
their third interview the children were invited to watch some DVD footage of their
most recent music class. At key points the interviewer paused the DVD to ask the
child questions about what was taking place in the lesson. The three informants were
highly engaged by the footage of their class at work, and chuckled or commented as
they watched it. The strategy yielded descriptions of what the students perceived
was taking place for themselves as well as for other students in the class.

Also in their third interview, students were asked to think about how they felt when
they are in music class. They were given a collection of twelve large-format
photographs, and asked to choose the one that best depicted the way they felt in
music classes when they first arrived, the way they felt after several terms at MELS,
and how they could remember feeling one time. The students spoke about some of
their selections, but not all of them. They each took time to select their images,
showing care and consideration for finding the images that best described their
experiences. The strategy of image selection enabled students to describe their
experiences without needing to use words or specific examples, and held their
engagement throughout. It also enabled a comparison of the way their feelings had
changed through their time in the school.
Areas of methodological consideration also arose with regard to interpreting the
children’s responses. The first of these considered the role of interpreters in the
children’s interviews. Interpreters played an important role in helping the students
feel confident and safe in the interview process. However, analysis of transcripts
revealed questions about the interpreters’ level of comfort with the language required
to talk about music. Musicians learn to talk about music over many years of study,
training and workplace experience. This research project asked students to talk
about their experiences of music learning, but it was unclear from the transcripts
whether the awkward language that was occasionally used was originating from the
children (speaking in their native tongue), or from the interpreters (translating into
English). While this aspect had a benign, if any, impact on the outcomes of the
Beyond Words project, it might prove of greater methodological significance in
another study with non-English speaking children and interpreters and is worthy of
attention.
A question of culturally-sensitive interpretation arose when considering the
significance of some of the more ambiguous responses that arose in the transcripts.
Long pauses, sudden breaks in a narrative, or frequent use of “I don’t know” as a
response each required interpretation beyond the words themselves. There can be
many cultural and social reasons for a child to answer “I don’t know” to a question. It
may be that they don’t know the answer, but it may also be a way of signifying to the
interviewer that they would prefer to avoid this question. In some cultures, the rules
that govern appropriate behaviour between children and adults in authority can deem
“I don’t know” to be a suitably respectful response. Indeed, in some cultures,
opinions or strong statements given from a child to an adult could be regarded as
impertinent, and warrant chastisement or punishment. In order to ascertain what
additional layers could be hidden by phrases such as “I don’t know” or long pauses, I
undertook a secondary analysis, considering what kinds of questions had been
asked when these responses were given most frequently. This analysis suggested
that the individuals’ reasons for giving an ambiguous response were based more on
their personality, than particular kinds of questions.
The Beyond Words study, though small in scope, offers a detailed picture of three
children’s experiences of music making and music learning, in the midst of a huge
life transition and personal upheaval and confusion. Further research possibilities
include an exploration of how music and the arts might impact upon their overall
engagement and learning in school over time, or more specifically how music might
assist with the acquisition of a new language, or encourage a greater sense of social
connectedness and well-being. A homogenous sample of informants (such as a
group that only included children from a particular country, or a particular prior
schooling experience) would create a more detailed understanding of the way culture
and prior experiences may impact upon perceptions of a particular area of learning or

life in Australia. The field of refugee and immigrant studies is inherently
multidisciplinary, and it thus draws upon a wide range of theoretical and
methodological approaches. It is also a young and burgeoning field, with much still to
be learned.6
Young people’s voices can make a powerful and unique contribution to
our understanding of their experiences, when in the midst of their settlement and
period of transition, and in their more settled futures.
Gillian Howell
May 2010
E: howellgm@yahoo.com.au
1
The Song Room is a national not-for-profit organisation that provides opportunities
for enhanced learning and development for disadvantaged children through music
and creative arts. The researcher Gillian Howell has been employed as a Teaching
Artist at MELS by The Song Room since 2005.
2
Susan had a passport age of 11 at the time of the research and was enrolled in the
primary section of the school. However, later in 2008, her parents revealed her actual
age to be 14. Such discrepancies with age and dates of birth are not uncommon
among refugees. Accurate ages, if known, may be concealed for a number of
reasons, and if they are revealed, it is usually only once a strong relationship of trust
has been established with the staff at the school.
3
Rogers, A. (2005). Interviewing children using an interpretive poetics. In S. Green &
D.Hogan (Eds.), Researching children’s experience (pp. 158-174). London:
Sage Publications
4
See the following publications for more detailed discussion of the theories of cross-
cultural adaptation, including distinctions between psychological and sociocultural
adjustment:
Ward, C., Bochner, S., & Furnham, A. (2001). The psychology of culture shock (2nd
ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Routledge.
Ward, C., Okura, Y., Kennedy, A., & Kojima, T. (1998). The U-Curve on trial: A
longitudinal study of psychological and sociocultural adjustment during cross-
cultural transition. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 22(3), 277-
291.
5
Literature consulted with regard to designing interviews with children aged 10-14
years included:
Smith, A., Taylor, N., & Gollop, M. (Ed.) (2000) Children's voices: Research, Policy
and Practice (pp. 18-36). Auckland: Pearson Education.
S. Greene & D. Hogan (2005). Researching children's experience: Approaches and
methods. London: Sage Publications.
Igoa, C. (1995). The inner world of the immigrant child. New York, NY: St Martin's
Press.
Wilson, C., & Powell, M. (2001). A guide to interviewing children. Crows Nest, NSW:
Allen & Unwin.
Zwiers, M. L., & Morrissette, P. J. (1999). Effective interviewing of children: A
comprehensive guide for counsellors and human service workers.
Philadelphia, PA: Accelerated Development.
6
Chatty, D., Crivello, G., & Lewando Hundt, G. (2005). Theoretical and
methodological challenges of studying refugee children in the Middle East
and North Africa: Young Palestinian, Afghan and Sahrawi refugees. Journal
of Refugee Studies, 18(4), 387-409.

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