Learning Through Song

你好吗？我很好。谢谢。再见。
Translation = How are you? I'm fine. Thank You. Bye.

Time it took to learn that? About 3 minutes. Method through which I learned it? By song in my Chinese class.

How long it'll last?
Probably forever.

It's amazing what you can learn through music. It's an incredible mnemonic device. A couple hits of the play button and you've got an entire song memorized. The cool thing is, for years after, the melody of the song can be recalled at any moment after hearing even just the first 3 notes of the song. It's amazing how our brain works.

Not only is it an awesome way to memorize things, it provides a effective and fun way to teach. I'll be honest, I look forward to Chinese 9 days out of 10, more than I can say for other classes, and a large part of it is not only because I get to learn a new language, but it's because I get to learn it in a active and fun way. To be honest, kids in high school are really just that, kids, and I don't think that that should be forgotten and tossed aside like another obstacle to learning. We need to embrace it; we need to use it.

How else would we get students to sing outside their showers?

"I Love to Sing-a"