Reflective Journal (S.P.I)
In this studio pedagogy course, I have set my music teaching philosophy in the lesson. That is “Everyone is talented to learn music. Everyone can be success if they pay effort.” This makes me have more passion to teach more and more students.
The course mainly focuses on teaching young children which started to play their major instrument for a short period of time. I have learnt some methods to teach children different musical elements such as beat, dynamics and pitch in a more interesting way. One effective way to teach children is to ask them to imitate what you did. It is better than just teaching them music theories using just text in the book. However for older learner, we can choose not to use interesting activities to teach them because they can understand everything faster than children. I have learnt to set a lesson plan before teaching students. The aim is to have specific task for the student and also the teaching. The time control can also be better when we set a plan for every lesson.
Also, I know more technologies or materials that can enhance my music teaching in this course. For example the online sight-reading site is a good to train students’ sight-reading skill. This site will create a lot of scores for sight-reading according the level, key and tempo we set. Another effective way to ensure students practicing to right thing is using apps in the mobile phone. We can send the recording to students’ parents. So that students can listen to the recording and they will know that what they should practice. Using these method and strategies can make my studio teaching more effective and efficient.
Learning how to teach children is the first step to start my teaching career. Therefore I will wisely use different strategies to teach different children. And I would also like to know more about how to teaching advanced level of musical instrument. Teaching required practices, therefore teaching different age group of people is also a challenge for me.
Reflective Journal (S.P.II)
After attending the Studio Pedagogy II course, I had learnt to adopt different teaching strategies for different level of students. Some students may be more genius and have higher motive in learning the instrument. We should adopt a stricter standard for them. But for other normal learners, we should always have a slower pace of teaching.
Difference between children and adults is also a concern for a music teacher. For children, since they will have lower focus in learning and they are not able to listen to too many theories or techniques at the same time. We should create some music activities for them in order to raise their interest on practicing their own instrument.
For children, the lessons will be more interesting. We can teach them some theories but we should allow them to play more. Sometimes the fastest learning is by listening, we should always perform once the piece to the students. After they had listened to our demonstration, it will be easier for them to catch up. For adults, they may understand the theories easier. Therefore we should focus on teaching them the techniques and their own expression. Sometimes we can give them soundtracks or video to listen, adults is more capable in imitating the performing style through watching the video and listening.
For students in different levels, for example from grade 1 to grade 4, we should try to correct their posture and teach them the rhythm and notes on the score since they are not so familiar with looking at the scores. However for students from grade 5 to grade 8, we should try to teach them how to perform a piece beautifully according to the dynamics and some marking on the score. For example when we are teaching a piece composed by J.S. Bach, we should also teach them the background of baroque and how to do some techniques that featuring baroque style. Also we need to teach some pieces from other period in order to broader their knowledge in playing different kinds of music.
Another thing that is important for students is the ensembleship. Other than the piano, many solo instrument such as violin, clarinet and flute are require to have good ensemble skills among other players. However before choosing which instrument they should play, we should know their ability and decide which instrument is the best for them. After learning a fixed period, we can let the students to have ensemble with other instrument and hold a concert for them. It is important that students are able to perform on the stage because music is a kind of sharing. Through the concert, we can know the student’s ability more detail and at the same time their parents can also enjoy their performance.
Other than playing the instrument, we should persuade them to listen to more kinds of music such as classical music, contemporary music, jazz music or pop music. It can train their ears and they may have some favorite songs and styles that they want to learn. Sometimes we should fulfill their dream that they have the freedom to choose their own songs which they want to learn. It can also increase their interest on learning the instrument.