Friday, May 10, 2013

Singing assessment?

I had an interesting chat with someone yesterday about whether it's fair to mark kids on their singing ability. It was in the context of year 1 report writing.

The arguments against it were:
1. Not everyone can sing, and
2. Kids might be too shy/nervous to sing in front of the class for assessment.

In my prep and year 1 classes, I keep a close check on who is singing in tune in group and solo situations. It is certainly part of my assessment of the kids because:

1. In tune singing is a learned skill. (I think this is what many people don't understand.) I'm teaching it in much the same way that classroom teachers teach kids maths. I start at the beginning and break it down. Certainly some kids are more natural than others, but all can (should!) learn. I will assess what I am teaching to monitor how well the kids are learning.
2. Kids have to stand up and speak in front of their classmates from the start for English assessment. If they get used to singing in front of others as well when they are little, it won't be such an issue later on. I want singing to be normal. This week I had 150 preps sing by themselves in front of their classes. Only 2 of them wanted to just sing softly into my ear. We shouldn't project our hangups onto kids. (I may have had stickers to use as added incentive!)

At this stage of the year, I'm basically dividing kids into 3 groups:

A = Child basically sings in tune
B = Child shows understanding of pitch differentiation (e.g. So is higher than Mi) but singing is not always in tune.
C = Child struggles to differentiate pitches a lot of the time (C- kids sing with a speaking voice)

Of the 120ish prep kids I listened to this week, I had 33 singing somewhere in category A, 54 in category B, and 35 in category C. I noted that 6 kids may have underachieved because of nerves.

Thoughts from parents, other music teachers...

15 comments:

  1. How do you allow for undiagnosed hearing / processing issues? I'm thinking of my grandmother and her difficulties with my sister's name. She could say "Alice" and "ee-a" separately but try as she might she couldn't put the two together into "Alicia" (Al-ic-ee-a) but always came out with "Aleesha".

    Interestingly, she sang a bit flat, my mother sings a bit flat and, after listening to a recording of myself, I hear that I sing a bit flat. Is there a genetic connection? Will it be fixed with more lessons as my singing teacher reassures? Who knows - my teacher moved to Perth and I haven't had time to take it up as a serious pursuit.

    Then there's the whole issue of speaking vs singing voices and whether they are or should be different. As in, singing should be a natural extension of talking as most people can talk for longer than they can sing if they sing using a 'singing' vs a 'speaking' voice. I'm not expressing this well, sorry. :-s

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    1. I (like most opera singers) find prolonged speaking much more vocally tiring than singing.. fwiw.

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  2. How do you allow for undiagnosed hearing / processing issues?

    I don't. Kids with significant hearing problems will be disadvantaged in many aspects of music, just as kids who are blind will struggle with much visual art. Having said that, I know someone with a hearing issue who sings perfectly in tune - she just had to learn to make the most of the hearing she had.

    Perhaps when a parent sees that their otherwise bright daughter is performing poorly in music they will go and get her hearing checked.

    There is absolutely a difference between speaking and singing and the first step to getting kids to sing in tune is that they learn that difference.

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  3. Wow. Does this mean 'tone deaf' is not a genetic disability? There goes my alibi from the dud genes I got from my mother.

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    1. Alas... But we learn to sing tunefully by hearing tuneful singing, so if one's parents aren't particularly tuneful, then...

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    2. Better keep singing the tune of grace, then...it's my only shot ;-)

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  5. Wow. For something like solo singing which requires great courage and trust in the one asking you to do it, I would probably give marks for enthusiasm and effort, not ability. I fear a bad mark in singing might clam a child up for life, and they will miss out on one of the most fun things to do ever :)

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    1. When I'm marking little ones, I don't tell them what they get! In fact, I don't tell them that I'm marking them. Often I assess while we are playing a singing game like 'doggy doggy where's your bone' or 'kangaroo, skippy roo'. The other day I had them each sing me a 4 bar song. Kids didn't know they got an a, b or c. They knew that they got a sticker and a 'good effort!'. It's a very positive thing. The kids a keen to do it. By assessing them I can tailor my teaching to help all of them sing better so that long term they'll enjoy it more.

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    2. Oh right . I was imagining these marks on report cards going home :)

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    3. They will eventually - combined with the rest of my program - rhythm, reading etc.

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  6. I'm not really sure how singing is any different from PE, maths, English or any other school subject. All involve a combination of talent, effort and good instruction! And each can be ruined by poor teaching/lack of encouragement/too much focus on achievement. I'm not sure why we feel like singing is different from other skills - perhaps because most most of us have never seen it taught effectively.

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  7. I think that singing in tune is mostly to do with listening (and hear our voice differently to playing an instrument, for example..). I had a student who had trouble singing in tune, and greatly improved when I helped him to listen and the think before trying (a changing voice was also at play there). I also have a friend who I did my BMus with, who was a good pianist and musician, but was probably the worst singer I've ever heard. I think he did have some hearing difficulties, and no doubt, nerves (which can affect breathing) because of past experience didn't help..

    I'd be really interested to read some proper research into it though.. While we all sing a bit sharp or flat at times, singing came very naturally to me.

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    1. "singing came very naturally to me." - he says having spent a decade and thousands of $ on training... :D

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  8. I have to agree with you. Being able to sing in tune is a basic musical skill. Not everyone will become a proficient singer (as in, being someone you would want to listen to) but that's an advanced skill.

    Interestingly my kids grew up surrounded by music and hearing me sing all the time whether they liked it or not, but although both are very capable musicians neither of them took to singing at all. Not sure what went wrong there...

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