Choir helps learners build Finnish skills through song

A choir at Espoo Workers’ Institute is helping people learn Finnish by singing, Yle reports. The approach combines language practice with music-making and encourages learners to speak Finnish.

The choir, led by music teacher Johanna Lehtinen-Schnabel, brings together singers with as many as 20 different first languages. Some speak Finnish fluently, while others are still learning. During rehearsals, they practise pronunciation and spoken Finnish alongside songs.

Lehtinen-Schnabel developed the language-aware choir method with Finnish-as-a-second-language teachers and students. She earned a doctorate in music in October for her work on the subject. Similar choir activities are also used at the University of the Arts Helsinki and Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.

Music can help learners practise the length of vowels and consonants through rhythm, while melodies can make words easier to remember, says Finnish-as-a-second-language teacher Heidi Saaristo. Repetition in music can also help with language structures.

Singing difficult words gives learners a chance to practise pronunciation, Lehtinen-Schnabel says. Listening to one another and singing or speaking aloud together can also make it easier to use Finnish. The choir uses improvisation, turning words suggested by students into phrases that can be set to a melody.

The singers have also created new music together. Choir member Fuäd Oranski composed a Christmas song, with the teachers and singers writing the lyrics together. It describes things people can do at Christmas, including staying at home, cooking and hugging. The song is due to be performed at the institute’s Christmas concert in late November.

Friederike Lüpke, who has sung with the choir for more than three years, called it perhaps her best experience of learning Finnish. She said language learning, like singing, involves the body, but that this can be overlooked when teaching focuses on reading and writing.