Language-aware choir practice triggering multilevel transformations in music education

Abstract

Choirs are often based on well-established musical principles, repertoires, and habits of action aiming at musical quality. This narrative-oriented practitioner inquiry focuses on a distinct choir that aims to respond to the real-life needs of the participants, who are newcomers to Finnish society, by integrating Finnish-as-a-second-language learning into meaningful music-making. In language-aware choirs, the practice is continuously co-created anew by drawing from music education, the intercultural negotiation with and between the participants, and the transprofessional co-construction between the choir conductor and the Finnish language teacher. The study asks: What meanings do the participants give to language-aware choirs? The narrative analysis includes interviews of five choir participants, from which stories, each depicting various transformative meanings, were composed. Leveraging Maxine Greene’s concepts of wide-awakeness and social imagination, and seen through the lens of activity theory, the study shows how choir participants, including the choir conductor and language teacher, illustrate various processes of transformation in their personal or professional lives. These individual transformations highlight how the transdisciplinarity of the choir practice not only opens up novel opportunities for social and cultural participation, but also challenges the learned mental models of teaching and learning for both music and a second language. By proposing an emerging theorisation for transdisciplinary language-aware choirs, the study encourages further transdisciplinary practices in music education as it faces the interconnected challenges of contemporary societies.