Methodological and Programmatic Contributions to the Teaching and Learning Process of Choral Singing in Primary Education

Abstract

Considered by many as a true “global learning tool”, the singing practiced in the school context is particularly important in making a educational conscientiousness that we should not undervalue in view of the current curriculum scenario, particularly in the primary education, privileged terrain for the growth of a programmatically and methodological structure that, since the sung expression of the most natural and spontaneous practice of the singing together in the classroom, until the most criteriouse and formal performance of choral singing in school, allowing children, since the general education, as claimed Willems, cultivate the wealth and demands of “meeting with the other” through a learning and a qualitatively proficient and recognized performance.
By the system of curricular autonomy that the Autonomous Region of Madeira (RAM) has, was typified this skills acquisition plan proposed to be implemented evolutionarily during the process of teaching and learning collective singing, exercised since an early childhood and throughout primary education, principles applied and tested in Madeira islands schools by the project ‘Growing up Singing’ (Crescer a Cantar), since 2010.
The cone spiral model, originally presented here, pretends systematize the result of an experimentation process, literature research and personal questioning, in view of practices observed in ambit of the school choral singing modality cordination, in primary education in Madeira, post that the author has in this insular region since 2003, through the Department of Artistic Education Services and Multimedia (Direção de Serviços de Educação Artística e Multimédia).
To be based on the triangulation of educators and authors theories that have become referential for himself in the area which it refers to this proposal, arises with the purpose of providing methodological and programmatic guidelines to teachers who wish to encourage the practice of “the collective singing (choir) with contours of quality and greater rigor in their schools, on the assumption that the respective curricular framework leads them to the implementation of linear and progressive projects along the education levels who teach, and subsequent levels, not underestimating the basilar importance of a criterious and
conscious approach of ‘the singing together’ in the classroom, common practice in curricular classes of the first years in initial levels of general education.
The analogy with Swanwick’s spiral and the fundamentals of Willemsian music education are evident references in the model presented here, schematized through an ascending spiral cone, consisting of 8 levels of ‘Knowledges’, programmatic concepts whose significance summarizes metaphorically, in each of its performance stages, the socio-educational-musical and artistic skills profile that students should appropriate and develop based on the 4 dimensions considered, in the plan which this article refers, as structuring for learning and development of choral practice in schools of RAM, in liaison with the great organizers from the National Curriculum for Primary Education in respect to artistic education for the generical teaching.
It is proposed, therefore, that disclosure of the model here patented, constitutes a potential referential of teaching dynamics, which indicate the musical development at the ‘collective singing’ practiced in primary school by students in general, in RAM, as well as, based on your state reasons, they may also establish criteria for appreciation and assessment of school choirs, not only in formal school context, as on occasions of public sharing.