Connecting Canada - Merlin Thompson

Dr. Merlin Thompson

Award-winning music educator, workshop clinician, piano teacher, and keynote speaker, Dr. Merlin Thompson is an internationally renowned authority in music studio teaching. With nearly five decades of teaching experience, Merlin’s most recent projects have taken place across Canada, USA, China, New Zealand, Australia, and Finland. He is author of “More than Music Lessons: A Studio Teacher’s Guide to Parents, Practicing, Projects, and Character”. Now as founder and creator of Teach Music 21C, his goal is simple - to help music teachers expand and enhance their teaching with 21st century tools and strategies. For more information on how Merlin is inspiring music teachers to rethink what successful music lessons look like, please visit www.TeachMusic21C.com.

Session #14: Repertoire Review/Refinement: Lessons from the Language Learning Model

Drawing on insights from the framework of language learning pedagogy, this session examines the Review & Refinement (R&R) strategy to stimulate skill development and ensure student engagement. R&R is based on the language learning principle in which our confident/secure vocabulary provides the foundation for learning new vocabulary; and our “old” vocabulary always outnumbers our “new” vocabulary. In a music learning setting, this means teachers use students’ “old” pieces as the ongoing fertile ground for developing students’ musical skillset rather than relying on students’ “new” and least familiar repertoire.The R&R strategy differs considerably from a traditional music teaching approach wherein students may focus on one or two pieces at a time, with teachers checking off each piece as students achieve mastery. In this traditional music teaching model, students may confidently perform their repertoire only for a brief time compared to the extended period they spend learning new repertoire. Whereas in the R&R setting, students’ accumulated repertoire serves as the ongoing foundation for learning new repertoire, similar to the way a person’s accumulated vocabulary provides the secure foundation for learning new vocabulary.For this session, participants will explore the R&R benefits and specific tools teachers may introduce to infuse each lesson with freshness and spontaneity. This session also considers the importance of meaningful follow-up each week, as when teachers overlook “old” pieces, students may infer they are unimportant and discontinue with the R&R process.Participants will leave with R&R strategies to make repetition engaging, tools for supporting long-term habit formation, and a renewed understanding of how a language-learning approach can sustain both musical growth and student enthusiasm.

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