Better Together

Abstract

This conceptual article argues for the importance of placing creativity at the center of second language (L2) learning and takes music as an illustration of the potential benefits to teachers and learners. The value of music as a resource for L2 education derives from our primary experiences of music as both physical and emotional, thus creating embodied understandings of patterns, rhythms, and words that engage us cognitively and emotionally. Throughout human history, the combination of melody, rhythm, tempo, and structure of each culture’s music has served as a memory tool, a celebration of shared meaning, a space for culturally determined emotional arousal, and a mediator of cooperative physical activity. Following Kozulin’s (1998) analysis of psychological tools as cultural constructions (e.g., numbers, graphic organizers, maps, language, etc.) that allow us to organize our mental functions, music is identified as a unique psychological tool in that it prioritizes and regulates emotive factors along with cognitive factors of development. In this way, music offers possibilities for creating Zones of Proximal Development (ZPD) through activity that advances cognitive goals, such as L2 teaching and learning, and that simultaneously provokes emotional responses and engagement. The paper discusses key features of Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory, including psychological tools (Kozulin, 1998; Lantolf and Thorne, 2006), the ZPD (Vygotsky, 1978), and perezhivanie (Mok, 2015; Vygotsky, 1934/1998), considering how together they lead to a way of approaching L2 teaching and learning that favors creativity and playfulness over grammar rules and that can be advanced through the integration of music into classroom activity.