Instrumental and vocal teaching: how do music students learn to teach?

Abstract

A survey of final-year music students at the University of York for the Investigating Musical Performance research project found that 45% (23 of the 51 students in the year group) regularly gave instrumental or vocal lessons. Semi-structured interviews with 16 students revealed a range of teaching activities including workshop leading, one-to-one lessons and group teaching. This paper examines the attitudes of the nine students engaged in giving instrumental lessons and explores their development as teachers and their understanding of some of the key concepts of teaching and learning. Findings suggest that students learned to teach through increased experience rather than formal training, and although they were enthusiastic, reporting benefits to their own learning and performing, they could have been more pro-active regarding their development as teachers and more resourceful in their approaches towards lesson content and materials, strategies relating to modelling and motivation and the teaching of practice techniques. Increased provision of support and training opportunities could be made by Higher Education institutions, by giving students feedback regarding their effectiveness as teachers, opportunities to discuss their teaching, and enabling learning through mentoring partnerships with more experienced teachers.

Instrumental and vocal teacher education: competences, roles and curricula

“…The approach was seen to be more teacher-directed than student-centred. Recent research on instrumental teaching and teacher education has begun to question traditional approaches and to open up the discussion around such issues (Baker 2005(Baker , 2006Burwell 2005;Cain 2007;Cheng and Durrant 2007;Gaunt 2008Gaunt , 2009Haddon 2009;Hallam 1998;Lennon 1995Lennon , 1996Miller and Baker 2007;Mills 2004Mills , 2007Mills and Smith 2003;Presland 2005;Purser 2005;Young, Burwell and Pickup 2003). As research has begun to focus on various aspects of the instrumental/vocal teaching transaction, in many countries the focus of the pedagogical discourse has shifted from the teacher to the student, from the musical product to musical processes and from teaching to learning.…”

Isolation in studio music teaching: The secret garden

“…Over the past fifteen years, music scholars have amassed data about more or less reflective and responsible processes from practitioners ranging from undergraduate musicians through to conservatoire professors (Haddon, 2009;Mills, 2004aMills, , 2004bMills and Smith, 2003).…”

Teacher educators’ visions of pedagogical training within instrumental higher music education. A case in Finland

“…She considers practical experience in teaching to be at the heart of effective teacher training, and suggests (1) devoting less time to the quantity of teaching experiences, and more to quality, and (2) recommends that music pedagogy instructors ensure that their own teaching style models the learning tactics espoused to students. In addition, Haddon's (2009) findings suggest that instrumental and vocal students learn to teach through increased experience rather than formal training. Paul et al .…”