CLIL and the arts in the ‘MusA’ project

The project MusA (Composizioni MUSicali per gli Allievi di italiano lingua straniera) originated at the teacher education institutions of Schwyz, Graubünden and Tessin (SUPSI-DFA/ASP). The project set out both to raise awareness around and to raise the profile of popular and contemporary songs of Italian-speaking Switzerland. Ten new songs were collected together for use in foreign language lessons at German-Swiss primary schools. The first step was to identify suitable musical material and to establish a pedagogical framework for using songs in the foreign language classroom. The next phase of development saw the creation of a framework of reference for producing audio material and preparing songs for classroom work. In addition, workbooks with educational material for lessons integrating music, language and culture were put together. Every song was illustrated and linked with learning tasks according to the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) model which adopts an embodiment approach to music education. Further, a website is currently in production which will grant access to the guiding principles, songs, musical notation, and further teaching materials.