Teaching Music History in a Multilingual Environment: An Accommodationist Approach

Abstract

Our students' increasingly varied linguistic backgrounds affect the pedagogy of music history courses in profound ways. From evaluating students' writing, to choosing appropriate writing, reading, and listening activities, to leading classroom discussions, linguistic concerns shape virtually every aspect of the teaching process. It is therefore prudent to consider approaches music history teachers can employ in order to best meet the needs of all students, regardless of their individual linguistic backgrounds.

This article discusses the importance of awareness and sensitivity among music history instructors with regard to the increasingly multilingual environment in which we teach, and reflects on the significance of these considerations as they pertain to students' linguistic and cultural identities. The article also examines challenges that teaching in a multilingual classroom setting can pose in implementing some of the activities most commonly employed in music history courses, and in turn proposes practical teaching strategies for addressing these issues.