Teacher instructional language and student experience in middle school choral rehearsals

I was in choir in middle school, so I like the purpose of this study. But I also have a parent who is a teacher. I think this study could be interpreted to teachers of any subject, to better understand the relationship between teachers’ instructional behaviors and student learning or attitudes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between teacher language use and student quality of experience during choral rehearsals. This experiment was conducted in the USA, and music education in the participating schools occurs entirely within large-group performance ensembles.  The instructional language examined for this study was limited to that which occurred within lessons focused on the rehearsal and performance of choral music.

The participants in this study were drawn from four non-auditioned mixed choral ensembles in two middle schools in the northeastern USA. Five 40-minute consecutive rehearsals of each choir were videotaped in their entirety. At the end of each observation, the 88 student participants completed a self-report. Also, exit interviews were collected from the two choir teachers and the district supervisor. The choral teachers needed to be very specific in their language to each section of their ensemble, soprano, alto, tenor, etc.). Three-quarters of the instructional language coded for this study was categorized as non-scaffolding language. When non-scaffolding language was used in rehearsals, students were not directly given the opportunity to make decisions, experiment with technical approaches, or otherwise interact with musical content; students merely responded to teacher commands without taking responsibility for their musicianship.

When students were presented with scaffolding language in this study, they answered questions, explored options, made decisions, and searched for alternative approaches to musical problems. Learning in a choral rehearsal requires the coordination of many different intellectual and physical skills at one time, with performance occurring individually and collectively in the same moment. Additionally, the chronological nature of music performance requires that students momentarily suspend the distinction between process and product. Too much self-criticism of skills hurt the student’s process of making music, while too little awareness of personal contribution interferes with the musical product of the ensemble, making it less important to the student.


Freer, P. K. (2008). Teacher instructional language and student experience in middle school choral rehearsals. Music Education Research, 10(1), 107-124. doi:10.1080/14613800701871538

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