I love music. I love how music can bridge the gap across languages. You don't have to be able to speak if you can play a song that brings about the emotions. You can feel what that person is trying to convey without having to understand any of the words spoken about it. For me music is a language in itself - one that anyone can understand - you don't have to study it for years to be able to experience the feelings within a melody.

One of the countries in the UK is Wales. Welsh people are purported to have the 'sing-song' accent. It is believed that the welsh language is one that is melodious and thus the people are well known for their musical ability. In fact many accents and ways that we speak can reflect how we are feeling. In English it is common for us to raise the ends of sentences when we are questioning something... so particularly when we are learning a new language - if we are not confident in what we are saying then often one might raise the end of the sentence. Imagine then, the difficulty when you are introduced to a tonal language such as Chinese. While an inflection at the end of a sentence might make it a question in English - doing so in Chinese would just make it wrong!

I have recently begun learning Chinese and there is so much to learn. Yet with any language the key is consistency. If you were to study for 2 hours on a Monday at a language - but not learn it the rest of the week - you are actually worse off! You are better to learn it for 15 minutes each day! That way you are constantly practising it and you hold a higher retention rate in your head. So it is the same if the students have English homework - it is better for them to do a little each day rather than do one big piece once a week. It is a good thing that they have the opportunity to practise English each day!

There are so many ways of communicating what you mean. For me, I have learned that charades comes in very handy. But I wonder how it is that you communicate. Is it music, is it art? I have had some of my Year 2's show me some art work that they have been doing and they are so proud of it! Today I got to witness one of the Year 3 students play an amazingly elaborate piece on the piano - but that would not have been practised as a one off - that was practised a little every day. Just as with learning instruments, language is the same - it's little by little. You can't expect to know it all overnight, but the great thing is - if you stick at it - you will be able to learn and grow and improve. So keep going!