Musik och språk i förskolan ! : en intervjustudie om pedagogers arbete med musik i syfte att utveckla språket hos barn.

Abstract The Government´s guidelines found in the curriculum for pre-schools, recommend that music should be an important resource for children. To stimulate children´s language is also an important part of this curriculum. It is every teacher`s proffessional duty to ensure that these guidelines are followed. Language is of unparallel importance in assisting an individual to grow and to function within a society. In my work about music and languages in pre-school the purpose is to investigate how the studied teachers use music to stimulate of children`s developmt in language. An interesting aspect of the study is also the teacher`s own interest in music, as this can affect how the teacher works with music within pre-school activities. Four pre-school teachers at the same pre – school, whom all work with children aged three to five years old, were interviewed. The interviews were structured on questions about music and languages in regards to the children in pre-school, and the responses of those interviewed were recorded on cassette.The investigation shows that all the teacher`s use music more or less daily within the activities in the pre-school, and they feel that music stimulates language development, first and foremost when it comes to nursery rhymes, as the rhytm in these make it easier to learn and remember. Two of the selected teachers who work at the same department use music several times each day in some way, while the other selected teachers who work in another department sing each day with the children, but they focus more on the language itself than on music. One of the teachers works with music to order to develop language skills, and also other things, through planned work with music as the central medium. She is also the one who has the deepest knowledge and experience of music. The other teachers in my survey did not as much have a plan in the work with music to further language development but saw music as a beneficial method to be used with other methods. My research discovered that the teachers saw music to be fun way to learn that this in turn influenced children to feel the same and to learn. When it is fun to learn the teachers felt that the children found it easier to learn. Keywords: music with children, languagedevelopment, rhytm, teachers influence