MUSIC AND MEMORY: PREDICTORS FOR ATTAINED ESL ORAL PROFICIENCY

This article presents the results of an empirical concurrent validation study in which measures of musical ability (pitch, loudness, and rhythm), auditory discrimination, and memory were used to account for variance in attained ESL oral proficiency. Memory was a significant, though tenuous, predictor of variance in the dependent variable. In addition, significant differences were noted for the different language groups and for the different tests. The article concludes with a proposed research program to determine whether training in musical abilities might be a profitable adjunct to ESL instruction.