Music Teacher Competences Oriented Toward Inclusive Education: An Analysis of Proposals in the Initial Pre-Service Teacher Training Phase

Listening (Ear Training)

Ear training involves the identification of musical elements (notes, rhythms, nuances, harmonies, textures) and their relationship with musical comprehension. To feature such elements in an inclusive way, the teacher should apply knowledge, skills, and teaching attitudes with the aim of achieving optimal musical learning.

In this study, ear training was determined as the process of identifying musical elements in their simplest form and associating them with the way we physically perceive sound. To develop ear training, our trainees affirmed that a teacher should have skills in sound discrimination, detection of difficulties in terms of sound emission, musical intonation, analytical capacity, knowledge of an extensive and varied musical repertoire, and the ability to cultivate a sensitive attitude combined with listening enjoyment and appreciation of qualities of interpretation. The informants stated:

A teacher should master the four parameters of sound and the ways they change, as well as the basic components of melody, harmony, texture, and form, in order to be able to identify them in a basic musical fragment (Informant 14) [I14];

The teacher should be able to identify difficulties in intonation, vocal projection, and interpretation … [I1];

Educating a calm listening attitude that allows them to construct their own interpretation of what they are hearing [I3].

For trainees, ear training involved the respectful, attentive application of listening skills acquired as professional musicians to improve the ear training, performance and creative skills of all students. Participants stated that a teacher’s ear training and musical ear should be associated with an inclusive attitude that should:

Allow each student to express themselves musically according to their own knowledge and abilities [MT2];

Incorporate values such as: attention, flexibility, respect and creativity that help students to enjoy active listening as an attractive, pleasurable and personally inquiring experience that motivates them to create their own interpretation [I6].

A rich and varied selection of musical repertoire was highlighted as knowledge related to cultural and musical ear training, determined by a teacher’s musical background and attitude to didactics according to the musical aspects that need to be worked on in class, as well as responding to specific, contextual educational needs:

The more a teacher has in their musical baggage, the greater the amount of styles and possibilities they can use in performance and adaptation to the context [I5].

Performance

Performance was understood as the ability to reproduce and interpret musical content in new contexts of expression. Participants stated that a teacher’s technical and didactic skills in musical performance represent a meaningful competence, owing particularly to the practical and experiential dimension involved therein. They indicated that a teacher should possess technical knowledge of different means of vocal, instrumental and corporal expression in order to transmit an all-encompassing musical aptitude to their students. They affirmed that a teacher should acquire a global formation:

To sing with adequate vocal technique, and to have notions of conducting in order to apply them in choral activities [I5];

A teacher should be able to play several monophonic and polyphonic instruments not only to teach, but also to accompany and perform with them in class [I9];

Although it is not my thing, I must admit I should improve my training in body expression, dance, choreography, and stage direction [MT7].

Trainees recognized that a teacher should possess a mastery of technique in order to facilitate optimal individual and group performance. Thus, a teacher should master sight-reading and transposition as instrumental techniques that enable him/her to accompany a student’s performance with ease:

A music teacher must be an expert in musical language, interpretation, and sight-reading [I2].

To motivate pupils’ enjoyment of music performance, the teacher should encourage them to perform music in the medium they prefer:

Ensure that students enjoy expressing their ideas through singing, playing, or whatever they prefer [MT6].

Performance was described by our group of pre-service teachers as an inclusive experience that should focus on process rather than outcome, seeking to encourage the participation and contribution of all pupils to musical learning while encouraging the development of personal and social skills.

Creation

Musical creation was described as an action that brings something new into being. As they noted, it is a necessary artistic skill for a music teacher to have in terms of didactics and inclusion. The trainees stated that a music teacher should possess knowledge and skills in harmony, transposition, transcription, improvisation, and composition. Informant 8 stated:

Teachers should be able to harmonise song accompaniments and invent instrumentations adapted to the school context [I8].

Improvisation and composition were viewed by the informants as creative, didactic modalities that provide the musical experience with richness and meaning by allowing the teacher to invent and adapt new material to the students’ didactic interests and educational needs:

Improvisation and transposition allow the teacher to adjust the instrumental accompaniment to the students’ vocal interpretation [I6];

When composing, the teacher must know how to include the [lesson content] they want to work on, whether they are intervals, rhythms, measures… [MT9].

Creation was viewed by trainees as an attitude that should be taught in a natural manner in order to bring students closer to experiencing the authentic dimension of expression:

For musicians, creation is the culmination of their art, when they elaborate their own works; thus, a music teacher should work on this aspect [I3];

As a teacher, I observe that children have lots of fun improvising with their voices, with their bodies, or on an instrument, since such situations are the only ones in which they can truly be themselves [I11].

Our informants described a creative music teacher as a comprehensive person who respects individuality, allows students to develop their exploratory and expressive abilities to guide them and provide new experiences. A creative teacher must have an open, flexible, and stimulating demeanor. Participants said:

Open, creative, and encouraging behaviour on the part of the teacher can motivate the students in their learning and their self-confidence in order to put musical creation into practice [I17].

Our informants affirmed that a teacher should serve as a creative musical role model who transmits to their students the sensation of freedom and enjoyment in making and representing music as an expressive activity within a co-educational environment:

The teacher should be the first one to practice and enjoy improvisation and composition in order to transmit that sense of expressive freedom to the students [I12];

To create is to feel free while expressing yourself [I10].

Moreover, one of the in-service teachers stated the following:

If the teacher creates and provides the students with an opportunity to create, this gives him/her self-assurance by valuing and appreciating his/her own production [MT1].

Creative group improvisation environments were described as a teacher’s opportunity to develop ear training and to adapt their creative response to the results of group production.

Knowledge of Musical Methods

The trainees in our focus groups described the knowledge and application of methods as a key educational competence required to guide teaching and achieve student learning. For them, meaningful music teaching emanates from a teacher’s theoretical and practical mastery of the most important active, creative musical methods. This, in turn, leads to active, dynamic, and inspiring music teaching adapted to each learning situation:

The teacher must acquire training in the main active and creative musical methods such as Dalcroze, Kodály, Orff, Willems, Schafer and their didactics [I4].

Comprehensive music education demands that pre-service and in-service music teachers apply multidimensional teaching featuring knowledge and didactic resources designed to adapt musical learning to student needs, using different strategies and methods. Interdisciplinary methodological training was mentioned by our trainees as a quality factor:

If we purport to offer truly integral music education, teachers need to have received multidimensional training in different methodologies [I8].

According to the in-service teachers we interviewed, music learning requires a truly educational artistic approach, as music is, per se, a sensorial experience.

Music is learned by making music, so music class should be a time of exploration, interpretation, and creation [MT5].

Management of the Teaching-Learning Process

Our informants stated that the appropriate management of the teaching-learning process involves proficiency in designing and developing teaching processes understood as pathways that ensure successful learning. The pre-service trainees mentioned a series of skills related to autonomy in directing and adapting the design, management, development, and hands-on application of the teaching-learning process. They made the following statements:

A music teacher should demonstrate mastery in programming and planning didactic processes on the basis of objectives by sequencing the proposed content units and activities [I1];

The teacher should not only know how to design activities but also how to apply and evaluate learning and deal with any difficulties that may arise [I15].

Technical Training

Technical training involves practical and expressive proficiency in a medium of expression where individual musicianship is trained. All participants (in-service and pre-service teachers) stated that a music teacher should have acquired multidimensional (i.e., vocal, corporal, instrumental, creative, technological) technical training in order to be able to stimulate students’ understanding and expression of music in a global way. Moreover, the in-service teachers stated the following:

Students learn by imitation, so if the teacher demonstrates good technique, he/she will be a good role model [MT2].

The role played by the teacher’s attitude was regarded as essential in technical training. Curiosity, flexibility, responsibility, and dedication should motivate teachers to incorporate new competences into didactics:

Training in new disciplines should allow teachers to develop a multidimensional didactic that determines their professional identity [I17];

A teacher with the curiosity to continuously learn and improve his or her musical knowledge will develop better didactics [MT8].

Participants acknowledged that multidimensional technical training is what best capacitates a teacher to bring music closer to students via different means of expression, thereby ensuring that a student’s personal situation or their social background do not need to be an obstacle that hinders their enjoyment of musical practice.

Technological (ICT) Training

Technological training was highlighted as a competence designed to enrich didactics by applying the acquired knowledge of digital tools (devices, programs, applications…). Our informants stated the following:

Technological training must be applied to musical didactics by using presentation, edition, and recording tools [I2];

There are an infinite number of applications, so a teacher should use those that he/she knows best and is capable of adapting to the group’s educational needs [MT8].

Our informants stated that this competence should be combined with a critical didactic musical attitude in order to analyse the didactic potential of certain technological resources according to the purposes and the practical nature of the music featured in the lessons.

Technological training (ICT) was viewed as an inclusive type of training that stimulates attention and repetition while following up on students’ learning to monitor their improvement.

Independent Learning

Independent learning was described as an attitude that involves the self-confidence and autonomy required for learning. According to our group of pre-service teacher trainees, this competence requires that the teacher should possess psycho-educational knowledge that allows them to adjust their teaching to students’ needs and to the educational context. In so doing, teachers can monitor their students’ progress and encourage them to gain self-confidence, providing them with the empowerment and emancipation that allows them to learn. Informant nine referred to the teacher’s responsibility and motivation to improve their own training and the development of their own psycho-educational skills and abilities; these, in turn, allow the teacher to detect and deal with students’ needs:

As a musician and a pedagogue, I think the music teacher needs to acquire a series of psycho-educational skills to assess students’ motor, communicative, cognitive, affective, and social difficulties, [finding out] how we can help them to become more self-confident when they are faced with new learning challenges [I9].

Our informants referred to independent learning as an attitude required for the development of co-educational learning experiences that reinforce active participation, personal attention, interaction, communication, exchange, and co-construction of learning. They stated:

[We should] make good use of collaborative groups as resources that encourage attention to diversity, and where students learn from one another [I3];

Initial training should prepare future teachers in terms of teaching methodologies and resources, but it is the needs of the school environment that will [ultimately] motivate the orientation of teacher training [MT1].

Invention of Resources

The invention of resources was recognized as a creative competence that enables teachers to elaborate and adjust educational processes to the needs of students and study contexts. Our informants stated:

[Teachers should] know how to use, transform, and adapt didactic resources to different educational interests [I2].

Resource creation was described as a competence that combines skills associated with didactic planning, methodology, and the use of analog and digital resources to enhance music teaching and learning. Informant 15 explained:

One of the great teaching challenges is acquiring competences to make learning a tangible experience. For example: if you’re explaining a musical texture, it’s important for the students to be able to hear it, see it, and experience it first-hand in order to understand it better [I15].

This competence was identified as a capacity that should allow the teacher to guide learning for the benefit of all students. Creativity in teacher training leads to the improvement of a series of working skills that allow the teacher to invent appropriate resources:

[If you have] a creative personality, it helps you train yourself to create new, useful products. But in any case, creativity can be worked on and learned, and should therefore be implemented in initial teacher education as an attitudinal teacher education [MT6].

Communication

Pre-service trainees described communication as a competence that involves clarity in expressing one’s ideas, as well as adapting one’s expression to the needs of learners while conveying values of fairness and respect for others. In addition to oral expression, our informants identified further skills such as tone and body language as key elements of communication. Moreover, communication is a skill that is necessary both in the classroom as well as in exchanges with one’s peers:

The use of group dynamics could improve the students’ degree of communication and self-confidence by motivating them to express their opinions and improve their relationship with others [I11];

Inter-professional communication with the school’s psycho-pedagogical orientation team is essential to know and intervene adequately with the student. Sometimes music goes where words cannot, and musical work can strengthen the teacher’s bond with some students [MT4].

From a didactical point of view, music and its verbal and non-verbal expressive dimension were valued both as a means of transmitting learning in action and of promoting communication in a series of multidisciplinary experiences such as: podcasts, presentations, drama, theater, or a radio channel. In addition, teacher training in music therapy was viewed as an interesting means of addressing educational needs from an interdisciplinary vantage point.

Cooperation

Cooperation means that through teamwork (i.e., cooperation), the teacher is able to develop and apply communicative and socio-educational abilities: listening to student needs, organizing class sessions, and distributing tasks. The roles of leader and participant are associated with different ways of contributing to learning through collaborative ventures that require commitment, communicative skills, didactical skills, and personal interaction skills:

Musicians are generally quite individualistic people. Music teaching requires that we [music teachers] learn to work with other colleagues on projects and activities [I8];

In the staged project, it was necessary to know how to manage, organize, and distribute tasks; to listen to other options and analyse them, as well as to take consensual decisions, manage conflicts, and encourage collaboration [I13].

Our informants underscored the socializing dimension of musical activity. Teamwork was acknowledged as an integrating strategy that fosters individual involvement and group autonomy through the active participation of all students.

Collaborative Learning Environments

The promotion of collaborative learning environments was recognized as a key competence in terms of inclusion. In such peer-to-peer learning spaces, the teacher is responsible for planning student interaction and stimulating student participation, motivation, confidence, and autonomy. Our informants pointed out that working in small groups requires the teacher to promote interactivity and positive interdependence, which can make learning a meaningful experience:

The creation of collaborative learning environments requires the teacher to design projects that take students’ interests as a starting point [MT3].

The trainees in our focus groups stated that the creation of peer learning should involve the teacher in guiding and motivating individual and group responsibility, trust, and autonomy while sharing efforts and benefits. They affirmed:

Participating in collaborative learning environments associated with musical or stage projects requires personal responsibility, working as a team toward a purpose from which you derive a common benefit [I8].

Reflection

Reflection was identified by informants as a standard competence of didactic evaluation, which exerts a determining function in a teacher’s professional development and classroom interventions. As an analytical attitude, reflection fosters critical thinking as a manner of continuously reflecting on reality and one’s response as a teacher. The informants stated:

Reflection as a regular teaching practice should be regarded as a didactic strategy to improve teaching intervention. To achieve that goal, the teacher should incorporate reflection on oral expression, methodology, resources, and evaluation as elements that should guide his/her practice [MT6];

Critical thinking is necessary to develop behavioural approaches to teaching difficulties and guidance [I9].

Ongoing Learning

Ongoing learning was recognized as a key attitude that continuously updates a teacher’s didactics. The type of training chosen may be determined by the interests and needs of teachers and of the community, as well as by overall trends in the education sector. Knowing the most innovative teaching methodologies and resources and their didactics was identified as a competence that can improve the quality of teaching:

Lifelong learning reflects teachers’ interest in renewing and improving the quality of teaching. Comprehensive training involves technical, pedagogical and didactic training, with a view to providing a balanced education [I7].

According to the participants in the study, the wide range of training modules on offer and the variety of ways in which such training can be carried out (face-to-face, blended, virtual) should motivate teachers to select those that ensure personal and didactic training aimed at improving their teaching qualifications and the development of comprehensive and inclusive music education. Informant 5 said:

The learnings obtained in training activities through different classroom or virtual channels should encourage the teacher to look beyond their own resources; they should inspire them to adapt the acquired learnings to the reality of teaching in the classroom [I5].

According to these statements, a teacher who shows a continuous interest in lifelong learning develops a renewed pedagogical outlook.

Professional Qualities and Values

Our pre-service teacher informants highlighted professional qualities and values of music teachers in view of their impact on student motivation and the development of inclusion in the classroom. The traits in professional qualities and values they identified were personal, socio-emotional, ethical, and linguistic traits.

Proactivity, creativity, dynamism, and optimism were recognized as personal values that motivate students to learn. Moreover, self-confidence was recognized as a capacity that encourages a teacher to embark on new experiences or musical projects with foresight, decision, and determination. Participants stated:

A music teacher is a leader, a role model for his or her students. He/she must show enthusiasm, dynamism, initiative and transmit confidence in order to create an atmosphere of trust [MT10];

A music teacher should be a curious, active person who loves to learn new things every day and embark on new projects [I1].

Respect, tolerance, and empathy were also recognized as socio-emotional values capable of stimulating learning environments that foster harmonious coexistence and trust. They said:

To boost group music performance to reinforce trust and self-confidence and minimising stress and anxiety caused by the assessment of musical skills [I3];

In choral singing, students learn music while getting to know each other and learning to coexist [I16];

Educating [students] in [the values of] tolerance and respect implies that the teacher pays closer attention to particular difficulties that can arise in the way things are said and interpreted, due to different learning rhythms, or the interpretation of mistakes [I4].

Equal access and inclusion are principles that require the application of ethical qualities such as accountability and fairness.

Teaching Vocation

The teaching vocation was understood as an attitude of commitment stimulated by enthusiasm, motivation for music, didactics, and the satisfaction of working in an environment that values one’s practice. The teacher should acquire a vocational attitude to make music teaching methodologically attractive through his or her dedication and mastery as a musician, composer, performer, and social motivator. Our informants stated:

Teachers should be motivated to show love for what they do, inspiring respect and enjoyment, sharing and transmitting their artistic mastery in practice. If you’re a musician or a dancer, share what you do [I8];

A dedicated and passionate music teacher is the personification of “MUSIC” experience for the whole educational community [MT2].

Musical and Pedagogical Experience

Musical and pedagogical experience was viewed by participants as an experience-based competence that combines cognitive, technical, interpretative and creative skills. Informant 14 stated:

A music teacher should use their musical ‘baggage’ to teach, applying their technical and methodological knowledge to create and adapt resources… [I14].

In addition to these abilities, our participants highlighted certain humanistic skills essential to familiarize oneself with the target learning group. They are thus necessary for the teacher to create a cordial, honest, and inclusive educational environment based on trust and participation, where personal and co-educational initiative, action, and reflection can be encouraged:

If a classroom atmosphere doesn’t work, then learning won’t work either. It is necessary to trust the students by stimulating their skills and attitude to learning [MT6];

I must acknowledge my limitations as teacher, for instance by admitting: “I don’t know how to do this, but let’s try it anyway” [I17].

Pedagogical expertise implies that a teacher possesses a degree of methodological proficiency that allows them to orient processes and didactic intervention in function of learners’ needs. Our informants stated that inclusive pedagogy should determine how activities are planned, implemented, and evaluated according to individual abilities, specific needs, and emerging needs. Informant 10 stated:

The teacher knows that each student is unique, so he/she should implement tasks with different degrees of difficulty, in pairs and role-playing activities [I10].

Creativity and Innovation

Teacher creativity and innovation were mentioned by trainees as personal and professional qualities that exert an impact on didactics and the development of professional identity. They acknowledged that creativity should involve a degree of didactic autonomy that allows the teacher to relate musical purposes with one another and adjust one’s classroom intervention to the needs and autonomy of the learners. Our informants stated:

The teacher should develop his or her creative ability to adapt teaching to reality [I17];

A creative teacher continuously asks questions about what he/she wants to teach and how to teach it to involve all students [MT4].

Innovation as a teaching competence was described as an attitude of seeking and creating new approaches, methods and strategies to address diversity and achieve a higher degree of student engagement in learning. They said:

Innovation requires us [music teachers] to constantly renew our training in order to be up to date in the use of methodologies and didactic tools for up-to-date and competent teaching [I3];

The management of interdisciplinary music projects that incorporate live music, technology and the social transfer of learning should integrate all students in new and stimulating ways of teaching [I9].