Learning and connecting through songs: a proof-of-concept study with newcomers

Group singing may offer an effective means of addressing challenges faced by newcomers in learning another language and integrating into an unfamiliar society. The effect of choir participation was compared here to a wait-list control group, on both qualitative (Study 1) and quantitative (Studies 1 and 2) measures of French proficiency, social connectedness, and well-being. The assessments took place before and after an 8-week period. In Study 1, 20 newcomers participated in the choir, and 26 were assigned to a wait-list control group. The latter group later joined the choir and was included in Study 2. As expected, choir participation led to improvements in French proficiency, social connection, and mood, relative to the control group. Moreover, human ratings of French production strongly correlated with machine learning–based assessments, highlighting the sensitivity of a simple AI tool for evaluating second-language proficiency despite the diversity of accents. These encouraging results lay the groundwork for a randomized controlled trial.