Current position: Departments of the Academy: Music Education: The Educational Methods Unit
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The Educational Methods Unit

Acting Head: Assistant Professor Magdalena Stepien

The Emil Jaques-Dalcroze Team
The Zoltán Kodály Team
The Carl Orff Team

The Educational Methods Unit is responsible for research and teaching relating to a variety of conceptions, methods and systems of musical education in both music schools and general education facilities. Since the Unit's primary interests revolve around the approaches to musical education developed by three great musicians and pedagogues, Emil Jaques-Dalcroze, Zoltán Kodály and Carl Orff, it is divided into three different teams named after these pioneers.
The Educational Methods Unit organises seminars, courses, workshops and other events for students and teachers. Their purpose is to popularise the ideas of Dalcroze, Kodály and Orff and to place the conceptions each of them developed within a state-of-the-art system of musical and general education. The Educational Methods Unit also publishes.

The Emil Jaques-Dalcroze Team

This team is continuing the activities of the Emil Jaques-Dalcroze School which was established within the Department of Musical Education in October 2003 on the motion put forward by Professor Ryszard Zimak, Rector of the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music (AMFC).
The Dalcroze tradition has been followed at the Warsaw academy since 1974 when the Experimental Rhythmics Classes began to operate within the Institute of Musical Pedagogy.
As of 1983 the Dalcroze method has functioned as a didactic specialisation (eurhythmics course) at the Department of Musical Education.

Primary objectives:

Activities:

  • Emil Jaques-Dalcroze - Music in Movement
         Exhibition and National Seminar for Teachers of Eurhythmics
    27-29 October 2006


     A book on the history of Rythmics at the AMFC (ed. Alicja Gronau-Osiñska) was published to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Rhythmics course. Part II of this book, edited by Magdalena Stepien, is also planned.
    Editorial work is also under way for the publishing of masters' thesis (whole works or fragments) written during the 20-year history of the Rhythmics course. These theses are a valuable contribution to the development of this discipline.
    Attention!
    Anyone who is in possession of material which could enrich this publication is kindly requested to contact
    Magdalena Stepien, tel: 0-600-347-532, (0-22) 355 35 53.


    The Zoltán Kodály Team
     e-mail: e-mail: kodaly@chopin.edu.pl

    The 11th Polish-Hungarian Kodály Seminar (15-28 August 2004)
    The 12th Polish-Hungarian Kodály Seminar (13-26 August 2006)

    I. Objective and profile. This group's objective is to propagate Zoltán Kodály's ideas relating to musical education. It pays particular attention to: singing and live music-making as the foundation of music instruction, the integrity of musical instruction (combining solfeggio with the history of music, styles and culture, analysis of musical works) and vernacular folklore as the foundation of education (it helps to encourage musical competency similarly to linguistic competency - Kodály: one should first learn one's own musical language before proceeding to learn foreign languages - and to gain comprehension of professional music). The purpose of music making is to consolidate the cognition and comprehension of music; this goal is achieved in early musical education through so-called relative solfeggio, a method of tonal ear training.
    II. Location. Another of this team's objectives is to consolidate and continue the work of the Zoltán Kodály School which ceased to operate in October 2006. The Team is currently part of the Educational Methods Unit. It co-operates with members of the Kodály Circle and with teachers who teach at music schools and general schools, choirmasters and Kodály followers abroad. Another important form of activity is co-operation with the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét and the International Kodály Society.
    III. Activities. The Kodály Team has two main lines of activity: 1 - music education and 2 - research and popularisation.
    Ad 1. As far as music education is concerned, the team gives lectures and workshops at the AMFC devoted to familiarity with Kodály's ideas and folklore in general. As of 1983 it has also organised Polish-Hungarian Kodály Seminars (in co-operation with the Academy of Music in Katowice). These are professional advancement courses. The 12th Seminar took place in 2006 (cf.: Report). The Team also offers information and consulting. For example, it organised experimental music lessons in general schools in the nineteen-eighties and nineties (Maria Czarnecka in school no. 320 in 1995-7 and J. K. Dadak-Kozicka in school no. 158). The purpose of these experimental lessons was to develop the Polish adaptation of the Kodály Method (Dominika Lenska is currently conducting Kodály classes at school no. 1 in Katowice).
    Ad 2. The research and popularisation activities involve research on the Kodály method and its foreign adaptations (especially the Polish one). Among the outcomes of this work were several conferences (some of them held at the AMFC), participation in symposia organised by the International Kodály Society and a number of publications.

    IV. Plans for the future. The Team plans to continue its educational and research activities in co-operation with the Kodály Institute in Kesckémet.

    V. Achievements
         The following works have been published to date:

    • principal works on the Kodály Method (in WSiP):
      • Zoltán Kodály i jego pedagogika muzyczna [Zoltán Kodály and his musical pedagogy]. M. Jankowska & W. Jankowski (ed.), 1990;
      • J. K. Dadak-Kozicka ¦piewaj¿e mi jako umiesz [Sing as you can]. A manual for students and teachers, 1992;
    • Textbooks for grades I-III and teachers' methodics manuals (in STENTOR)
      • M. Czarnecka & A. Waluga Roz¶piewana szko³a [The singing school] (1995-97);
    • AMFC Press
      • Zoltán Kodály O edukacji muzycznej - pisma wybrane [On musical education - selected writings]. M. Jankowska (ed.) 2002. In co-operation with the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Warsaw;
      • proceedings of the Kodály conferences, including Integruj±ce warto¶ci muzyki [The integrating values of music]. 2002;
      • works on Polish adaptations and methodics material (series: Pedagogika muzyczna Zoltána Kodálya. Materia³y ¼ród³owe i opracowania [Zoltán Kodály's musical pedagogy. Source materials and elaborations]. M. Jankowska (ed.);
      • Ildikó Herboly-Kocsár Nauczanie polifonii, harmonii i form w szkole podstawowej [How to teach polyphony, harmony and form in primary school]. 2005;
    • articles in:
      • "The ISME Quarterly",
      • "Ruch Muzyczny",
      • "Wychowanie Muzyczne w Szkole" (no. 3, 2003, this whole issue was devoted to Kodály).
    Participation in world Kodály symposia bore fruit in the form of articles published in "The Bulletin of the International Kodály Society"".


    The Carl Orff Team
      This team is involved in the following forms of activity:
    • organisation of two-day seminars (in the form of workshops or lectures) attended by a foreign musical educator who specialises in the Carl Orff musical education system. These seminars are addressed to AMFC students and individuals (teachers and students) from other colleges etc. and take place once or twice a year.
    • one-day continuous learning courses organised when possible and led by Polish musical educators.
    We encourage everybody who teaches music to nursery school children, at integrated teaching classes and in grades 4-6, as well as teachers from non-musical fields to attend these courses. They will have the opportunity to improve their practical teaching skills - to introduce more variety into the ways they teach music, to learn new songs, new forms of music and movement play, children's, folk and historical dances (Polish and foreign), to master the leadership of Orff groups, to use the Orff instrumentarium in class, and to discover new suggestions for active listening to classical music. Creative exercises for the encouragement of creative attitudes and multi-dimensional expression are another very important part of these courses.




    Compiled by: The Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music