Picture this, you get home from a long day at school and you have a huge mound of homework taunting you from afar. This can be very stressful, especially when you’ve got plenty of other things taking up your time in your life. Personally my solution has always been to plug in some headphones and tune out the rest of my life so I can focus on my school work. 

Listening to music while studying may not be for everyone, it depends on one’s memory capacity. It may not be the best idea for someone with a lower memory capacity to listen to “distracting” music whilst learning, as it may negatively impact the ability to retain the information. This doesn’t mean that music can’t assist everyone else, such as children with learning disabilities, or people that have a higher memory capacity and won’t get distracted to the music playing in the background.

Due to the fact that music has become more readily available to people, the debate that music is impacting learning grows stronger everyday. Be that it is a negative impact or a positive impact on learning, the argument is very relevant especially in today’s age. 

Personally, I believe music can have amazing benefits when learning either in the classroom, or at home studying. Music is proven to lower stress and relax people, when someone listens to their favorite song or artist, they tend to be put in a better state of mind. When people are in a better mood, it is easier for them to learn and retain information. 

Music can also help with endurance, some people get burnt out during long study sessions and can’t finish it due to the lack of energy to do so. Music has been linked to help with that, because music provides an improved focus and motivation, this can inspire students to finish the work without getting burnt out halfway through.

An article from the New York Times argues that stress can affect a student’s learning in a negative way. Music is a perfect way to distract a student from their problems in their lives while at school, in turn making it easier for the student to learn. Music is also used to help children with special needs learn better as well. 

I’m personally an auditory learner, I tend to remember things better when I have background music drowning out distractions. Playing music in the background is proven to help students remember previous knowledge and is an excellent study tip for any student looking to recall information they learned previously. 

Background music is essential for helping learn a language as well. Research has shown that listening to music in a different language, helps the learner understand the language better. When I’m not learning German in the classroom, I tend to listen to music in that language, this is because it helps recall things learned in class, and also learning more than what was taught in class. Such as new words, or context. 

Think about the ABC’s, most of us learned to remember them through a song. This is a similar concept, but instead of recalling the letters of the alphabet; it makes it easier to understand the rules of the language being studied such as grammar or syntax.

The use of music in a learning environment is very important, it has proven to be beneficial to students in many different ways. Music has the potential to help students study for longer before getting burnt out. It also has the ability to help relax and put someone in a better mood, indirectly increasing their ability to learn and retain information. When learning a language, listening to music can be extremely beneficial as it can help one understand the language better due to immersion in the way the language is spoken. The use of music is also proven to help students with special needs or learning disabilities. 

Background music should play a larger role in the classroom, it has been proven time and time again to be beneficial. And it could benefit students more than teachers may have previously thought.