Pre-class teaching plan

Course Name: One-on-One Vocal Lessons

Student Information:

Name	Chantel
Gender	Female
Voice part	Soprano
Year of learning	0
Music study back ground	Ten years of piano basics
Current level of singing	First vocal lesson;had participated in the school choir in high school.

Course Duration: 15 minutes (Shown Excerpt)

Course Objectives (Three Dimensions):

·Skills Objectives: Through basic training, students will correctly experience how to support and use breath during vocalization.

·Knowledge Objectives:Students will understand the difference in resonance points between high and low notes. They will gain a basic understanding of the art song “Caro Mio Ben,” learning its meaning and pronunciation, and applying the techniques learned in basic training to the song.

·Affective Objectives:Students will develop initial confidence in singing and experience the emotional expression of the song.

This three-dimensional objective framework (skills, knowledge, and affective objectives) is based on Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. This taxonomy divides learning objectives into three domains:

1.  Cognitive Domain – Corresponding to “Knowledge Objectives” in Teaching
2. Motor skills domain – corresponding to the “skill objectives” in the lesson plan.
3. The affective domain—corresponding to the “affective objectives” in the lesson plan.

Vocal lessons need to set these three goals simultaneously because vocal learning is not purely physical skill training, nor is it purely knowledge transmission. It is a process of holistic development of mind and body. If only skill goals (such as singing in accurate pitch) are designed, while knowledge goals (understanding why it is sung this way) are neglected, students will only imitate and not transfer their knowledge. If emotional goals (such as building confidence) are neglected, students may be unable to perform normally due to anxiety. Only a three-dimensional approach can ensure the integrity and sustainability of learning.

Teaching Difficulties and Key Points:

· Key Point: Combining breath support with melodic accuracy

· Difficulty: Integrating accurate pronunciation of Italian lyrics with melody

Teaching aids preparation:

1. A clean and cozy classroom
2. A whiteboard for explaining difficult concepts
3. A piano
4. Sheet music for “Caro mio ben”
5. Recording or video recording equipment

Formal Class Session

Step 1. Greetings and Establishing a Classroom Atmosphere

At the beginning of the lesson, I warmly called the student by name and greeted her, asking if this was her first one-on-one vocal lesson and whether she was confident enough to begin her first class.

The reasons for this were:

1. The unique nature of vocal lessons: the student is in an exposed state.

Chapman (2017) clearly points out in <Singing and Teaching Singing> that vocal teachers are dealing with a student who “integrates the self with the instrument,” therefore, before any technical training begins, the teacher must first establish the student’s psychological safety. She writes (paraphrased): “The singer is not playing an external instrument; the singer is the instrument itself. This means that every correction about the voice can be perceived by the student as a correction of themselves. The teacher’s first task is to make the student feel safe.” Miller (1996), while not specifically discussing “greetings,” points out in his discussion of teacher-student relationships that vocal teaching requires a “contract of trust” because most of the vocal attempts the teacher asks the student to make—from open high notes to soft falsetto—would not be dared to be made in front of another person if the student did not trust the teacher. This means that vocal students are naturally more psychologically vulnerable during class. If the greeting is handled well, it can reduce students’ fear of this perceived threat from the very first minute. If it is perfunctory or skipped altogether, students’ defense mechanisms may not be truly relaxed for the entire lesson.

2. Preventive Management of Performance Anxiety

Vocal students commonly experience Music Performance Anxiety, which manifests not only on stage but also in daily classroom settings, particularly when producing incomplete or poorly executed sounds in front of the teacher.

Halam (2006) in *Music Psychology in Education* dedicates a chapter to music performance anxiety. She points out that music teachers can reduce students’ classroom anxiety by:

1. Establishing a predictable classroom structure (letting students know what’s coming next)

2. Using non-evaluative language (avoiding corrective language during the greeting phase)

3. Expressing interest in students as whole individuals (rather than focusing solely on their technical performance)

Designing a greeting segment effectively addresses these three points.

The video shows that students noticeably relaxed after the friendly greeting, although not completely, a departure from the initial tension upon entering. Due to time constraints, the greeting segment was not extended. To improve future performance, the greeting segment should be appropriately lengthened to allow students to better adapt to the classroom environment.

Step 2. Breathing Training

Placing breath control as the first technique in training is determined by the physiological sequence of vocalization. Vocal production follows an irreversible causal chain: airflow triggers vocal cord vibration, which is amplified and refined by the resonating cavities, ultimately forming the singing sound. In this chain, airflow is the primary driving force. If the breathing method is incorrect, subsequent vocal cord vibration and resonance will be affected.

In the course, I led students through short consonant exercises. Using the four plosives “r,” “p,” “t,” and “k,” the airflow needs to be obstructed at a certain point in the mouth and then suddenly released.

/p/ is a bilabial plosive, with the airflow obstructed at the lips.

/t/ is an alveolar plosive, with the airflow obstructed at the tip of the tongue and the upper gum ridge.

/k/ is a palatal plosive, with the airflow obstructed at the back of the tongue and the soft palate.

The reason for choosing plosives is that their articulation mechanism naturally requires the accumulation of airflow followed by a sudden release, which is highly consistent with the core mechanism of “controlling airflow output after inhalation” in singing. When students pronounce /p/, the resistance and holding phases force the diaphragm to maintain tension to accumulate air pressure, while the burst requires a precise release of airflow. This is a miniature exercise of appoggio (breath support) in singing.

Short, repeated consonants also have the potential function of establishing a sense of rhythm in breathing. The short repetition of these consonants is essentially a rhythmic training of breathing. Each note corresponds to a minor adjustment of the diaphragm, and continuous repetition trains the sustained coordination of the respiratory muscles. This method does not rely on abstract language descriptions but allows students to better feel the correct diaphragmatic exertion through concrete movements, thereby experiencing correct breath control.

During breath training, I have students touch both sides of my waist. The reason is that traditional teaching often relies on verbal explanations, but the problem is that most students cannot directly see or easily perceive the muscle groups involved in breathing, such as the diaphragm and intercostal muscles. Students may understand what the teacher describes as feeling, but they may not actually know if they are doing it correctly. At this point, touch becomes an efficient information channel beyond language. Touch can provide a “felt difference” in vocal instruction. When students place their hands on your abdomen and feel how your diaphragm descends during inhalation and how it maintains tension when pronouncing consonants, they gain not just understanding, but more importantly, “somatosensory cognition.”

Step 3. Understanding students’ basic pitch and range

In this section, I led the students in singing ascending and descending scales, as well as octaves, to assess their basic pitch accuracy and vocal range.

Scales are irreplaceable in vocal practice, encompassing several key elements of vocal technique:

1. Establishing pitch accuracy: Scales provide the most direct visual indication of a student’s pitch accuracy and control over intervals of a second.

2. Training vocal register transitions: Scales naturally cross vocal register transition points, making them an ideal vehicle for training vocal register consistency.

3. Training to maintain vowel consistency during pitch changes.

4. Legato training.

Miller (1996), in《The Structure of Sing》, clearly states that scales are the most fundamental and important of all vocal technique exercises. He points out that scale practice trains not only pitch accuracy but also the maintenance of timbre consistency during pitch changes. Scales represent a systematic extraction and simplification of vocal technique elements; they strip away the complexity of song melodies, allowing students to build fundamental abilities in a pure environment.

Both ascending and descending scales must be trained because the vocal techniques for ascending and descending scales differ. McCoy (2012), in 《Your Voice: An Inside View》, points out from an acoustic analysis perspective that ascending scales train vocal cord stretching control, while descending scales train vocal cord shortening control. Ascending scales require stable breath support, a relatively stable larynx position, and progressive vocal cord lengthening. Descending scales require maintaining resonance, preventing the pitch from falling, and maintaining vocal focus.

Besides scales, I also guided students through ascending and descending octaves. In musical acoustics, the octave is the most consonant interval, meaning that octave leaps are the easiest to hear and sing accurately among all major intervals. For beginners, starting with octaves for major intervals is more efficient and builds confidence more easily than starting directly with fifths, sixths, or dissonant intervals. Miller (1996) points out that octave training is an effective tool for developing a sense of placement because students need to find a continuous resonance between higher and lower octaves, rather than two broken sounds.

While doing these two exercises, I was able to determine the student’s current vocal range from G in the great octave to E in the second octave. This information has dual value for my subsequent teaching. First, it helps me determine whether the song I choose, “Caro mio ben,” falls within her comfortable vocal range; this requires first determining the student’s actual vocal range before including the song in the lesson. Second, it helps me set an individualized starting point for subsequent exercises. Even with the same scale exercise, different students will have different starting and ending notes, as well as different passag points. If all students start with the same note, it is not student-centered teaching. Assessing each student’s individual vocal range is the embodiment of individualized teaching. Doscher (1994) also points out that teachers should quickly assess each student’s vocal condition and available vocal range at the beginning of each lesson in order to tailor subsequent exercises to the student’s current state.

Step 4. Incorporate techniques into the song <Caro mio ben>

Before teaching the song, I first showed the students the score briefly. Looking at the score provides a global preview. In psychology, this is called an advance organizer—presenting a structural framework before in-depth learning helps learners integrate fragmented information into a meaningful context. Since the student already had some piano experience, the effect of looking at the score beforehand was even more significant. She was able to understand the overall length and structure of the song based on her existing piano knowledge, and identify areas that might be difficult for her, such as large leaps or long phrases. Furthermore, it allows the student to establish initial psychological expectations for the song, reducing anxiety about the unknown. While Ausubel’s (1968) advance organizer theory is primarily used in the context of reading comprehension, its core argument—providing a cognitive framework before learning complex material—is fully applicable to music teaching and can be used to demonstrate the importance of this initial score-looking step.

After this, I chose to sing the melody using the vowel /a/ instead of the lyrics. The reason for stripping away the lyrics first is that lyrics are a unique source of complexity in vocal music. They include:

• Consonant timing (consonants must be precise, otherwise the rhythm will be disrupted)

• Vowel shape (different vowels require different vocal tract shapes)

• Speech continuity and stress (affecting the direction of musical phrases)

• Semantic expression (requires understanding to convey emotion)

Students often struggle to grasp the complexity of lyrics while still familiar with the song. Therefore, using the /a/ vowel to isolate the melody temporarily removes all the lyrical complexity, allowing students to focus on the accuracy of the melody. There are four reasons for choosing the /a/ vowel:

1. /a/ is the most open vowel. When pronouncing /a/, the mouth is open to its maximum, the tongue is flat, and the pharyngeal cavity has its largest space. This posture itself is the ideal state for singing preparation. See the diagram below.

• Many students tend to retract their tongue too far back or too high when pronouncing closed vowels such as /e/ or /i/, which narrows the vocal tract and compresses the sound. /a/ avoids these potential tension patterns.
• In Italian, /a/ is one of the most frequently occurring vowels. For example, in the song “Caro mio ben,” the words “ca-ro,” “al-men,” and “tan-to” all contain this vowel.

After singing the melody while replacing the lyrics with vowels, I briefly explained the song’s meaning to the students before introducing the lyrics. Kimball (2006), in <Song: A Guide to Art Song Style and Literature>, emphasizes that singers of art songs must understand the literary and musical aspects of the text to deliver a convincing performance. Understanding the emotions conveyed in a song is crucial for students and lays the groundwork for my subsequent reading of the Italian lyrics.

Besides addressing students’ unfamiliarity with Italian, reading the lyrics allows them to temporarily focus on pronunciation without worrying about pitch or breath support. Pronouncing Italian well requires precise vocal tract control, such as vowel purity, double consonant processing, and legato in sentences. This amount of information is sufficient to occupy all of the students’ attention. If singing is required simultaneously, students’ pronunciation often reverts to English habits.

After mastering all the melody, background, and pronunciation, the final step is to integrate the lyrics into the melody. Sweller’s (1988) instructional framework suggests that by breaking down exercises, the cognitive load of each subtask has been reduced individually. Although the total load will increase when integrating the exercises, it will not lead to overload. This is the core value of breaking down exercises.

Step 5. Class summary, student feedback, and homework assignment.

At the end of class, I asked students how they felt about the lesson; this is a formative assessment moment. Formative assessment gathers information during the learning process to adjust and optimize subsequent teaching. Asking students about their feelings allows me to collect three key pieces of information:

1. Cognitive information: Which part of the lesson was the most difficult, and which part was the clearest?

2. Emotional information: Did students feel confident or confused, relaxed or anxious?

3. Metacognitive information: How accurate were students’ self-perceptions of their learning process?

Collecting this information allows me to better improve my teaching plan and adjust my teaching pace according to each student’s personality and state of mind.Halam (2006), in discussing music practice, pointed out that clear assignment guidelines, including what to practice, how to practice, and what the standards for practice are, are key to improving the efficiency of music practice. Practice without direction is inefficient and can even reinforce errors.

Personal Reflection

Based on student feedback, their enthusiasm for singing was evident, prompting me to make some adjustments and changes to my teaching plan for this lesson. Due to time constraints, the initial introduction and relaxation phases didn’t fully engage the students. At the beginning of the scale practice, they remained tense. Although they gradually relaxed later, the first half of the scale practice was still inefficient due to tension. Regarding the lyrics explanation, I should have provided a more detailed, word-for-word translation, or written the translation next to the lyrics. However, due to oversight, I forgot to include the translation and, when assigning homework, forgot to instruct students to translate the lyrics and learn more about the song’s background. Given another opportunity, I will reflect more on these aspects and strive for improvement.

Bibliography

Vocal Pedagogy and Vocal Science

Chapman, J. L. (2017) Singing and Teaching Singing: A Holistic Approach to Classical Voice. 3rd edn. San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing.

Doscher, B. M. (1994) The Functional Unity of the Singing Voice. 2nd edn. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

McCoy, S. (2012) Your Voice: An Inside View. 2nd edn. Delaware, OH: Inside View Press.

Miller, R. (1996) The Structure of Singing: System and Art in Vocal Technique. New York, NY: Schirmer Books.

Italian pronunciation, lyrics and art songs

Adams, D. (2008) A Handbook of Diction for Singers: Italian, German, French. 2nd edn. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Kimball, C. (2006) Song: A Guide to Art Song Style and Literature. Revised edn. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation.

Paton, J. G. (1991) Gateway to Italian Diction. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Music.

Wall, J. (1989) International Phonetic Alphabet for Singers. Dallas, TX: Pst.

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Music Education Psychology and Skill Acquisition

Hallam, S. (2006) Music Psychology in Education. London: Institute of Education Press.

Williamon, A. (ed.) (2004) Musical Excellence: Strategies and Techniques to Enhance Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Educational Psychology, Cognitive Theory and Motivation

Anderson, L. W. and Krathwohl, D. R. (eds.) (2001) A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Complete edn. New York, NY: Longman.

Ausubel, D. P. (1968) Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Bandura, A. (1997) Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman.

Deci, E. L. and Ryan, R. M. (2000) ‘The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: human needs and the self-determination of behavior’, Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), pp. 227–268.

Sweller, J. (1988) ‘Cognitive load during problem solving: effects on learning’, Cognitive Science, 12(2), pp. 257–285.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Zimmerman, B. J. (2002) ‘Becoming a self-regulated learner: an overview’, Theory into Practice, 41(2), pp. 64–70.

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Formative assessment and feedback

Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998) ‘Assessment and classroom learning’, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 5(1), pp. 7–74.

Hattie, J. and Timperley, H. (2007) ‘The power of feedback’, Review of Educational Research, 77(1), pp. 81–112.

Sadler, D. R. (1989) ‘Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems’, Instructional Science, 18(2), pp. 119–144.

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Music performance anxiety and teacher-student interaction

Gaunt, H. (2011) ‘Understanding the one-to-one relationship in instrumental/vocal tuition in higher education: comparing student and teacher perceptions’, British Journal of Music Education, 28(2), pp. 159–179.

Kenny, D. T. (2011) The Psychology of Music Performance Anxiety. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wubbels, T. and Levy, J. (1993) Do You Know What You Look Like? Interpersonal Relationships in Education. London: Falmer Press.

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Self-regulation learning and music practice

McPherson, G. E. and Renwick, J. M. (2011) ‘A longitudinal study of self-regulation in children’s musical practice’, Music Education Research, 3(2), pp. 169–186.

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Embodied cognition, tactile teaching and vocal breathing research

Bremmer, M. and Nijs, L. (2020) ‘The role of the music teacher’s body in instrumental and vocal education: a dynamic systems theory perspective’, Frontiers in Education, 5, article 79.

Herr, A. and Buder, E. (2026) ‘Voluntary and involuntary components of breathing control in singing’, Journal of Singing, 82(3), pp. 301–310.

Piao, Y. (2025) ‘Haptic feedback for vocal pedagogy: design and preliminary evaluation’, TEI ’25: Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, New York, NY: ACM, article 90, pp. 1–12.