Professor Balcytyte-Kurtinienei (Vilnius Pedagogical University) asked me to write a review on her monograph arguing for music taking a central role in the primary school curriculum for the teaching of English as a foreign language, which she then had published at the above internet address. My review accepts her main argument on the importance of music in the primary school curriculum and shows how this can be successfully combined with spoken input of rhythmic language. Not only is this important for the acquisition of English melodies and rhythms but also facilitates dealing with (relatively) complex syntactic structures and advanced lexis.
It is also shown how important it is to select suitable materials. One study came to an unconvincing conclusion as to the effectiveness of rhythm and music in the curriculum. By analysing the chosen song, it is shown that the lyrics had severe deficits, which are not obvious on first sight.
