Circle Singing como prática inclusiva e interdisciplinar: desenvolvendo habilidades de percepção auditiva por meio da improvisação vocal

Abstract

This contribution presents an empirical study on Circle Singing conducted at Roma Tre
University between October and December 2025 (Pantano & Rizzo, 2025). The project
investigates how collective vocal improvisation can enhance aural perception, musical skills,
and language development, while also supporting overall psychophysical wellbeing in higher
education. The study involved students enrolled in Primary Teacher Education, Educational
Sciences, and Performing Arts, Music, and Media Studies, examining the educational potential
of Circle Singing as an inclusive, embodied, and participatory methodology. Music supports
the activation of a wide range of functions—from sound encoding to higher-order cognitive
operations—and induces both functional and structural changes within the auditory and
sensorimotor systems (Patel, 2012; Kraus et al., 2014). Musical engagement enhances the
adaptive plasticity of the neural networks involved in language processing, which is essential
for phonetic comprehension and accuracy in both speaking and listening (Zuk et al., 2013),
while also drawing on shared cognitive resources such as attention and memory (Herholz &
Zatorre, 2012). Recent research further demonstrates that improvisation, understood as a
dynamic process of generating and evaluating melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic patterns, leads
to increased neural synchronisation across temporal, parietal, and occipital regions (Ramírez-
Moreno et al., 2023). Within this theoretical framework, the present study examines the role of
Circle Singing in fostering musical and auditory competences. It addresses the following
research question: to what extent can a Circle Singing laboratory—conceived as an embodied
and collective improvisational practice and integrated with excerpts of English texts—enhance
aural perception, English pronunciation, and socio-relational competences?