Name: Hamish Binns
PhD topic: How songs can enhance intelligibility and contribute to the learning of language and content in Fifth and Sixth Grade Classes in Spanish Bilingual Primary Schools
Affiliations: Saint Louis University-Madrid Campus and the University of Edinburgh
Supervisors: Dario Banegas, Alice Turk and Katie Overy
Email: H.P.A.Binns@sms.ed.ac.uk
Biography:
Hamish Binns, originally from the UK, lives in Madrid, Spain and works at Saint Louis University – Madrid Campus as Director of the ESL and Modern Languages Department and Associate Director of the Liberal Arts Core. He is a second-rate composer and arranger, plays various ethnic instruments, directs a ceilidh band, a world music group called Finis Terrae and La orquesta de los reciclinstrumentos, and band that plays exclusively on homemade instruments. He also coordinates www.seispinguinos.com, a project dedicated to the diffusion of music in primary and secondary education and the making of instruments from recycled materials. As of 2026, he is a PGR student at the University of Edinburgh researching the use of song to enhance second language learning.