The why of the phrase is more important than the what.
In other words: teaching the phrasing isn’t the most effective way to teach the phrasing.
We can talk about dynamics and phrase shapes and crescendos, sure. But what makes the music come alive is when the musicians understand why the phrase needs that shape.
And so we talk about text painting (building towards “Sancta Maria” in an Ave Maria setting), song meaning (knowing the meaning of text and song type when singing a Spiritual), Renaissance as an historical era informing the motet, and even notation across 5 centuries so that we understand what’s really the composer’s intent and what’s the edition’s imposition.
This level of musical conversation can seem futile – at least it sometimes does to me, when trying to communicate these ideas to 15-18 year-old boys – but boy do the phrases really come alive when the singers understand the why of the phrase, not just the what.