Disadvantaged Children’s Social Characteristics: Fostering their Social Development through Interactive Reading Aloud

Abstract

Education of the disadvantaged children is a global issue. To date, several programmes are in place to cater for them. The context of this study on social issues of language learning was a programme namely Complementary Basic Education in Tanzania (COBET). The purpose was to explore teachers’ experience of the disadvantaged children’s social characteristics and assess the potential of the Interactive Reading Aloud (IRA) language teaching strategy in fostering social development of those children. The study used the qualitative case study design, using face-to-face individual interviews supplemented by a review of documents. It involved a total of twelve participants namely four head teachers, four discipline teachers and four language teachers in two regions in Tanzania. Results revealed study participants’ revelations of social characteristics of disadvantaged children that required their attention so they could proceed with their education, and maintained that the Interactive Reading Aloud strategy had great potential of nurturing both social development and language skills. The study concludes that teachers’ use of Interactive Reading Aloud for disadvantaged children serves as a tool not only for language skills but also for nurturing their social development. The study is significant considering the fact that disadvantaged children’s second-chance education remains their only hope for attaining their future aspirations as they do not see alternative means to resort to other than schooling.