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

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. Findings established that the COBET learners were characterized by insufficient social skills due to their lack of proper socialization hence affecting their social relationships with the schoolchildren and teachers in their initial stages of schooling, but improved with time. Findings also established that the IRA strategy was essential as it played the dual role, which is, nurturing the social development while at the same time useful in teaching the second language. The study concludes that teachers’ use of IRA 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.