Music-based Pedagogies to Teach Conversational Skills to Early Childhood Care and Education’s Learners: The Educators’ Constraints and the Proposed Solutions

Abstract

The indispensable requisite for sustainable, and equitable early childhood education is innovative educators with developmentally appropriate strategies to communicate essential skills to young children. Holistic development of young infants, especially those under five years old lays the foundation of lifelong learning. Research revealed that songs and rhymes aid the development of fundamental abilities in children. However, most of the South African Early Childhood Development (ECD) educators are ill-equipped with expertise hence their constraints in using music-based pedagogy to aid in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) children’s acquisition of conversational skills. Therefore, this case study explored the constraints and proposed solutions for rural ECD educators in employing music-based pedagogies to impart conversational skills to learners. Six ECCE educators were purposively sampled from centres in Kimberley, Northern Cape province, South Africa to participate in a semi-structured interview and reflective writing. The generated data was analyzed thematically. All the participants concurred that the teaching method centered on music was the best for the ECCE classroom, however, they were restricted by factors such as inadequate expertise in music education, a dearth of musical materials, and a lack of government funding to acquire musical resources and inadequate infrastructural facilities and human resources. They believed that a short musical intervention program would boost their effectiveness and their self-confidence in employing music-based pedagogy to impact children’s language development. The study recommends that a resilient support system be implemented to support ECD educators with basic musical abilities. The results of this study will help curriculum creators and ECD/ECCE policymakers improve the developmental facilities available for teaching and learning. Keywords: Early Childhood Development, Music-based pedagogy, Conversational skills, constraints, and solutions.