Music as a tool in special needs education for children's language development : Five South African educators' view of music as an educational tool

The purpose of this essay is to study if and how five South African educators work with music as a special pedagogical tool in children's language development. To achieve the purpose of this study, two research questions were created. As method, interviews of a qualitative character were chosen. The aim of the method is to give the educators the opportunity to think about and use their own experience before answering the questions. The result shows that the South African educators are not using music as a special educational tool. They rather use music as an everyday educational tool to promote children's language development. The result indicates that music in educational activities promotes children’s communication with each other. Through music, children also develop their body language. As a general educational tool, music becomes important for children’s development.