The Role of Communication Skills in Teaching Process

Abstract

Classroom is a complex communication space. Communication processes involves verbal, nonverbal and para verbal components and is designed to mediate student and teacher behaviour. The impact that partners exercised over others depends on the quality and depth of interaction. If long thought that working style of the teacher, the way they organize their speech is very important for the efficiency of its business, the focus now moving towards how partners are picking up mutual interaction and means which are co-participants. In order to develop communication skills in relation with the teaching process we must identify the future needs. That is why this article intend to established how important this process is and which are the implication of this action. Effective communication, especially in educational field is based on the ability to express your own ideas and views clearly, with confidence and concisely, permanently adapting your content and style to the class. Interaction between teachers and students can contribute to effective communication in the classroom or may be the source of problematic situations.

Keywords: Communication skillsteaching-learning processclassroom managementschool behaviour

Introduction

The concept of communicative competence has evolved a lot, encompassing areas of knowledge today increasingly wider. Council of Europe considers that there are six components in communication skills: language skills, socio-linguistic competence, discourse competence, socio-cultural competence, strategic competence and social competence. Communicative competence is considered by many authors as a global capability comprising communicative capacities of individuals acquired throughout life. They can be improved by applying a special methodology that would help develop communicative competence.

The concept of competence is subject to several different approaches depending on the area it evokes. Educational field suggests a specific approach for this. In science education are many definitions of the concept of competence:

- Competence is always associated with a situation or with a set of situations and also with experience of a person or group of persons; 

- Skills development is based on the mobilization and coordination by a person or group of people of a wealth of resources: personal resources and resources for specific circumstances of the situation and its context

Competence is built in case of a complete and social acceptable processing of the situation; 

• Competence resulting from the processing of dynamic and constructive situation; competence should not be confused with the process; process consists in processing the situation by a person or group of persons; a person or group of persons are declared competent after processing situation; 

• Competence is not predictable and therefore can not be defined a priori; it depends on a person or group of persons, on their own knowledge and understanding the situation. What they imagine can do in this situation, available resources, constraints and obstacles that comes in this situation, are depending of their areas of expertise etc. (Chiş, 2005).

The research goal

• To evaluate the role and importance of communication skills in the teaching-learning process

Specific objectives

• To analyze the components of curriculum implemented aimed at developing communication skills in the system of initial training (methods, teaching aids used, the design of educational situations, evaluation);

• To identify perceptions on the importance of communication skills in the didactic field; 

To identify the future needs in order to develop communication skills in relation with the teaching process (Jonnaert, Ettayebi, Defise, 2010);

Methods and investigative tools

Given the fact that the theme of research is relatively new in Romania and there are no previous data significant to define more clearly the problem, we propose in this investigation a qualitative approach, exploratory, identifying general aspects about skills development related with teacher’s communication abilities.

The main method used will be investigation based on group interviews. Using this method will permit us to capture a global perspective on the importance of communication skills, but also differences in perception of the causes of these differences and also will give us some examples.

Compiling the information we developed an group interview guide adapted to this group investigated. The main issues addressed in the interviews were:

• the importance of the curriculum changes related with the communication skills development; 

• teaching methods used to develop communication skills; 

• ways of measuring communication skills; 

• concrete situations for the use of communication skills in teaching process; 

• proposals to improve the system of initial and continuing training from the perspective of improving the communication skills of students

The investigated population

The categories of subjects investigated are:

• 8 students who are already teachers in pre-school or primary education process

The target group was represented by teachers selected from the final year of study.  There were conducted 2 group interviews with teachers. These teachers teach subjects in which developing communication skills is a priority: - Romanian language and literature, foreign language; school counselling, civic education, information technology and communication.

Findings on teacher perspective on communication skills

The target group is build from teachers because they can best evaluate the way that initial training ensures the development of communication skills of graduates. Because on the one hand, the teaching-learning process is an act of communication, and a teacher is one of the two central factors of educational communication.  On the other, teachers designs, organize and implements content related to the development of communication skills and assess their influence on their students. This research was based on interviews with 2 groups of students who are also teachers who teach and study subjects with the greatest impact on the development of communication skills.

The interview focused on inventory opinions of teachers / students on communication skills from the following perspectives: - the importance of developing communication skills for students - teaching style contribution to the development of communication skills; - Teaching-learning methodology used to develop these kinds of skills; - Ways to assess communication skills used in teaching.

Respondents supported the need and importance of developing communication skills both at individual and social level and also at the professional one. They emphasized primarily the role of communication skills in personality development. This argument is very important for students because their work at school and at home is based on how they manage these skills. The teachers also sustained that the idea building strong communication skills is a must in today's society because communication is the activity of the utmost importance. This is because the new communication technologies bring a lot of information and therefore there is need to teach students how to select and process it.

Contemporary society has produced significant changes in the spoken language, with both, positive and negative effects. People put less and less emphasis on the literary aspect of the language and increasingly on the functional one determine various communication problems. In this context, the teachers interviewed say that, for better social integration, any student should have the skills to select, to use, communicate and create information. Overall, the teachers appreciated the fact that the new curriculum, has moved from centering learning on memorizing and reproduction of knowledge to focus on skills training and practical skills and the delivery of a rigorously model conducted autonomy in educational activity. This is very important because it allows students to develop more consistent these communication skills.

Conclusion

In terms of the need for teacher training regarding adopting a teaching style that contribute to the development of communication skills, interview participants showed that more practice is needed in this situation. Thus, they proposed activities such as: participation in specialized courses, practice in schools on the subject, and applications in summer schools. 

Through the specific school subjects, through content or features for their teaching-learning activity as a communicational situation, teachers made an inventory of a variety of communication skills developed at students:

• using a rich vocabulary;

• at list a minimal use of specialized language;

• use of language (in the general context of communication); 

• use of Information Technology; 

• information search skills; 

• argumentation skills of personal opinions;

• non-verbal skills;

• networking skills in group

Teachers appreciate that including in school curricula of specific themes centred on developing communication skills do not automatically lead to develop those skills. To achieve this goal, the new curriculum requires appropriate teaching strategies and consistent teacher training programs. The main goal of this research was to determine the perception of teachers / students on the needs of developing communication skills that underlie the activities of teaching and learning (Muste, 2012).

Interaction between teachers and students can contribute to effective communication in the classroom or may be the source of problematic situations and even school violence. In the centre of this approach in action is the teacher and he knows how to communicate with his students. Hoy and Winstein (in Evertson, Weinstein, 2006) by a synthesis of different perspectives from the literature reveals three important aspects that put a teacher in position to be considered a "good teacher" by his students: (1) the ability to establish positive interrelations with students (to demonstrate that "cares" for them); (2) ability to exercise authority and provide structure and clarity of rules without doing so in a rigid, threatening way, or following the use of punishment; and (3) the ability to make learning fun by using creative teaching strategies.

References

1. Chiş, V. (2005) –Pedagogia contemporană – pedagogia pentru competenţe, Editura Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă, Cluj-Napoca
2. Evertson, Weinstein (2011) – Handbook of clasroom management, Routledge, New York
3. Jonnaert Ph., Ettayebi M., Defise R. (2010) - Curriculum şi competenţe: un cadru operaţional; trad. din fr. Iulia MateiuCluj-Napoca: Editura ASCR.
4. Muste, D. (2012), Stimularea motivaţiei la elevi prin intermediul unui program educaţional specific, Ed. Presa Universitară Clujeană, Cluj-Napoca