Development of future teachers’ speech competence: Professional attitudes and reflection of school experience

Abstract

Introduction. This article examines the development of speech competence in future teachers within a transforming educational environment. Digitalization and shifting role models in education make teachers’ speech competence a key mechanism for managing learning activities and creating a motivating environment. The study aims to identify the relationship between education students’ professional communication attitudes and their reflection on past experiences of interacting with teachers as school students. Particular attention is paid to how these experiences shape education students’ understanding of effective and destructive speech strategies in the context of the Federal State Educational Standard’s requirements for student-centered interaction.

Materials and Methods. The theoretical framework of the study includes an integrative three-level model of teachers’ speech strategies (cognitive-organizational, emotional-motivational, and heuristic-adaptive blocks), developed from the analysis of classical and modern approaches to pedagogical discourse and its linguistic component. The study involved a survey of 62 undergraduate students and in-depth group interviews with 14 master’s students. Research methods included questionnaires, quantitative data analysis, focus groups, qualitative discourse analysis, and interpretation of the results within the framework of the proposed model.

Results. Quantitative data demonstrate that university students most often report encountering teachers’ evaluative and imperative strategies when they were at school. However, when planning their own teaching activities, they prefer dialogic and information- and value-based communication models. Qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed underlying mechanisms of reflection: future teachers not only imitate but critically rethink their school experience, constructing a professional ideal based on it. The core of this ideal consists of strategies from the emotional-motivational and heuristic-adaptive blocks (empathy, humor, creating a ‘situation of success’, and addressing misunderstandings). Focus group participants demonstrated a high level of reflection, an understanding of the contextuality of strategies, and an awareness of the role of the digital environment, which enhances the need for, yet complicates, emotional connection.

Conclusions. It is concluded that reflection on school experience is an important mechanism for professional self-determination, allowing university students to develop an individual communication style that meets the Federal State Educational Standard’s requirements for student-centered interaction and for the achievement of meta-subject outcomes.