ESSENCE OF A FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHER’S PEDAGOGICAL TECHNIQUE

Abstract

The article reveals the essence of a foreign language teacher’s pedagogical technique as a system of professional techniques for organising a pedagogue’s behaviour to make successful pedagogical and educational influences on the personality of a higher education student. Depending on the direction of influence, external and internal pedagogical techniques have been distinguished. The external technique is associated with verbal and non-verbal expression of a teacher’s internal experiences in order to influence other subjects of the educational process. The technique of pedagogical communication and the technique of speech form the basis of the verbal tools of external technique. It has been determined that the technique of pedagogical communication requires a friendly, calm tone, the ability to ask questions, listen, analyse the content of the message, understand the motives of the interlocutor’s communicative behaviour, navigate in a communicational situation. Therefore, a foreign language teacher should strive to establish psychological and visual contact with other subjects of pedagogical interaction. The technique of pedagogical communication also contains the ability to attract students by the performance and free, coherent and logical speech, external expression of desire and willingness to communicate, the ability to convey their attitude to educational material, to arouse the higher education students’ interest in the discussion. The technique of speech consists of diction, articulation, intonation, volume, strength, height, timbre and tonality of the voice, pace and rhythm of speech, emphasis, mobility and sonority of the voice. The structural components of non-verbal communication: body language, interpersonal space, temporal characteristics have been analysed. The peculiarities of statistical and dynamic expression of a foreign language teacher have been described. Physiognomy, artefacts, the olfactory system, haptics, prosody, extralinguistics, kinesics have been characterised. It has been proved that a foreign language teacher’s pedagogical technique largely determines the level of professional excellence and the success of pedagogical activity. Pedagogical technique is an integral part in the structure of the professional excellence of a foreign language teacher who needs lifelong self-development and self-improvement. As a form of organisational behaviour, pedagogical technique is based on the ability to control oneself – posture, gestures, facial expressions, pantomime; to manage emotions – relieve excessive mental stress, trigger the states of insight, creative well-being; the ability to master the technique of speech – the pace of speech, intonation, audience management; the ability to interact with a higher education student and the group as a whole in the process of solving pedagogical problems. Forming foreign language teachers’ pedagogical technique is impossible without considering communicative prohibitions, etiquette, appearance culture, peculiarities of pedagogical communication and mental self-regulation. Verbal and non-verbal tools of influencing higher education students harmoniously complete each other, and mastery of the pedagogical technique testifies to the level of a pedagogue’s professional excellence.