The Efficient Didactic Communication - An Important Step Towards Success

Abstract

Didactic communication is considered to be the centre of the educational communication, the essence itself of the teaching process, developed as lessons. The didactic communication implies a permanent interaction between teachers and pupils in the teaching process as well as in evaluation and projecting stages. In order to make the didactic communication more essential, we should have in mind the eliminating of as many communicative barriers as possible, like distorsions, the missing of a communication channel between the teacher and pupil/student, facts that generally lead to the interrupting of communication. The informational overcharge or ”informational explosion” that makes the pupils confront a huge amount of useless information can also lead to a refusal of didactic activity, to confusion, phisical or motivational exhaustion. The modern teaching system has begun to use more of the interactive methods and also some new technologies. Video projecting, audio or video recording have become the favourite modalities used in the classroom activities for interacting and communicationg more efficiently. The means of knowing each other are ways of organizing some groups whose members do not know each other. The active communicating methods relieve pupils for understanding the texts they read. We will establish a tipology of these active communication methods through which the pupils are motivated in understanding the reading, the reason for this being the pupils’ progress in the learning process.

Keywords: Didactic communicationeducationinteractionteaching-learning process

Introduction

Communication was defined as a special form of changing information between people, or groups of people. The Dictionary of Romanian Language offers many definitions regarding “communication”: notice, news, connection, relation and link. This refers to some information exchange between people, from impressions to judgments, from feelings to behavioral changes, all of these being shown in people’s knowledge.

The relation between individuals, the exchange of messages and the decoding of meaning as well as the understanding of the code, are the most important aspects for the communication act.

Communication represents “the process of giving away a message from a person to another, in a secret way, through a certain canal, for a certain receiver in order to decode the message” (Chiru, 2003, p. 12).

There are two fundamental conditions:

• the existence of the message

• the understanding of the codes (having the form of natural,verbal, nonverbal language as well as abstract symbols)

Human communication is “a fundamental means of psychosocial interplay, a permanent messages exchange between speakers, meant to achieve a strong relation in order to influence the maintaining or modification of individual or group behavior” (Șoitu, 1997, p. 14.)

Problem Statement

Interpersonal communication is realized through verbal and nonverbal languages, through which messages are exchanged for influencing in a better way the behaviour of others. Human communication is not only a psychophysical activity of connecting two or more people, but also an influencing process, through specific language, attitude and transmitters and receivers behaviours.

There are many types of communication:

• Vertical or horizontal (depending on the speaking’s stature)

• Verbal, paraverbal and nonverbal communication (depending on the code)

• Accidental, subjective and instrumental communication (after the finality of communication)

Research Questions

Relating to the number of the participants and the type of the relation between speakers, communication may be:

• intrapersonal communication (inner communication, dialogue with oneself), communication between people (between participants), group communication (with more than two people, used with students, sports teams), public communication (implies an only message sender and a specific auditory, giving the impression of informational messages) and mass communication (mass media means, an institution or a gater keeper that produces and transmits messages for the public or unknown receivers);

• due to its content, communication may be: informational discourse ( information that is expressed during the act of communication), latent communication ( static information that needs to be activated);

• due to its level, communication may be: unidirectional communication, bidirectional communication, multidirectional communication;

• due to the nature of the content, communication may be: referrential communication, operational communication, behavioral communication.

Purpose of the Study

This article will be centred on didactic communication, as an important aspect of teaching-learning process. According to the Dictionary of Pedagogy , didactic communication may be considered ” an axiomatic principle of education that implies an educational message transmitted by the subject of education (the teacher), able to challenge the reactions from the object of education (the pupil) and to connect inner and external broadcast” (Cristea, 2000, p.11).

Didactic communication represents the practical and pragmatic core of educational communication, meaning the essence of the teaching system itself, presented as lessons. Didactic communication implies “ a continuous interaction between teachers and students, even if it is about teaching, learning, even didactic projection ” (Dumitru & Ungureanu, 2005, p. 7).

Although the process of didactic communication represents the most important part of the teaching-learning activity, the relation between teachers – pupils has a significant value, as for the present education and for the training of pupils as well. As a form of interaction, communication in the didactic process embodies the connection between subjects, messages changes, having a double action: formal and informal.

Generally, the goal of the communication process, of the teachers-pupils interaction during the teaching tasks, is to achieve positive results and to bring new changes into the mentality, attitude and behavior of the interlocutors, as well as forming and developing the pupils’ personalities through creating a proper educational climate.

It is also obvious that, due to its purpose, didactic communication is very important for the development of an efficient and open educational climate. It helps the teachers’ activity in order to stimulate their capacity for:

• To create a proper pedagogical project for the curricula;

• To elaborate the educational message, having in mind the characteristics: the psychosocial field that assures the educational activity and the results of the internal and external actions for the pupils and students as well;

• To focus the educational message on each pupil, keeping in mind one’s intellectual, emotional, psychological peculiarities;

• To ensure the common background of the pupils through intellectual communication, but also emotional and motivational one;

• To stimulate the continuous training of the didactic activity through improving their connections as a condition of the self-education; (Cristea, 2000, p. 42).

Research Methods

Having in mind the fact that this article represents a research study, having as purpose the relation between teacher and pupils from the modern perspective, knowing the fact that the didactic dialogue represents the main axes around which the whole educational process revolves, I have wanted to analyse the educational behaviour of the teacher and to identify certain ways of improvement.

In the first part, the ascertaining phase, I have aimed some working strategies regarding the behavioural strategies of teachers by applying some pedagogical research methods, such as case study and questionnaire.

In a final stage there were analysed the possibilities of preventing and overtaking the obstacles that might stay between the teacher and pupils.

Team work, the way of presenting the results, the evaluations have established an important change in the didactic communication between pupils and their teachers.

The most important progress was observed when overrunning the barriers in front of the class or other people, through the necessity of self-knowledge or knowing all the pupils and of each pupil in particular.

As a conclusion, we can say that there is a possibility for the didactic communication to become better through all the formal and informal activities undertaken at school. We can strongly sustain that, using an adequate and understandable language, based on an expressive and persuasive communication, the teacher has to try to transmit the contents of the lessons in a more attractive, argumentative and intelligible way. Implying the entire methodological and logistical material and overcoming the boring monologue by an elegant and argumentative presentation, the teacher will change the conformism into attending and activism.

Findings

The modern education started to use more interactive methods and new technologies. Video projections, audio or video tapes have become favourite means of teaching used during the activities and as special ways of interacting and communicating efficiently.

The comparative analyses of traditional and interactive strategies of education conclude that the latter direct the teaching process toward the pupils, towards his inner needs in this way reflecting new socio-cultural relations and the educational tendencies in general.

For the present research there are some important issues regarding classification and active teaching methods. Regarding these issues, there is no unique approach and in this way Ion and Albulescu (2000, p. 72) made a classification:

• The problematized methods;

• Heuristically methods;

• Deductive methods;

• Discussion;

• Working in small groups;

• Brainstorming;

• Exercise;

• Research methods;

• Individual reading.

I Nicola does not emphasize the active teaching methods, because ”they are present in other authors’ classifications (after the type of the didactic strategy). Thus, in the didactic system, the so- called heuristically- expositional, there might be found some active teaching strategies: problematized, research, experiential, practical and group. Some researches also include giving gifts” (Pânişoară, 2006, p. 23).

Effective communication methodology requires compliance with such elements:

• The transmission of the didactic message by the teacher or other source of information from a certain distance;

• The channel through which the message is send;

• The receiving of the message by the pupils;

• The usage of the message in order to take the decisions (pupil’s answers, teacher’s corrections)

Through verbal/nonverbal communication teachers can develop an affectionate climate where the teacher’s behavior, as well as pupil’s responses is realized by a common contribution. The teacher may notice and encourages any of pupil’s idea of collaboration, using various methods.

In our class we noticed that the pupil might be afraid to do mistakes and to be misunderstood, but he wishes to open his heart in front of the teacher. The affectionate tone the teachers use in their relation with pupils generates the special climate for the development of a proper activity.

A good teacher has to be a “fine actor”, who knows to activate the pupils using only words. By spelling correctly, the teacher’s words have to be emotional and to impress the children. “ The movements, gestures and teacher’s mimicry, as parts of the educational process, have to become effective tools which help them during the teaching activity ” (Cucoş, 1998, pp. 340-341).

The expressivity of the didactic communication may be influenced by stature, facial expressivity, gestures, the shining of the eyes and visual contact. The elements of nonverbal language enlarge the meaning of the words. For example, when a teacher comes into the classroom and sits at the desk or near the board and stays there the entire hour, he will diminish the force of his discourse. The nonverbal language has deep significance as well as the verbal one. The main purpose of communication is to organize the didactic activity and to choose the proper means for teaching and knowing people better.

When the acquisition of skills is no longer possible, one can use persuasion- through which we understand to influence the person through arguments, but also through aiming the affectivity, when we choose to praise in order to persuade easier. The persuasion comes with conviction, touching the intellect and feelings as well.

Efficient communication methodology involves the following steps teaching:

• It takes place between two or more agents: teacher-pupils, having as a purpose the pupils’ training, using the verbal, written, non-verbal, para-verbal and visual communication, especially when they intermingle each other;

• The didactic message is conceived, selected, organized and structured by the teacher himself, having as a background the educational curricula;

• The didactic style of communication is induced by the teacher’s didactic vision, but also by his physical structure;

• The didactic message has an explicit-demonstrative scale and is transmitted to pupils through proper didactic strategies due to be accessible for pupils and their intellectual development;

• Communication may be adjusted due to the feed-back and feed-forward, avoiding the obstructions on the way;

During the interaction teacher-pupil, psychopedagogical communication has different roles:

• The informational role when transmitting the didactic and educational message;

• The formative function when it stimulates the thinking and imagination in pupils;

• The educational function, transmitting educational influentae as well as training the pupils’ groups;

• The evaluating and adjustment function of the teaching –learning process;

• The solving function of educational and school problems.

The rules for an effective communication are:

• To listen and to respect the interests and opinions of others;

• To notice and understand what happens in the communicative act, to comprehend the interlocutors ideas;

• To analyse and to know the receptor’s state of mind;

• To express yourself regarding the personal points of view towards the object of communication;

• To control and notice the quality and efficiency of the communication act.

The communicative competence for the teacher means a lot of knowledge aquisitions and skills from other domains such as:

• The understanding of the communicative context regarding the content and forms of the communication, but also the behavioral adaptation to this;

• Knowing the communicative rules and the impact of paraverbal and nonverbal communication as part of the didactic process;

• Understanding of human and school psychology, the capacity of communicate with pupils;

Knowing the culture of the interlocutors, because nonverbal language differs from a culture to another and the things that may be efficient in communicating in some culture, may be inefficient in another.For being effective, the didactic communication requires some features:

Teacher’s features:

• the coherence of the messages;

• the accuracy of the messages;

• the usage of a proper and accesible language;

• the usage of a scientific style;

• the logical structure of the messages;

• the introduction of the teaching content;

• assuring a proper climate for the communication act.

Pupils’ features:

• To succeed to focus in order to get and understand the teacher’s message;

• To have a suitable background for reveiving new information;

• To be willing to study at all subjects;

• To understand the information and the messages given by the teacher or the computer.

During the process of didactic communication, teachers have to let the pupils feel that he is reliable, open-minded, willing to accept an authentic dialogue. His communicative competence will also be shown through his ability to listen, the most appreciated teachers being the ones that allow the pupils to express themselves, not to criticise, to judge or manipulate , but to give them the feeling of safety and freedom of communication.

The teacher’s behaviour when communicating with pupils may be influenced by mentalities that affect the colectice psyche, relating to teacher’s role in society, but also the pupil’s part in it. There may be some mistakes in teacher’s attitude towards pupils and their evaluation because of some wrong information about them, but in this case is very important that the teacher know each pupil’s personality and background.

Another negative feature in a teacher’s attitude is to address himself to “the ideal pupil”, in this way pupils that do not fit the profile may feel excluded. In addition to this, there can also appear misunderstandings because, sometimes, the teacher considers to be “ the unique keeper of science, the pupils being unable to understand or communicate , sometimes they even escape from the communicative space ” (Albu, 2002, p. 43).

Conclusion

Communication may be interrupted by certain agents that appear between the intention and perception, being able to communicate through messages, channel, and receiver. The most important agents may be:

• the status effects: certain higher messages may cause misunderstandings for the receiver;

• semantic problems- specialists tend to use slang, hoping that the others will understand; smart people use more sophisticated words that may be incomprehensible for certain people;

• perceptive misunderstandings- when the receiver has an unrealistic self image and connot communicate, being unable to understand others;

• cultural differences- people that come from different cultural stratum with different symbols and habits;

Sometimes, there can be some barriers for an effective communication, like the following:

• Physical: talking and hearing defficiencies, light, temperature, moment of the day;

• Semantic: vocabulary, grammar, syntax, emotional sentences;

• Produced by inner factors: positive involvement, negative involvement;

• Fear, perceiving differences, rushed conclusions, lack of interest, excitement, anxiety.

These communication gaps may appear when the transmitter does not hold the message content as he should, the message is not understandable, the voice of the transmitter is too low, too strong or too fast, his purpose for transmitting the message does not have a meaning or the pupils just don’t care about it. The transmitter does not use the verbal, paraverbal or nonverbal types of communicating and the pupils are not interested in the message because they may know it from another situation. The efficiency of the communication may be stopped by boredom, stress, or because the pupils do not understand the didactic message.

In order to perfectionate the didactic communication there are some rules that help teachers and pupils as well:

- direct and coherent speech;

• encouraging the pupils to give feedback in order to check how the messages were understood;

• listening carefully to the pupils’ messages and trying to understand them;

• using different forms of communication for the same types of messages;

• repeating the most interesting and complex messages.

The ways of influencing the educational climate of the pupils are mirrored in the quality of the communication acts that the teachers allow to his interlocutors. Didactic communication contains also informational flows, verbal or nonverbal, which lead to a discursive universe into a psychosocial proper climate.

References

1. Albu, E. (2002). Manifestări tipice ale devierilor de comportament la elevii preadolescenți. Prevenire și terapie, [Typical Displays of Behavioral Deviation in preteens. Prevention and theraphy], Bucureşti: Aramis Print.
2. Ion, A., Albulescu, M.. (2000). Didactica disciplinelor socio-umane, [Didactics of Socio-human Disciplines], Cluj-Napoca: Napoca Star.
3. Chiru, I. (2003). Comunicarea interpersonală, [Interpersonal Communication], București: Tritonic.
4. Cristea, S. (2000). Dicționar de pedagogie, [Dictionary of Pedagogy], Bucureşti: Litera.
5. Cucoş, C. (1998). Psihopedagogie pentru examenele de definitivare și grade didactice, [Psyhopedagogy for exams], Iaşi: Polirom.
6. Dumitru, I. Ungureanu, C. (2005). Pedagogie și elemente de psihologia educației, [Pedagogy and Elements of Educational Psychology], Bucureşti: Cartea Universitară.
7. Pînişoară, I O. (2006). Comunicarea eficientă, [Efficient Communication], Iaşi: Polirom.
8. Șoitu, L. (1997). Comunicare și acțiune, [Communication and Action], Iași, Institutul European.