The knowledge of communication skills of secondary graduate student teachers and their understanding of the relationship between communication skills and teaching

Effective communication skills are essential to good teaching practice. This paper discusses how these skills are acquired and integrated during a teacher education course. Secondary graduate student teachers, in a one year teaching diploma, were offered the option of a selected course in effective communications. The high uptake of this course caused reflection about the perceived knowledge of communication skills held by students at the pre-entry level. A research project was developed to look at the pre-entry knowledge of communication skills and the acquisition of these skills throughout the year. The base information was established by interviewing a sample of the secondary student teachers to assess their knowledge prior to entering the course. The subsequent four interviews showed the development of these skills and indicated where and how the student teachers thought this acquisition had taken place.

This paper describes the significance of effective communication skills for teaching and presents the findings from the data collected. The implications of this information for teacher educators will be discussed.