ROLE OF TEACHING PRACTICE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Communication is an essential part of daily life. For a better relationship, some developed communication skills are presented as learned behavior that makes any person bring out positive responses from other individuals and establish satisfactory relations to assist social life. These behaviors are related to suitable and required speech, listening, and positive thoughts for another person which are share with different suitable verbal and non-verbal skills. The core objective of the research was to observe the performance of teacher educators and prospective teachers to investigate to what extend communication skills are developed during teaching practice and how much teacher educators provide guidance to prospective teachers in order to develop the communication skills during their teaching practice. The research was descriptive in nature and a quantitative approach was used. For the collection required data Observation method was used. Only female prospective teachers from IIUI were selected for the study. 100% population was taken as a sample. Through universal sampling, all 27 students who were enrolled in the M.A program named “Long Term Internship” were selected for observation of the study. These students were performed as prospective teachers in different educational institutions of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. A self-developed Observational sheet with a rating scale was used as a research instrument. Direct observation was conducted on the selected sample of teacher educators and prospective teachers. The observation was coded in thrice different sessions of the practice. Data were analyzed through the mean score. Major findings of the study were; prospective teachers perform gradual but slow improvement in their performance during teaching practice regarding verbal, non-verbal, and means of communication through instructional material. The conclusion of the study was, teacher educators give on the spot verbal and non-verbal feedback. The teacher educator monitored the prospective teachers and guide them regarding different verbal and non- verbal communication skills for improving their teaching methodology. Teacher educators guide them for the effective use of instructional material in the classroom. On the basis of findings and conclusion following recommendations were made teacher educators may guide the prospective teachers for the better and effective use of instructional material in class. Developing better teaching and class management teacher educator may guide the prospective teachers to adopt the professional culture and change the traditional teaching in the classroom.