Communicative skills and stage fright in pre-service english Teachers.

Abstract

In schools, it is usual for universities to send some of their students from different pedagogical fields to different schools to provide their support and services. However, when these pre-service teachers are required to perform in front of an audience, some communication gaps might arise due to unpreparedness. The present goal of the major in Pedagogy of National and Foreign Languages at Universidad Laica Eloy Alfaro de Manabí is to provide the community with well-prepared teachers able to boldly cope with communication barriers in mainstream education. The current research aims to analyze the factors that generate fear of performance and communicative challenges in pre-service teachers and explore their perceptions of these factors related to their teacher training through a mixed approach selected through inclusion criteria focused on the communicative competence as a message deliverer, message receiver, teacher, and university student. Two instruments were applied to collect information: a questionnaire and an interview. The study sample consisted of 40 students from the Pedagogy of the National and Foreign Languages program at Universidad Laica Eloy Alfaro de Manabí. The results identified many communicative challenges faced by students during their practicum, such as feeling nervous when interacting with or having their classes observed by authorities without getting enough feedback, as well as the lack of training for dealing with parents.