Nonverbal straightforwardness in creating the attitude of teacher as a nonspecific pedagogical factors

One of the most important nonspecific pedagogical factors is the attitude of a teacher which presents especially credibility, self-confidence, commanding sympathy and empathy as well as interpersonal and physical attractiveness. The use of nonverbal signals presenting nonverbal straightforwardness is helpful to demonstrate these attitudes. It is expressed by frequent smiling to students, maintaining the eye contact, using friendly gestures and variety of vocal signals (differentiation of voice, avoiding the monotony), leaning forward to the students, relaxed posture, using the touch, the personal space and physical factors of a classroom (e.g. equipment, seating arrangements). Teachers who use honest and frank gestures are perceived as a more efficient than teachers who prefer using nonverbal behavior showing less stra­ightforwardness. Teachers using gestures of frankness are not only given more sympathy by patients but they are also perceived as a more authentic ones and having the ability to understand better the feelings and emotions of students.

Scientific interest in everyday life is mainly present in sociology but also in philosophy, psychology, pedagogy and increasingly also in pedeutology. In this paper, I relate to personal, everyday experiences of teachers exercising their role in the contemporary conditions of social and educational change. The paper features thought-provoking statements made by teachers on their own professional activity.

An active collaboration with teachers is a prerequisite of system based approach to school counselling. The objective of the research was examining the experiences of school counsellors regarding collaboration with teachers in the domain of student counselling in the school setting in Serbia. This research applied a pragmatist qualitative approach using a semi-structured interview. Participants were 81 elementary school counsellors (pedagogues). The results show that teachers are generally open for collaboration during student counselling. Teachers’ acceptance of advice depends on their personality and classroom management style. Conclusions offer recommendations for improving the partnership relations as a basis for effective student counselling.