Abstract:

The proposed paper focuses on the field of undergraduate teacher training from the aspect of personal and social skill development by means of the application of activating methods and strategies suitable for university students. In the theoretical part of the paper, the authors present an analysis of the issues related to personal and social skills in the context of undergraduate teacher training at universities and elaborate the topic of activating methods and strategies, which can be applied under the current conditions. New opportunities and proposals are offered in the application part of the paper, as well as suggestions for using various activating methods in university environments. In the final, empirical part of the paper, the results of a research carried out by the authors are presented, within which teacher trainees’ opinions and the possible shift in them following an intervention were investigated into. For its purposes, the method of experiment was applied, and the results of a pre-test and post-test were compared. In the paper, gender differences are presented. The research findings point to the importance of promoting the above fields of pre-gradual training by means of activating methods implemented into university courses within teacher training programmes.

Keywords:

Personal and social skills, activating methods and strategies, undergraduate training, experiment.