DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONAL COMPETENCIES WITHIN PRE-SERVICE TEACHER TRAINING: A CASE STUDY OF A RUSSIAN UNIVERSITY

Personal competency is not only an under-explored variable in studies of pre-service teachers but also in the realm of educational staff training. The authors focus on the necessity to build up certain qualities which would allow to shorten the time of professional adaptation of teachers.

Entering the profession, young teachers often encounter challenges in classroom management. It is habitually nailed down to the lack of experience. Bare knowledge of methodology and teaching techniques might not be sufficient for equipping a teacher for his professional success. The occurring problems have been proved to be diminished or eliminated if one features such qualities as leadership, tolerance or self-reflection. It is common delusion that only technical teaching skills can be trained and practiced during the educational period whilst personal qualities are taken as being in-born. Likewise, personal competence can be developed within pre-service as well as in-service teacher training courses.

The paper presents the findings of the three-phase research conducted in NUST “MISiS” (Moscow, Russia) in 2017-2018. The two experimental groups comprised of students of two categories, i.e. fourth-year students having taken all the required teaching courses, prescribed in the curriculum and the third-year students who were fresh to the teacher-training course.

The results of the research have soundly proved the hypothesis that personal competence can also appear to be the subject of development within pre-service teacher trainings.

Authors conclude with the layout of the future research on the personal qualities development in in-practice teachers planned for 2018-2019 academic year.