Importance Of Interpersonal Communication

Interpersonal communication remains a fundamental aspect in the functioning of a primary education institution as it lightens the load upon the shoulders of teachers. The author in this write up will therefore discuss the significance of interpersonal communication to a primary school teacher. Among the aspects to be unfolded to detail are psychological functions, social and influential functions of interpersonal communication but equally the important, the writer will also highlight issues such as distortion of message by gestures, high probability of child abuse cases and finally inability of the teacher to communicate effectively. Key terms to be defined are interpersonal communication.

Communicating interpersonally between the teacher

A teacher is an agent of the government entrusted to ensure facilitation of learning and teaching process as designed by the curriculum development unit. As such being the case, there is need of interpersonal communication between the teacher and his/her immediate as well as external assessors in order to be advised appropriately on the execution of the desired expectations. For example, a case where a teacher might be having challenges to use relevant media/teaching aids when delivering lessons the assessors are able to give correction necessary immediately to the teacher so that media used becomes of significance to the learning. On a similar note, through interpersonal communication teachers are able to air out challenges that they encounter especially in the implementation of the curriculum. For example, the change of Religious and Moral Education to Family Religion and Moral Education that demands an equal representation of all religions found in Zimbabwe, it is difficult to implement due to unavailability of resources for religions such as Hinduism, Islam and African Indigenous Religion. Therefore, through interpersonal communication a way forward is mapped between the teacher and supervisors leading to effective teaching and

This is supported by Wentzel and Looney (2007) who views that having language disorders may stray the real essence of a message. For instance, a teacher may have problems in phonating or pronouncing words appropriately. This is likely to affect the learning process of subjects such as languages since learners have a tendency of capturing more information through imitating. Instead of focusing on the ideal concept being learnt, the learners are strayed by poor phonation and articulation of words by the teacher. In addition to that, the teacher may speak or read too fast for the level of the learner`s understanding. As a result learners suffer from lack of knowledge while all the due requirements at school are provided by the parents such as fees. It therefore implies that while interpersonal communication is vital to teachers, the competence of the teacher may determine the academic progress.

Conclusively communicating interpersonally is necessary to a primary school teacher as it enables them to fulfill psychological, social, influential and informative support upon learners and workmates. On the other hand it may also increase cases of child abuse, distort information through gestures and may also be affected by the teacher`s ability to communicate