Soft skills of excellent teachers in diverse South African schools in the Western Cape

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Teachers in the South African educational context are being asked to meet an increasing number of professional demands. Teachers are expected not only to produce academic results and develop professionally, but also to play an affective role in the school.The paradigm used in this study is neo-liberalism. This allows the researcher to view the teacher as possessing technical or 'hard' skills as well as the less well-defined 'soft' or emotive skills. Here soft skills are defined as the interpersonal, human, people or behavioural skills needed to apply technical skills and knowledge in the workplace. A qualitative transcendental phenomenological research approach was selected in order to explore whether 'excellent' teachers from three schools in diverse economic settings in the Western Cape employed soft skills when teaching. The results of this study indicate that teachers perceived as 'excellent' exhibit intrapersonal behavioural, interpersonal conceptual and interpersonal affective soft skills.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University