The influence of pedagogical interaction on the quality of foreign-language teaching

Importance. The influence of pedagogical interaction on the learning outcomes of students majoring in foreign languages is examined. The research is relevant since learning a foreign language is aimed at using the latter as a communication tool. A high level of pedagogical interaction is necessary in order to involve students in foreign-language communication with the teacher and other learners, which contributes to the consolidation of foreign-language material in speech. That is why it is relevant to study the existing ways to measure its effectiveness as well as to develop new ones. It is also topical to research its impact on the assimilation of educational material. The purpose of the study is to identify the dependence of learning quality of educational material on the degree of pedagogical interaction formation. Materials and methods. Pedagogical interaction is defined as interpersonal communication between a teacher and students, which has a transformative effect on them. An analysis of the students’ opinion poll conducted as part of the “Best Teacher through the Eyes of Students” competition, held annually at Peter the Great Saint Petersburg State Polytechnic University, showed that its results can be used to measure the effectiveness of interaction between a teacher and students. The research included the experiment which is conducted in the “Lexical-grammatical consolidation” classes in order to identify the impact of pedagogical interaction on the quality of teaching. During the experiment, in some groups, classes are conducted by teachers who received a low score (C) in the opinion poll, whereas in other groups, classes in a similar format are conducted by teachers who received the highest score (A). The comparison of the diagnostic and final tests’ results revealed the degree to which pedagogical interaction influences the assimilation of educational material. Results and Discussion. In the groups with a high degree of pedagogical interaction (HDPI), the results of the final test are on average 2,906 points (5,812 %) higher than in groups with a low degree of pedagogical interaction (LDPI), and the increase in the results in the HDPI compared to the diagnostic test is 3,046 points (6,092 %) higher than in the LDPI. This can be explained by the fact that the teachers who worked in HDPI have formed positive relationships with the students due to their high professionalism and their ability to adjust their communication style depending on the audience’s reaction. Since the teachers in HDPI created a positive emotional atmosphere in the classroom, the students’ motivation increased, and they focused on the tasks they performed. In the in LDPI groups, the lack of pedagogical interaction led to misunderstanding between the teacher and the students, which hindered the assimilation of the learning material. Conclusions. The impact that the effective teacher-student communication has on the assimilation of learning material indicates that it is relevant to develop such tools for measuring pedagogical interaction, as video recordings of classroom sessions and questionnaires with open-ended questions. The students’ answers to them will allow teachers to determine which aspects of pedagogical communication they should review. In addition, further research is needed to identify in more detail the components of pedagogical interaction that affect its quality to a greater or lesser extent. The results of the study indicate that the quality of learning material assimilation depends on the quality of pedagogical interaction. The research results can be used in teaching other subjects.