Caring of the voice and the use of verbal/non-verbal mode of communication in preschool teachers

摘要

Preschool teachers as professional voice users find it difficult to do their job if they suffer from a voice disorder, while a persistent disorder means the end of their professional career. Due to the daily exposure to factors such as working with a big group of children, using voice to attract attention, speaking too loudly, bad working conditions (e.g. dry air), exposure to infections, teachers, like other voice-related occupations, suffer from vocal strain. Knowing voice care instructions, which favourably affect the voice as well as the whole body, could partly solve the problems. They, however, have no great significance and impact unless adherence to them becomes part of a teacher’s lifestyle. This is a way to prevent voice abuse, which often leads to voice disorders. Besides voice care instructions, teachers should also be familiar with ways to strengthen their voice and reduce its use, and they should put this knowledge into practice. As one of the possibilities, nonverbal communication – such as paralanguage, facial expressions, gestures, touch, space, posture and body language – can substitute for voice. Teachers should be aware of the fact that children are extremely susceptible to conveying a message nonverbally and they should take advantage of it. They use their voice in order to attract attention too often as well. The use of an acoustic device is much more advisable. Following these tips will help teachers to care for their voice so that it can serve them long and well.udThe diploma paper deals with the ways preschool teachers communicate with children in order to take care of their voice: how often they use different vocal and non-vocal ways of communicating, whether and how voice problems affect teachers’ work and which teachers use more non-vocal communication techniques. The empirical part of the paper investigates the issue by analysing the questionnaire answers of male and female teachers from different nurseries. The survey results have shown that there are no statistically significant differences in the use of vocal and non-vocal communication between the teachers who work with younger children and those who work with older onesud