Systemic description of the student’s language consciousness: the ideal teacher and student images

Abstract

The paper discusses the results of a series of experiments aimed at studying how the images of the ideal teacher and the ideal student change in the student’s mind. The hypothesis of the study was as follows: during the years of studying at the university the above mentioned images undergo significant changes due to the various activities in the academic environment as well as to self-evaluation of his/her own activities. This hypothesis was tested by a series of experiments conducted by the method of free associations and the method of unfinished sentences, the results of which complement each other. The hypothesis has been partially confirmed. During the years of studying, the images of the ideal teacher and the ideal student in the student’s language consciousness are enriched with a variety of language means, primarily expressive ones. However, they change quantitatively rather than qualitatively: new image characteristics are not found however, the existing ones become differentiated. The images of the ideal student and the ideal teacher are not a simple idealization of the student and teacher images, they are formed and changed independently of those creating them?

Keywords and phrases: the ideal teacher, the ideal student, language consciousness, personal meaning.