In this article, we will learn all the important aspects of communication skills for teachers. So let’s get started!!
Teaching is generally considered 50% knowledge and 50% communication skill (source). Being a teacher you definitely need good communication skills, because you are continuously communicating with students, parents, and other co-workers.
- Importance
- Understanding the psychology of students
- Basic aspects of communication skills for teachers
- Various learning styles
- Communicating with parents
- Interacting with Colleagues
- Give your best demo class (for coaching teacher)
- Conclusion
- Faq’s
Importance
If you improve the teacher’s communication skills, then improve the teacher’s overall effectiveness across the curriculum. Teaching is all about communication- listening, speaking, reading, writing, and presenting.
Teachers must communicate precisely, so students, parents, and co-workers understand the classroom and work together to accomplish academic tasks.
Understanding the psychology of students
As a teacher you must understand the psychology of students, so that you can take appropriate actions.
Students want teachers who can, precisely explain all the concepts, patiently yet firmly clear all their doubts and effectively explain all the guidelines.
Many times teachers’ gets irritated when students ask same doubt; you have to overcome this irritation if you want more effective classroom learning, student likes teacher who explains the concept via different way if they are not able to understand it repeatedly.
Learn more about Communication skills for students
Basic aspects of communication skills for teachers
Under this section, we will learn some basic aspects of communication skills that must present in each and every teacher for more potent student-teacher relations and a positive class atmosphere.
Positive motivation
it is a moral duty of the teachers to motivate their students. Motivating students does not mean only motivating them for studies; it can be for sports day, annual function, or any other extra co-curricular activities.
It is the prime duty of teachers to remove fear and inhibition from the mind of students.
You can give them the examples of some successful alumni of the institution or can share success stories of other individuals who succeeded in the same field.
You can even call them as future stars, example if a student wants to go for engineering you can call him “future iitian” These things might appear small, but have far-reaching consequences in shaping the mindset of a student.
Effective body language
body language is the essence of the communication skills!! While teaching your body language must be well synchronized with your verbal communication.
Never sit and teach until it is unavoidable, I have observed that when a teacher starts teaching while sitting then almost 80% of the class lose their interest and starts daydreaming. You can move in between the rows to have 100% attention of students in the class.
Smile
if you will wear a smile while teaching, it will increase your effectiveness by manifolds.
Students generally feel more comfortable in front of teachers who teach in a happy mood, moreover, it will make the class atmosphere jollier and students would be more attentive.
Sense Of Humour
if you think that the lecture is becoming somewhat boring then you can crack soft jokes in between the lecture, it will make students to take interest in the topic.
You can even try to make funny acronyms or relate a boring study to a funny incident.
If you are comfortable then you can even crack a joke on yourself to lighten up the atmosphere (belief me students love teachers who crack soft joke on themselves).
Clarity Of Thought
Teachers must be skilled at listening to their students as well as explaining things clearly.
They should go deep into the concepts and try to bring difficult topics into simpler subtopics for a better understanding, moreover before coming to the class you should know the topic which you want to undertake in the class.
You should know the important points which should be given more stress. If a teacher is clear what she wants to teach then each minute would be very effective.
Various learning styles
There are three basic learning styles: auditory, visual and kinaesthetic. Every individual has one stronger sense to learn when compared to the other two. You should try to inculcate three of them to take your teaching skills to the next level.
Auditory learner it is a learning style in which a person majorly learns through listening. Giving examples while teaching or providing reasoning to the given text is appreciated.
Visual learner it is a learning style in which a person majorly learns through seeing or witnessing the surroundings. You can explain concepts using images, charts, or placards. You can even demonstrate an activity in front of students.
Kinaesthetic learner it is a learning style in which a person majorly learns through actually carrying out the activity. You can make students carry out the experiments/activity by themselves or you can even ask them to deliver demo lectures.
If you are communicating, teaching a single student, or taking a doubt of a single student then by observing his / her eye movement you can guess the dominant learning way of the student and teach accordingly.
- For an auditory learner student you can emphasize on phrases “listen to me carefully.”
- For a visual learner student you can emphasize on phrases see “see this is the way to solve the problem” or “look this is the way to solve the problem.”
- For a kinaesthetic learner you can emphasize on phrase “try to feel” or “try to sense”.
Communicating with parents
Teachers should express themselves both verbally and in writing in order to report the progress of a student to their parents.
You must be honest while giving a student report to the parents, but the problem might come while giving a difficult message like student misbehavior or learning problems.
To handle such situations you will have to create a feeling in parent’s hearts that you are equally a concern for the student’s future.
Let us understand this with the help of an example, consider two teachers A and B who want to complain about student’s misbehaviour in class.
A: I am fed up with your child; he keeps on disturbing the class and disrupts the momentum of the teacher, his presence does not allow me to teach and other students to study. Please teach him to behave properly
B: he is quite a mischievous child, who sometimes momentum of the class. Believe me, I am equally concerned for your child’s future or you can even say more concern because being a teacher, I have seen many students destroying their future because of their inattentive nature in class. We need to together work on this matter for the better future of our child.
The message of both the teachers is the same, but there is a high probability that, parents get angry with teacher A and want to co-operate with teacher B.
this example shows the power of word selection. In parent’s teacher meetings you can also refer yourself as a second mother or a well-wisher to create more impact.
Interacting with Colleagues
Teaching involves consultation with colleagues. Good schools encourage teachers to do meetings regarding curriculum and teaching methodologies.
Being a teacher you should also proactively participate in such meetings, this will only increase your knowledge as a teacher. You should also try to give new ideas or methods related to the topic of discussion without hesitating.
If you want to put up an idea then it is suggested to cover these areas –
- Problem faced
- How the idea will solve the problem
- Future benefits of the solution
- Ways to carry out the idea
- Problems that can come in the middle
Give your best demo class
This section is specially designed for coaching teachers, who offer free demo classes to students before asking them to join. Whether the student would enroll for your course or not is majorly decided by your demo class. So try to make it as effective as you can.
=> You can opt to teach the topic in which you are most comfortable or you have the best command.
=> Give the students insights of your successful past results, you can even share success ratio to build more believe.
=> Ask your past students to come and share their experience with you and how they were benefitted by your course. You can organize this meet up in the last half hour of class.
=> Have confident body language; students must get a positive vibration that you can provide them with the best course.
=> Lighten up the atmosphere by sharing some anecdotes, either related to the topic or some past experience.
=> You can even provide them free pens or register with the name of your institute for positive marketing.
Conclusion
In this article we learned the importance and the ways in which we can improve our teaching skills using communication skills.
Now I would request you to start implementing all the strategies shared with you. By practicing only, you will enjoy the benefits of good communication skills. I hope you enjoyed the content.
KEEP LEARNING KEEP GROWING!!
Faq’s
A-1 yes communication skills are very important for teachers. it helps you to connect better with students.
A-2 yes, you can enroll in communication skill course if you think you are not able to connect with students
A-3 schools must hire a communication skill teacher so that students can learn this skill at the early age
