ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests various different ways of improving response to need in group teaching, by increasing the teacher's information on what these needs may be, by involving members of the group in helping one another, and by facing controversial topics in such a way as to illustrate problems rather than give pat answers. All these strategies have in common an emphasis on the teacher thinking seriously about what her group may contribute to the teaching session, and how she may help them to do this, rather than being preoccupied by her own performance in isolation. The chapter shows in which teaching based on an assessment could be developed from existing patterns of work. One technique which can help to solve he teaching problems both of the inexperienced, non-contributing, parent and the parent with strong existing views of emotional blocks is that of 'pitch'. Antenatal classes are mixed in ability, age, social class, experience of parenthood, and increasingly include both sexes.
