ABSTRACT
This book is based on the premise that emotions are bound up with learning, and so being able to read and respond to your learners’ feelings is a core component of using emotional intelligence in teaching. There will be times when learners convey feelings to you, intentionally or otherwise. To use emotional intelligence in your teaching includes showing that you can read, acknowledge and respond to these feelings, especially the negative ones. Indeed, if you have taken the steps suggested in earlier chapters to provide the right environment, learners will be more likely to express their feelings. Be ready to attend to this and to have dialogue with your learners that is about their feelings, to the extent that those feelings are bound up with their learning. This includes attempting to take account of how they feel even if they are not necessarily expressing this strongly. Activity 8.2 below, ‘demonstrating group empathy’, is an example of this.
