ABSTRACT
Self-awareness is an integral part of emotional intelligence, and one of the most difficult aspects of developing self-awareness is to confront your prejudices. The swift reaction of most teachers when asked if they have any prejudices towards others would be to say that they treat all equally. However, it is impossible to be unbiased and we are all tempted to categorize others. This can be on the basis of gender, accent, age, appearance and so on. Prejudices distort our understanding of others. To assume a set of characteristics based on one factor means that you will be less able to assess accurately who that person is. In addition to these assumed characteristics that derive from prejudice, you may have quite legitimate preferences in terms of which types of learners you prefer to work with. For example, you may have preferences for learners when you perceive that their values or attitudes match your own.
