Putting the Human Centre Stage

Putting the Human Centre Stage focuses on the hidden skills within a teacher's repertoire, such as a teacher's interpersonal skills, classroom presence, classroom atmosphere and group dynamics, importance of teacher's voice, non-verbal communication, the general affective aspects of teaching, motivation, rapport, teacher's energy and motivation, improvisation, and preparing for the unexpected. This book will enrich your teaching, prompt you to reflect on your approach, and encourage you to build a positive classroom community. There is support for the knowledge and skills-based approaches that currently exist, but in Putting the Human Centre Stage the author argues for more of a practical emphasis on the above, which many teachers and trainers deem `unteachable'. This book demonstrates that they are teachable, backing this assertion up with theory, research, and - most importantly - a wide range of practical activities that can be done individually by teachers or used by teacher trainers in a classroom training situation. Putting the Human Centre Stage is divided up into two parts: the first covers the theoretical underpinnings of this book and draws on research to critically argue that there needs to be more of a focus on being a teacher rather than the what or how. The second section puts the theory into practice and is full of exercises, activities and lesson ideas in a recipe format, designed to develop or improve teacher presence and classroom rapport, and help you build a positive classroom community. These activities can all be done by teachers individually, but many are also suitable for teacher trainers and managers involved in their teaching staff's professional development or running formal teacher training programmes.