Approaches, Methods and Techniques Used for Developing Emotional Competency in the Classroom

Abstract

Contemporary educators in schools should possess a number of competences, personal traits, subject knowledge, psychological and pedagogical knowledge, skills and teaching strategies to be able to work with pupils, consider their wide range of learning demands and special needs as well as cope with behavioural and other problems in the classroom. Social pedagogues employed in schools and teachers have to deal with emotions on a daily basis, and so they need to be emotionally intelligent. According to Goleman, major components of emotional intelligence include the awareness of our emotions, managing our own emotions, motivating ourselves, recognizing the emotions of others, empathy, and relationships management. Emotional intelligence in the context of schooling relates to the emotional side of teaching, such as the ability to recognize, define and manage pupils' emotions, to motivate them and to handle interpersonal relationships in the classroom. Emotional competency is the efficacy in social situations with an emotional content. In the article we present an empirically designed study based on data collected in a questionnaire designed for the aim of the study. The research sample includes 108 persons dealing with school pupils on a daily basis; 56 of them are teachers and 52 social pedagogues, employed in the school advisory service. The aim of the study was to investigate how often teachers and social pedagogues use different approaches, methods and techniques for developing the emotional competency of pupils in the classroom. In the article the findings are discussed within the school context and some implications are provided for the higher education of teachers and social pedagogues.