Developing Soft Skills for Effective Classroom Teaching

1. Developing Soft Skills for Effective Classroom Teaching Dr. Binod Mishra Deptt. of Hum. & Soc. Sci. IIT Roorkee-247 667 (U.A) mishra.binod@gmail.com. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

2. Soft Skills Soft skills refers to personality traits, social graces, facility with language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that mark people to varying degrees. It complements hard skills, which are the technical requirements of a job. It can also be an important part of the success of an organization, especially if the organization is dealing with customers face to face. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

3. Role of a teacher I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

4. Requirements of Effective Teaching • Planning and preparation • Innovation and creativity • Zeal and sincerity • Passion and animation And above all, COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

5. On Teaching & Classroom Management • Teaching has to be a dialogue and not a monologue. This would mean we should have patience towards questions, no matter how silly they are. Those who are successful in these respects alone can become good teachers at this stage. V. MAHADEVA IYER in Making of a good teacher, Online edition of India's National Newspaper,TOI Tuesday, Sep 03, 2002. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

6. Varied Aspects of Soft Skills • Effective Communication Skills • Attitude • Adaptability • Team work • Conflict Management • Problem solving skills • Leadership • Time & Space • Culture and Communication Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

7. Teacher’s role in shaping students’ Soft Skills • Teachers as trainers • Teachers as facilitators • Teachers as counsellors Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

8. A teacher to his students Yesterday sitting near a great structure, I listened to an oracle ostentatiously dressed to make his presence conspicuous, affected me. The lamp of the light was eclipsed and I couldn’t activate myself. Methinks he quoth: there are cobwebs around you and the conflagration in your chamber would soon be extinguished, you’d be able to save you countenance. Don’t get lost, it’s only an irony of fate. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

9. Contd. • To be or not to be may haunt you often but then you are not a professor of the tonsorial art, you are a professor of words and words if used appropriately will bring vicissitudes in your life. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

10. FORMULA OF SUCCESS IN PUBLIC SPEAKING A Famous Lecturer` “Well”, he said in promulgating your esoteric cogitations and articulating superficial, sentimental and psychological observations,beware of platitudinous ponderosity .Let your extemporaneous decantations and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and veracious veracity with rodomontade and thrasonical bombast.Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity , pusillanimous vacuity,pestiferous profanity and similar transgressions . In short “Talk simply ,naturally and above all don’t use big words” Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

11. Components of Effective Teaching • Thorough knowledge of the subject • Effective delivery • Interactive • Awareness of present day needs Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

12. Making students products not pupils • Communication Skills (LSRW) • Time Management • Professional Ethics Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

13. Listening Skills • 60-75 percent of time spent in listening. • Hearing is a physiological activity while listening is a mental one. • Hearing requires no conscious effort. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

14. Perceptive Listening • Perceptive listening is a conscious , cognitive effort involving primarily the sense of hearing reinforced by other senses and leading to understanding. When perceptive listening is inspired by a sincere desire to understand, it becomes more than a sensory process. It is an attitude well expressed as a listening spirit. • Ernest D Nathan Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

15. Factors affecting listening • Prejudging • Ambiguity • Illusion • Rigidity Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

16. Writing • Writing business documents - be persuasive - write effectively - make your document graphically attractive - use required format Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

17. Speaking • Training in business presentations • Modes of business presentation -Manuscript - Memorized - Impromptu - Extemporaneous Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

18. Nervousness is natural • Arrive before time • Speak with your listeners • Listeners are to learn, not to judge • Pause before you speak Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

19. Speaking to excel • Ideas • Articulation • Pronunciation • Intonation: force, pitch, delivery • Silence and pauses Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

20. Using non verbals • Kinesics • Proxemics • Chronemics • Haptics • Paralanguage • Olfactics Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

21. On Silence and pauses • Pauses help both speakers and listeners • Exhibits confidence and control • Beautifies your speech Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

22. Silence ignites Thought process Reactions Introspection Decision making Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

23. The right word may be effective but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.Mark Twain Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

24. Seven steps to successful business presentation • Plan your presentation • Compose your presentation word for word • Draft an outline • Memorize the beginning and end • Practise presentation • Deliver your presentation • Evaluate your presentation Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

25. Cross Cultural Communication Process of sending and receiving messages between people of different cultural background leading them to interpret the verbal and non verbal messages differently. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

26. Culture • A common population sufficiently large enough to be self-sustaining, to produce new generations of members without relying on outside people. • Totality of that group’s thoughts, experiences and patterns of behaviour and their contact with other cultures. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

27. Cultural Shock • “Without a single grandparent or parent or uncle or aunt at her side, the babies birth, like most everything else in America, feels somehow haphazard, only half true. As she strokes and suckles and studies her son, she can’t help but pity him. She has never known of a person entering the world so alone, so deprived.” Jhumpa Lahiri , The Namesake, pp 24 -25 Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

28. Elements of culture • Symbols, rituals, values, heroes ( Hofsted) To understand a culture one needs to understand things as language and gestures, personal appearance, social relationships, religion, philosophy and values, family customs, education and communication systems. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

29. Superstition • In Mexico Saloon where people gather to drink pulque, a distillate of cactus, is considered good fortune to get worms in your cup • In Japan Maneki neko (beckoning cat) • In China Phonetic sound of 8 is most fortuitous of numbers auguring prosperity Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

30. Contd. • Hong Kong A license plate with eight number is quite valuable 4 can be read as shi , a homophone for death. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

31. Communication as an element of culture • Culture is a code we learn and share, and learning and sharing require communication. Communication requires coding and symbols that must be learned and shared. (Alfred G Smith, Communication and Culture, 1966) Culture is communication and communication is culture. -Edward T Hall Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

32. Communication Process • Context • Environment • Culture is also context. Differences among communication scholars over Berlo’s Communication model Decoding makes the receiver a subordinate An active source and a passive receiver S. J.Hayakawa Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

33. Communication Contexts • International • Face to face interactions among people of diverse cultures • Global Trans-border transfer of information by groups/institutions and government. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

34. Contd. Cross cultural Comparing phenomena across culture • Intercultural Face to face interactions among people of diverse Cultures Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

35. Major ethical theories • Western: autonomy, justice, responsibility, care • African : well being of the communicative and economic consideration over political rights • Buddhist: individualistic, patience and compassion • Hindu: Ending suffering through active intervention. Strives for the oneness of reality, for the obliteration of all distinctions including individual dualism to merge with absolute Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

36. Contd. • Islamic Different code for men and women Highly activist and interventionist Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

37. How high and low context cultures react? High context culture (Japan, China and Arab countries) Intuitive, contemplative, stress on non verbals, meaning to physical and social setting Low context culture (North America, Scandanavia, France and Germany) Logical, analytical and action oriented. Values individualism Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

38. Cultural Variables • Ethnocentrism • Education • Religious faiths • Country laws • social mores • Language • Non verbal cues: space, time, ways of greeting, touch Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

39. Some misunderstandings • Hewlett Packard episode • Mazda • Trade show exhibition • Mad mannerism How was your weekend? Arab's way of gifting German red rose Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

40. Other non verbal variations • Personal Space U.S & Canada : five feet apart Germany & Japan: uncomfortably close Arab : far apart Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

41. Saying ‘no’ • U.S & Canada: shaking heads back and forth • Bulgaria: nodding up and down • Japan: moving their right hands • Sicily: raising their chin Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

42. Other gestures • Arabs running a hand backward one’s hair Egyptians Exposing the sole of shoe Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

43. Gender Differences • Language of women Support and affiliation Tentativeness Tags Intonation Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

44. Communicating across Cultures • Avoid belittling the cultural identity of others • Maintain /respect cultural differences • Encourage people of other culture to express themselves in uniqueness • Allow right of expression • Emphasize the commonalities of cultural beliefs and values rather than their differences Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

45. Some other dangers • Language of ethics and prejudices and racism • Language of othering Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

46. Stairs to success in cross cultural communication • Personality strength: self concept, self disclosure, self motivation, social relaxation • Communication Skills • Psychological adjustment: culture shocks • Cultural awareness Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

47. Things to remember • Culture and communication are strongly connected. • Us gives higher status to speakers. • Asian culture views communication as co-operation to make meanings. • Positive communication approach always pays. Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

48. Tips for effective teaching • Making adequate use of aids • Creating a rapport with the help of effective eye control and adequate use of voice • Ignoring smiles, whispers under the impression of optimism • Making use of tags and simple questions • Situating relevant humour • Personalizing certain examples • Exemplifying more than theorizing • Showing eagerness to take questions • Avoiding insulting remarks Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

49. To sum up A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honourable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. George Bernard Shaw Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM

50. Works Consulted • Jandt, Fred E. An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: identities in a Global Community. New Delhi: Sage Publications. 2007 • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization • http://shipsbecks.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/cross-cultural-marketing.jpg • Sharma Sangeeta & Binod Mishra. Communication Skills for Engineers & Scientists. New Delhi: PHI India. 2009 Role of Soft Skills in Effective Teaching / BM