{"id":2211,"date":"2014-12-17T12:21:31","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T12:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.langlion.com\/?p=2211"},"modified":"2014-12-17T12:21:31","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T12:21:31","slug":"emotional-intelligence-what-can-it-give-to-a-course-instructor-and-school-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.langlion.com\/en\/emotional-intelligence-what-can-it-give-to-a-course-instructor-and-school-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional Intelligence: what can it give to a course instructor and school director?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20141106_inteligencja_emocjonalna\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Without a good command of a language, you cannot be a course instructor. Without good management skills, you cannot be the boss. This is clear \ud83d\ude42\u00a0<\/strong>But there\u2019s much more than that. Professional successes come easily to some teachers but are much harder to achieve for others. Some are so much sought-after by employers and course participants while others are not. Why? How does that happen? What can we do ourselves to fall into the former category? We all keep asking ourselves those questions, although some only inwardly \ud83d\ude42<\/strong>\u00a0Therefore we have tried to look for answers to them. \u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Now we would like to ask how many of you know the notion of emotional intelligence<\/strong>. Do you what this term denotes? How can it be useful in daily life, both professional and private one? Although I know that I will not obtain an answer, I encourage all of you to answer the question for yourselves. And now let\u2019s get to business.<\/p>\n

A human being and his\/her talents have fascinated the mankind for a long time.\u00a0The history of the world is written through willingness to understand the world around us<\/strong>.\u00a0It is also quote normal to aim at understanding ourselves better<\/strong>. This is why Intelligence Quotient<\/strong> (so-called IQ) tests were created, mainly to study the ability to think logically and draw conclusions<\/strong>. However with time it turned out that studying IQ does not suffice to determine whether a given person will be successful, e.g. in professional life. Researchers proved that there are many type of intelligence<\/strong> related to various skills, not just the one enabling solutions of logical puzzles.<\/p>\n

One of them is emotional intelligence (so-called EQ [Emotional Quotient] or EI [Emotional Intelligence])<\/strong>, i.e. the ability to identify emotional states \u2013 both of our own and those of other persons. It is also the ability to use own emotions in social situations and to cope with emotional states of other people. Emotional intelligence also denotes empathy, i.e. understanding the emotion of other people. So much for the theory. And what is the practice like? Do you know why emotional intelligence is important?\u00a0A person with high IQ but low EQ is likely to cope very poorly in professional life<\/strong>. This is attributable to the fact that their career development is blocked by difficulty in building relations with people. They have the talent, knowledge and skills, but are unable to communicate properly, to get on together with a team or with course participants. As a result whatever they do is countered with resistance, refusal \u2013 in a nutshell, with an effect exactly opposite to the intended one. Extreme cases of such people are e.g. psychopathic serial killers. Do you remember\u00a0 the Hannibal Lecter character of the \u201eSilence of the lambs\u201d? This is an example of a highly intelligent and well-educated person who is unable to recognise emotions and unable to empathise with the feelings of other people. In the case of the said character, the correlation between those two intelligence types is null.<\/p>\n

Are you wondering what is the use of emotional intelligence for a language course instructor?<\/strong>\u00a0You can say that students do not have to like the teacher. They are just supposed to learn the language. Therefore a teacher must first of all know the language well and be a good educator. But while the technical aspect is very important, it is worthwhile remembering that\u00a0teaching is not just books, exercises and tests<\/strong>, but it also involves human relations. Student will not want to learn from someone whom that simply don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n

The issue of \u201cbeing likable\u201d in a language school is not a straightforward one. We don\u2019t want<\/strong> the course instructor to be joking throughout the entire class, trying to please the students at all cost<\/strong>. So how to do that? Emotional intelligence to the rescue. Owing to the right skills, besides the ability to perform methodical classes, the course instructor tries to perceive and recognise the emotions of course participants, understand them and respond adequately. A good course instructor respects his\/her students and their attitude expresses such respect. He\/she pays attention to the students, interacts with them, tries to help overcome difficulties in learning. Well, nobody\u2019s perfect. A person with high EQ knows this perfectly. He\/she recognises when they perform poorly are even badly. They are able to admit this to themselves but also to apologise to their course participants because they know that such gesture is a sign of strength, and not of weakness, as is sometimes assumed.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t make any sense to pretend that this is easy.\u00a0Emotional intelligence requires a lot of work of us<\/strong>. It happens sometimes that a course instructor is not very fond of his\/her students. Not liking a few students is quite natural. Well! You can even detest the entire group. The trick is that a person with high EQ understands where his\/her antipathy comes from, is able to accept it and continue to focus effectively on the entrusted educational mission. Such a person understands that apprentices need a master, who is a role model for them and who believes in them. Nothing positive can follow from unconstructive criticism, which only results in proverbial \u201cclipping of the wings\u201d, weakening of motivation and contributes to growing antipathy.<\/p>\n

Here I can recommend a statement heard during a TED conference, a story of Rita Pierson<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 an inspirational teacher with 40 years of experience:<\/p>\n