Pupils from Falconer’s Hill, or at least the ones I worked with, are explicitly taught how to show through their body language and eye-contact how they value the person they are listening to. It really worked for me and strikes me as a great skill to learn as early as possible. Often this aspect of learning seems not to be ‘unpicked’ for pupils and they are just expected to ‘pay attention’ without actually knowing the mechanics of what that means.
February 1st, 2009 at 8:16 am
Peter,
This is interesting in relation to my latest blog post:
http://advisorymatters.naaceblogs.org/2009/01/31/psychology-of-cyberspace-the-online-disinhibition-effect/
If we, as educators, don’t unpick real-world body language techniques such as eye-contact with students, then it’s very unlikely that we’ll consider teaching them online techniques for being understood clearly and precisely in that environment.
Gareth
February 5th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
[...] Year Two pupils recently visited and demonstrated a remarkable ability to appear actively attentive with their eye contact and body language. Not only were these pupils ‘hanging on my every [...]