NLP and Classroom Management
Teaching Today …
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A fundamental requirement for teachers today is the ability to operate successfully within an environment that is increasingly characterised by a range of issues that include challenging behaviour, discipline, negative attitudes and poor student engagement.
In addition, many schools and colleges are finding that many of the strategies that worked well in the past are now ineffective. They are left with outmoded and futile disciplinary and enforcement policies and processes to manage challenging behaviour, and at the same time are pressured to retain students in order to ensure they achieve.
Schools and colleges are, in short, penalised from carrying out these policies to successful conclusion under existing funding constraints. Any attempts to deal with challenging behaviour using these traditional means are consequently seen by students as empty and hollow, whilst failing to improve the teacher-student relationship. At the same time, many more students now display negative attitudes to learning.
Meanwhile, poor student behaviour is seen as top irritant for FE lecturers according to a recent Institute for Learning (IfL) survey, leading to issues of staff retention, morale and performance for schools and colleges. This behaviour may be exhibited in low-level disturbance, chattering, attention seeking behaviour, swearing, bickering, aggression, intimidation, refusal to engage or refusal to participate. The impact this has on staff retention and morale will, in turn, increase recruitment costs, create issues with parental satisfaction, increase agency costs, and reduce the quality of overall provision.
Finally, all of this is taking place at a time when student-centred learning has quite rightly taken centre stage as part of best-practice. However, in order for student-centred learning to be effective, two things need to happen. Firstly, students need to be equipped with the skills they need to work collaboratively. Secondly, lecturers themselves need to be able to successfully facilitate activities with large groups of learners. Failure to address each of these properly will lead to greater disaffection, contributing to the increase in behavioural problems.
Teaching today requires a new set of strategies.
Neuro-Linguisitc Programming (NLP) is now emerging as a valuable source of tools, techniques and skills that can equip educational professionals with a wide range of strategies they need to operate successfully.
NLP now forms part of the fast-track teacher training programme. It is rapidly attracting attention as a set of practical principles, approaches, techniques and strategies that can radically enhance classroom management practices. In a recent TES article, NLP was stated as being “essentially a set of communication skills, used to build rapport between individuals and groups. In a classroom, that is incredibly useful.”
What is NLP?
NLP has been defined as “the study of excellence” and is a set of principles, approaches, skills and techniques that helps us to understand how we experience and make sense of the world around us.
NLP enables us to explore how our patterns of thinking, language and behaviour all arise from this way in which we make sense of the world. More importantly, NLP helps us to determine what works in our thinking, language and behaviour – and what we can do to ensure we do more of it – so we can achieve the results that we really want on a consistent basis.. NLP also helps us to recognise those aspects of our thinking, language and behaviour that don’t work, so we can create more choices for ourselves and find strategies that work with us.
Much of NLP is directly concerned with how we can communicate more effectively with others, and it provides a wealth of practical strategies that can be used to make significant improvements in teaching practice.
Latest Addition to Watt Works NLP Training
In addition to our published 3-day course on NLP for Classroom Management (see the Training pages or Courses pages), Watt Works is pleased to offer a One-day Staff Development programme for schools and colleges, outlining a range of practical NLP strategies to enhance and improve classroom management skills.
The one-day ‘NLP for Classroom Management’ staff development programme opens the door to being able to change the way you think about and approach the development and learning of your students, and maximise the effectiveness of both teaching and learning. At the same time, you will find the strategies provided are equally applicable to other areas of your personal and professional life, and you will begin to understand how NLP may be a powerful tool for creating positive change.
The programme is available as either a whole-day programme or as two x 3-hour sessions, and provides an overview in the use of NLP within a teaching and classroom management context.
A variety of concepts will be covered and concrete strategies in the following areas may be provided:
- Establishing and Maintaining Rapport
- Communicating Effectively
- Language Patterns for Influence and Persuasion
- Importance of State – Self and Student
- Dealing with Challenging Behaviour
- Use of Metaphor and Story-Telling as a Powerful Aid
We’re booking sessions now for the Summer, so contact us to find out more.
Tags: achievement, challenging behaviour, classroom management, collaboration, communication, discipline, education, fast-track PGCE, learning, metaphor, morale, NLP, patterns, performance, rapport, retention, state, story-telling, student engagement, study of excellence, TES
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