Interpersonal Skills in Education

Running head: INTERPERSONAL SKILLS IN EDUCATION
INTERPERSONAL SKILLS IN EDUCATION
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1INTERPERSONAL SKILLS IN EDUCATION
Communication skills are significant and essential to excel in any and every field of
discipline. Among the varied communication techniques, interpersonal communication skills of
listening, providing feedback and questioning are of utmost importance in the field of teaching.
Interpersonal communication can be defined as an exchange of information between two or more
people that seeks to comprehend how human beings use verbal as well as non verbal
communication techniques to interact with each other and accomplish their goals. It is the
dexterity of the interactive skills of the teachers, apart from academic skills, that enhances the
quality of the teacher and provides him/her with an all over development. There are three key
interpersonal communication skills, namely, active listening, effective feedback and effective
questioning which is required in a teacher for an effective learning environment and outcome.
The paper explores the importance of three mentioned key skills of interpersonal communication
in teaching profession, namely, active listening, feedback and questioning and provides its
significance in the mentioned field of profession.
The most important interpersonal skill a teacher is supposed to possess is the skills of
active and patient listening. In the clinical terms, the definition of listening in the context of
interpersonal communication is an active process in which a conscious decision is listened to
and the messages sent by the speaker, both involuntary as well as voluntary, are decoded and
understood (Hargie 2016). The skills and practices of active and effective listening in the
profession of teaching can solve innumerable problems in the classroom and can also enhance
the teacher-student relationship and bonding into much stronger one (Adler, Rodman and Du Pré
2016). For a teacher, active listening is important because the simple gesture of listening which
the teacher exhibits can highly motivate and influence a student. Active listening is important
because the act of active listening fully concentrates on what is being said at that moment rather

2INTERPERSONAL SKILLS IN EDUCATION
than just passively or casually “hearing” the speaker. From here, it has to be understood that
there is a difference between hearing and listening. While hearing focuses on one of the five
general senses in out body, listening includes cognition as well in the process of hearing.
Benefits of active listening of the teachers can include positive classroom culture which has
every possibility to turn into positive school culture where every student, be them weak or
strong, are given proper attention. Active learning can act as a catalyst in improving teaching and
learning processes. With the help of better communication and clearance of the doubts, teaching
and learning process in the classroom can be intense and satisfying to a greater extent. Impact on
the teacher-student relationship is highly optimized and accelerated with the help of a proper and
effective active listening. The learners can feel at ease and can be sure that the environment is
safe and they can express in the most prolific way in such environment. The students tend to
build a relationship of trust and bonding between themselves and the teachers which helps in an
overall development of the student-teacher companionship (McCroskey 2015).
The second most important interpersonal skill which a teacher should possess is
feedback. A feedback, in clinical managerial terms, can be defined as a receiver’s basic response
to the decoded and interpreted message (Fussell and Kreuz 2014). In the context of teaching
profession, feedback plays a very important role. Feedback is an essential part of an effective
learning. It ensures that the students get all kinds of help in understanding the subjects being
studied and it also provides them with clear guidance on how they can improve their learning
(Beck, Bennett and Wall 2013). It has been proved by certain sociological parameters that
academic feedback is considered to be more strongly and consistently related to the overall
achievement of the student than any other teaching behavior, which is not differentiated
regardless of grade, socio-economic status, race or school setting. Feedbacks have been proven