A place where you can enhance your teaching skills

Do you teach something, it could be Tai Chi, martial arts, dancing, swimming, languages etc? Do you have the need to improve your teaching skills? It is good to do some reading about learning styles, so you know that not everybody has the same learning style. Learning styles consist of the visual, the verbal, the visual-verbal, the visual-nonverbal, the auditory(hearing), the auditory nonverbal, the social, the personal dependend(can learn everything when having a close relationship and sympathy for the teacher), the environment smart(learn best in nature environment), the music smart, the people smart(learn best in groups), the reflective(learn by themselves) and a whole mixture about everything.

I learnt much from Toastmasters groups. This is a nurturing group of public speakers who demonstrate and give feedback to each other. Apart from everything, they are a real nice bunch of people. I learnt how to improve my speech in public, something very important in teaching. But most important: I learned how to give the right feedback. It is a real faux-pas to correct somebody in front of a large group with a loud voice, calling their name before they finish their speech(or whatsoever). On the other hand, keep telling them that they are good and only give them praise would not make them to learn anything. Toastmasters groups really support you and you learn how to support others by giving encouraging feedback without any judgement. Everything is about praise and correction in the right balance. Does Tai Chi not actually mean balance?

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