Teacher Awareness Series I: Part 2 – Eye Contact

by Jean Schedler, Ph.D. Educational Consultant

Once the students are familiar and comfortable with establishing eye contact during verbal exchanges with the teacher, start noting the clarity of the student’s oral language.

Does the student articulate individual words, or does he/she drop word endings, or speak with his hand over his mouth, or slur the words together?

As we go through the Teacher Awareness Series – we will continually come back to this article about Eye Contact.

Students need to have eye contact with you – the teacher. You are the role model for concise, clear oral language, word pronunciation, and listening behaviour.

You need to have eye contact with individual students so you are able to identify, provide intervention and practice for accurate production of individual sounds within words.

This week practice listening skills and establishing eye contact. Note three students in your class who are excellent listeners and have clear oral language. Note three students in your class who need practice becoming good listeners and often “muddle” their words while speaking. Your first task is to “identify” students who need practice in listening and speaking clearly.

Then have fun with eye contact! Effective eye contact will improve classroom behaviour and disciplinary concerns – but I also made sure that every “behavioural control” statement was followed by at least two positive comments during the day.

I would watch the “unruly” student with vigilance – so as to “catch” him in the act of doing something “right”. As soon as he did something “right” – I would call his name, establish eye contact and then quietly provide a positive statement of what he had just done that was “correct” – even if it was something as simple as putting away his pencil when instructed.

The end result was that when I called a student’s name, he was quick to look me in the eye – hoping a positive comment might be headed his way!

 To learn more about Dr Schedler’s September 2009 Workshops and Training in Reading intervention materials (Sonday System) contact Read Auckland info@readauckland.co.nz or telephone 09-529 1381.