IDENTIFYING ESSENTIAL TEACHING SKILLS

Educationists all over the world have started realizing that only securing enough teachers will not do but more important is securing teachers with right type of knowledge, skills and attitude. A teacher may have abundant knowledge but the right way of conveying units of knowledge to the students can make him competent teacher. For this he needs to expertise over the teaching skills. Teaching has its repertoire of skills. Over the years efforts are being made to identify the essential teaching skills which a competent and effective teacher should have. There are many sources of information for identifying these skills. All those concerned with initial and in-service teacher training, those concerned to monitor the standard and quality of teaching, those involved in schemes of teacher appraisal, those involved in research have produced a massive literature about classroom teaching skills. This paper highlights the different areas of teaching skills identified with the help of these sources of information.