The possession of skills in any profession is a must. Skills help a professional to put theoretical knowledge into practice. Effective teachers should possess skills and competence that set them apart not only from non-professionals i.e, non-teachers but also from ineffective teachers. Effective teachers can not only do things in the classroom that others cannot, but they can also understand the relationship between their actions and the effects of those actions on the students. These days we aim to provide mass education. The teacher we need can be made available through appropriate training and education. In short, these skills can be acquired through education and training. Some of the major micro-teaching skills are as under:
- Skill of questioning: Questioning is a skill which makes the teaching-learning process more lively, effective and participatory. Questions can stimulate thinking among students construction of good questions is not an easy task. A good question is not answered in yes or no but the one which forces students to think and they try to explain it. The question provides a student with a lead to proceed further in his learning. The questions should be appropriately structured i.e. they should be concise, clear, specific and grammatically correct.
- Skill of response management: The teacher uses the answer given by the student as a tool to impart knowledge and skills to them. The teacher uses different techniques to get correct answers from the students and thus leads them to a higher level of learning. Correct answers on the part of students reinforce their learning. The skill of obtaining correct answers from the students is known as the skill of response management.
- Skill of reinforcement: Reinforcement is not only used to promote learning but also to secure the attention and provide greater motivation to the students, they feel motivated to participate with enthusiasm and initiative in instructional activities. There are four broad components of the skill of reinforcement:
- Positive verbal reinforcement: It involves the use of verbal expressions which reinforce learning, just saying Good, Yes, Well done after the student has answered.
- Positive non-verbal reinforcement: It involves the use of teachers’ gestures to reinforce the student’s behaviour. Nodding, smiling, moving toward the student, giving him an encouraging look, etc, are examples of positive non-verbal reinforcements.
- Negative verbal reinforcement: The use of certain undesirable reinforcers can strengthen the occurrence of a particular behaviour. Expressions like the look, taunt etc.
- Negative non-verbal reinforcement: The teacher uses the type of reinforcers to make students aware of certain undesirable behaviours like Frowning, nodding the head disapprovingly, moving away from the students etc.
- Skill of explaining: The skill of explaining helps the students understand concepts, principles or phenomena. A good explanation is understood by the students. The explanation should be interesting with full of examples from day-to-day life to enrich the lecture.
- Skill of illustrating: Some concepts are so abstract that explanation does not help the students understand the concepts. In such situations, the skilful teacher uses some examples to illustrate the idea, concept or principle.