The Art of Connecting: Communication Skills Training for Teachers, School Counselors, and Education Administrators
Instructor: José Angel Santana, PhD
Since the advent of smartphone communications, skills for high-quality face-to-face engagement have become seriously at risk in education today. There is growing conversation and research about how prolonged time on social media has an isolating effect of on young people. Due to the seemingly perpetual demands and distractions of mobile/cell phone devices, there is a greater need for excellent verbal and non-verbal communication skill development than ever before.
This course is designed to satisfy each individual participant’s need to deepen their ability to listen, learn, and teach high-quality face-to-face engagement lessons. Participants will learn through modeling, improvisation, and practical exercises. The course focuses on improving interpersonal engagement by improving participants’ ability to communicate with poise, effectiveness, and responsiveness to another person’s present moment behavior, thoughts, feelings, and needs. Participants will learn how to listen with empathy and to communicate with authentic expressiveness.
Participants will practice highly engaging interactive exercises in a non-judgmental, supportive environment. Students will learn how to concentrate on the here and now between people with sensitivity and authenticity in the present moment with others. Participants will learn how to recognize and value others with the thought in mind “that people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
This course teaches and models how to inspire others’ self-expression, self-awareness, and self-development. From start to finish, the instructor will teach and model how to create and maintain an educational climate that is conducive to collaboration, where participants are open to enjoying new experiences while learning to trust themselves and others.
This course's pedagogy draws from the instructor's forty years of professional interdisciplinary practice toward the aim of improving human relations. Presently, Dr. Santana is a Professor of Directing Actors for Film at Columbia University Graduate Film School and teaches his Communication Skills Training course (The Art of Connecting) for executives from the worlds’ leading media companies at the School of Visual Art in New York City. His doctoral work in the area of reaching at-risk teenagers, “Honoring Dionysus: Listening Deeply to Young People’s Lives also informs this course, as does his work as the exclusive Inter-Active Teaching Instructor for the US Army Central Electronic Command (CECOM).
TARGET AUDIENCE:
Teachers: primary, secondary, vocational, adult, special needs; Teacher trainers; Careers officers, educational guides and counsellors; Headteachers; Principals; Managers of schools
COURSE LOCATIONS/SESSIONS:
*Regrettably, due to the worldwide outbreak of COVID19, all 2021 in-person workshops are currently postponed until further notice. We plan to resume as soon as it is safe to do so. We will update you as things progress.
Florence: TBD
COURSE DETAILS:
Length of the course: 1 week Mon -Sat;
Course Schedule: 9:00 - 14:00 (first turn) or 14:00 - 19:00 (second turn)
Number of participants: max. 14;
Cultural activities included: City Guided Tour and 1 day Excursion;
Price: € 480,00
To make a reservation for this course, please click here to fill out our online application.
You will then receive confirmations from TESOL Drama and Europass Teacher Academy. Please do not book flights or accommodations until you receive a final confirmation from Europass Teacher Academy.
*Accommodation and airfare are not included in the price. Participants must book their own airfares. Please let us know if you need assistance with accommodation.