Soft skills and emotional intelligence through ELA ACADEMY

​Nowadays, soft skills and emotional intelligence are so important in our social and work context. Concepts like assertive communication, teamwork, empathy, listening, public speaking, conflict and stress management are crucial in our life and we have worked on them during the last week in the course “Soft Skills and Emotional Intelligence for teachers and education staff”.
 
The course took place in Bologna, from 18/09/2022 to 24/09/2022. Participants came from all across Europe, with Tatjana Pintar, Irena Kokalj and Štefan Harkai from three different Slovenian schools: OsnovnašolaGorje, Center šolskih in obšolskihdejavnosti– CŠOD and OŠ Puconci respectively; Mirela Levačić Cvok from Primary School Đure Prejca Desinić in Croatia; Diāna Zurģe, Una Gaile and Toms Akmens from Tukuma Raiņa ģimnāzija in Latvia; Peter Mezei from BGSZC BGSZC Károlyi Mihály Két Tanítási Nyelvű Közgazdasági Technikum in Hungary; Beata Łukomska from Zespół Szkół Specjalnych 110 w Poznań in Poland and Marie Vanden Berghe from Heilig Hart instituut Heverlee in Belgium.

During the course we have discussed about many topics. They prepared themselves to the week discussing about their expectations, their contributions and their fears. On the first day, we started talking about the different types of emotional intelligence and empathy, so our participants had to do some very interesting activities.
 
We learned how to create a smart goals and we explored the different styles of leadership. The participants did some activities to learn how to be a good leader for their students.

​For the purpose of improving their communication skills they also had to prepare exercises of public speaking and listening, focusing on active and passive ways of being in a conversation. They learned to pay attention, to share, to reflect on each other. In summary, having good communication, especially an assertive one may be essential for teamwork, but most of it is non-verbal. We have to consider the three channels through which communication takes place. To put these skills into practice, our participants had to do a group activity in which they had to guide together a colleague to reach a common goal.
 
The last topic of this course was Conflict management. We talked about the different types of conflict and their views. In this activity they could share their own experiences, arguing about it and learning how to deal with them.

Finally, to end the course, the participants had to resolve a problem interpreting different point of views, in order to train their skill of understanding their own emotions and the emotions of others.

Last but not least, they could enjoy the cultural activities in Italy! The Renaissance in Florence, the canals of Venice, the mosaics of Ravenna, and above all the beauty of Bologna. Without a doubt, they put in very good practice the team work activity!

​Discover more about this course here