ACT conducted an Informative Workshop on Counselling Skills for Teachers

Asian College of Teachers (ACT) conducted an interactive workshop on ‘Counselling Skills for Teachers’ on 13th May, 2022 at ACT Kolkata Centre. The workshop was facilitated by Dr Mala (Dasgupta) Sengupta. Dr Sengupta is an educator and examiner with more than 25 years of experience and a commitment to high quality teaching and pedagogical practices. Apart from being proficient in teaching, assessment and designing curriculum, she’s also an expert in counselling students, parents, teachers, conducting workshops and training teachers.

Studies suggest that young learners are prone to experiencing emotional and behavioural issues which can create significant barriers to learning and social interaction. The workshop made it a point to shed light on various topics like detecting behavioural problems of the students, understanding the factors behind the adverse behavioural problems of the learners, primary counselling techniques employed by the teachers etc. Dr Sengupta explained that as learners spend countless hours at school, they tend to end up communicating more with teachers and thus, the educators turn out to be valuable resources for them in need of behavioural, emotional and academic intervention. The workshop focused on acquainting the attendees with effective counselling skills which will benefit them to detect the cause of uncivil behaviours and be aware of the ways to make the students express themselves and understand the reasons behind certain behaviours. The workshop was one of a kind as it covered the fundamental techniques of counselling which a teacher can employ to provide extra support to the students, especially after the pandemic with children getting back to schools after a prolonged period.

Keeping in mind the current demands in the respective domain, the interactive workshop covered pertinent areas and also put emphasis on other raging issues in contemporary times. ACT designed the workshop with the basic objective of making 21st century educators feel confident and develop counselling skills and implement counselling techniques effectively in today’s classrooms.