9 Ways to Teach Social Skills in Your Classroom

Research and experience have told us that social skills are essential for success. Therefore, inclusive teachers have always taught, provided, and reinforced the use of good social skills to include and accommodate the wide range of students in the classroom. 

Nearly inclusive classrooms represent the real world where people of all backgrounds and abilities co-exist. 

 

Here are some ways in which you can create a more comprehensive classroom and support social skill growth in your learners: 

 

1. Model manners

If you expect your students to learn and display good social skills, you need to lead by example. A teacher's welcoming and positive attitude sets the tone of behavior between the students. As a result, they learn how to interact with one another and value individuals. For example, teachers who expect students to use "inside voices" shouldn't be yelling at the class to get their attention. In other words, practice what you preach. 

 

2. Assign classroom jobs

Assigning classroom jobs to students provides opportunities to demonstrate responsibility, teamwork, and leadership. Jobs such as handing out papers, taking attendance, and being a line leader can highlight students' strengths and build confidence. It also helps alleviate your workload! Teachers often rotate class jobs weekly or monthly, ensuring that every student has an opportunity to participate. 

 

3. Role-play situations

As any teacher knows, it's important to teach the students a concept or lesson and then give them a chance to practice what they have learned. For example, if we teach students how to multiply, then we often provide a worksheet or activity for the students to show us their understanding of multiplication. The same holds for teaching social skills. We need to provide students with opportunities to learn and practice their social skills. An effective method of practice is through role-playing. Teachers can provide structured scenarios where the students can act out and offer immediate feedback.

 

4. Pen-pals

 

This activity was a favorite of our times on many different academic levels; most importantly, it taught students how to display social skills through written communication. Writing letters was particularly valuable for timid personalities; writing letters gave students time to collect their thoughts. It leveled the playing field for students who had special needs or were non-verbal. We can also provide structured sentence frames where the kids hold polite conversations with their pen-pal. Setting up a pen-pal program in your classroom takes some preparation before the letter-writing begins. You want to ensure that students have guidelines for content and personal safety. 

 

5. Large and small group activities

 

In addition to the academic benefits, large and small group activities can allow students to develop social skills such as partnership, goal-setting, and responsibility. Students are often assigned roles to uphold within the group, such as Reporter, Scribe, or Time-Keeper. Sometimes these groups are self-determined, and sometimes they are pre-arranged. Wisely used, group work can also help quieter students connect with others, appeals to extroverts, and reinforces respectful behavior. Examples of large group activities are group discussions, group projects, and games—narrow groups for more detailed assignments or activities. 

 

6. Big buddies

The Big Buddy program provides upper school students with knowledge and experience in general child development milestones, active communication skills, and problem-solving techniques. The Buddies meet once a week and spend time together talking, reading, or playing a game of their choice. The Big Buddies are an older friend who spends one-on-one time with the Little Buddies in the hope of helping the Little Buddies with social skills and confidence.

Big Buddies benefit from being a mentor.

They:

• Build self-confidence
• Develop empathy
• Learn new skills
• Feel needed

 

7. Writing stories Skills

 

When kids start reading and writing, they unlock a new world of imagination to explore. It's a great way for them to be creative, express themselves and practice key reading and writing skills. 

But like most kids — and adults — will tell you, writing is hard! It can be daunting to put pen to paper for the first time, and sometimes the challenge of a blank page seems too much to overpower. 

Writing shouldn't be scary for kids. Allow them to

• Use their imagination
• Think up new stories and ideas
• Share their writing with friends and family

 

 

8. Class meeting

 

Class Meetings are a wonderful way to teach students how to be diplomatic, show leadership, solve problems, and take responsibility. They are usually held weekly and are a time for students to discuss current classroom events and issues. Successful and productive meetings involve discussions centered around classroom concerns and not individual problems. In addition, it reinforces the value that each person brings to the class. Before a class meeting, teachers can provide the students with group guidelines for behavior, prompts, and sentence frames to facilitate meaningful conversation. 

 

9. Detailed instruction

 

This research found teachers with the best results spent more time reviewing previously learned concepts, checking whether students had understood concepts, and correcting misconceptions during the lesson. In addition, explicit teaching practices involve showing students what to do and how.

Like baking a cake, explicit instruction is a step-by-step process where deviating from the recipe, or omitting ingredients can have an underwhelming result. It is contrasted to a type of learning where, before students are shown the essential information, they are asked to practice a task and then discover and construct some or all of the essential information themselves. It is sometimes known as inquiry-based learning.

 

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