Title: Develop your Training Skills
Author: Leslie Rae
Publisher: Kogan Page
Date: 2001
Format: Paperback, 184 pages
Price: £16.95
ISBN: 0749435917
Buy this book from the TrainingZONE - Blackwells book shop.
If I had to recommend just one book for the bookshelf of any new trainer this would surely be the one! Despite the proliferation of books on the topic of training I can't think of another handy to use 'primer' that does the job as well as this, the 30th book from the pen of Leslie Rae.
In just 184 pages 'Develop your Training Skills' manages to cover most of what a newly appointed trainer would need to know and, what's more, it does it in a language and style that ensures the reader will want to come back for more.
The book's eleven chapters cover:
- Getting Started and Moving On
- What Is a Trainer?
- The Input Session
- How Do I Get Them to Listen?
- Using Training Aids
- Other Training Aids
- More Than Just Talking
- More Training Activity Approaches
- In-company Training
- People in Training
- Coping with People
Experienced trainers will find no surprises in the content of this book - most train the trainer programmes will deal with similar themes - and that's as it should be for it covers what needs to be covered (indeed, the book could be a very useful replacement for many of the handouts used on train the trainer programmes). However, what will surprise is the realisation that all this can be dealt with so succinctly in only 184 pages. Of course, there are dangers in simplifying what can be quite complex topics but this is a book for beginners and, seen in that light, I really can't fault it and I only wish it had been available to me when I started my career in training.
In short, a well-constructed, eminently readable primer and, at this price, a bargain 'must buy' for the new trainer. I sense a best seller in the making.
'Develop your Training Skills' was reviewed by Jeff Brooks
Director of the Institute for Training and Occupational Learning (ITOL).
