What are the key skills that - ideally - every trainer should posess? Stuart Farmer's question caught your attention and many trainers replied. Here's a selection of their advice.
Nick Hindley replied:
Good trainers have these attributes hard-wired into their muscle memory:
1. They know what the learning outcomes are that they want the learners to achieve for every sentence, phrase, exercise, session and period of learning.
2. They are able to set sensory-based indicators which tell them when the learners are achieving the planned learning outcomes, or not.
3. They constantly focus on the learners, not needing to think about the content which they could deliver in their sleep and so they are flexible with the programme in order to achieve consistent outcomes for the learners.
4. They adopt a position with their learners of guide and facilitator of learning and not the fountain of all knowledge and request the learners to accept an equal responsibility for their own learning.
5. They enable the learners to generate self-motivation for the learning and provide clear input explaining the subject being covered and how to apply it.
6. They have the ability to deliver training and be aware of their own performance, tracking the responses from the learners and then assessing these responses in order to generate improvements to future sessions.
Graham O'Connell lists these key skills:
Role skills:
Personal skills and qualities:
Organisational skills:
Andrew O'Connell adds his own list:
Essential (the more the better)
Desirable (too little of these traits hinder performance)
Traits to avoid (too much of these traits are counter productive)
View the original posting:
See more Trainer’s tips