Part 2: Understanding Performative Skills in Education

If we want to defend the importance of the human teacher, it is not enough to say that teaching is “human”, “relational” or “creative”. These words matter, but they can also remain vague. We need to be more specific.

What exactly does a human embodied teacher do?

What are the skills involved?

And how can we make these skills visible in teacher education?

This is where I have started using the term performative skills.

Performative skills are the embodied, relational and responsive abilities teachers use to create learning as a live event. They are the skills through which teachers animate content, build trust, shape attention and respond to the unpredictable reality of classroom life.

They include, for example, presence.

Presence is not simply “confidence”. It is the ability to be fully there with learners: grounded, attentive, open and available. A teacher with presence does not need to dominate the room. Presence can be quiet. It can be calm. It can be playful. It is the sense that the teacher is genuinely with the group rather than merely moving through a plan.

They include attunement.

Attunement is the ability to sense what is happening in the room and adjust accordingly. It involves noticing mood, rhythm, energy, anxiety, confusion, resistance and engagement. It is what allows a teacher to slow down, move on, pause, reframe, encourage, challenge or simply wait.

They include timing.

Timing is central to teaching, but we rarely talk about it explicitly. When do you intervene? When do you hold back? How long do you allow silence? When does an activity need more time, and when has its energy gone? When is a joke helpful, and when does it distract? Teaching depends on thousands of small timing decisions.

They include voice.

Teachers use voice not only to explain, but to shape atmosphere. Voice can energise, calm, invite, signal seriousness, create suspense, offer reassurance or mark transition. Tone, pace, volume, pause and emphasis all affect how learners experience the classroom.

They include gesture and body awareness.

A teacher’s body communicates constantly. Where we stand, how we move, how we use our hands, whether we sit or stand, how close we are to learners, whether we seem open or closed — all of these shape classroom interaction. Body awareness is not about performing a role; it is about becoming conscious of the messages we send.

They include spatial awareness.

Classrooms are not neutral containers. They are social spaces. The arrangement of chairs, the teacher’s position, movement patterns, grouping, distance and orientation all influence participation. A performative teacher understands that space can include or exclude, energise or inhibit.

They include responsiveness.

Responsiveness is the ability to work with what emerges. Learners misunderstand, laugh, resist, surprise us, ask unexpected questions, make emotional disclosures, take activities in new directions. Teaching is never fully scripted. The human teacher has to improvise.

They include playfulness.

Playfulness is not the same as being unserious. It is the willingness to explore, experiment and create a temporary world in which learners can take risks. Drama activities, role play, games and imaginative tasks depend on this quality, but so does much effective classroom interaction.

They include ensemble-building.

A class is not just a collection of individuals. It is a group with its own energy, relationships and patterns of participation. Teachers help build the ensemble. They create conditions in which learners listen to each other, respond to each other and begin to feel responsible for the shared learning space.

They include emotional and relational awareness.

Teachers work with human vulnerability. Learners may feel embarrassed, anxious, exposed, bored, excited, resistant or proud. Language learning in particular often involves risk: speaking in a new language, making mistakes, being heard by others. Performative skills help teachers hold this emotional complexity.

None of these skills exists separately from teaching knowledge. They do not replace planning, language awareness, methodology or assessment. But they bring these things to life.

A perfectly planned lesson can still fail if the teacher cannot read the room. A useful activity can fall flat if the timing is wrong. A clear explanation can be ignored if the teacher has not established attention. A communicative task can feel unsafe if the group has not developed trust.

This is why performative skills matter.

They are not decorative extras. They are part of the craft of teaching.

The problem is that teacher education often treats them indirectly. We may comment that a trainee needs “more presence”, “better rapport”, “clearer instructions” or “more confidence”, but we do not always break these qualities down into teachable components. As a result, trainees may experience them as personality judgments rather than developable skills.

A performative framework can help change that.

It allows us to say: presence can be practised. Voice can be explored. Gesture can be noticed. Timing can be rehearsed. Spatial choices can be analysed. Responsiveness can be developed. Trust can be built through carefully sequenced activity. Group energy can be shaped.

In other words, the human dimensions of teaching can become part of teacher education.

Not as abstract values.

Not as charisma.

As practice.