Teaching Presence in the Age of AI: Developing Performative Skills in Teacher Education
Over the last couple of years, many conversations about AI and education have focused on what AI can do.
It can generate lesson plans. It can produce explanations. It can write comprehension questions. It can suggest feedback. It can create role cards, discussion prompts, grammar practice, vocabulary quizzes and course outlines.
For teachers and teacher educators, this is both exciting and unsettling. If AI can produce so much of the visible “content” of teaching, then what remains for the teacher? What is distinctively human about teaching? And what kinds of teacher ability should we now be paying more attention to?
These questions have led me back to something I have been researching and working with for many years: the performative dimension of teaching.
By “performative”, I do not mean theatrical in the sense of artificial, exaggerated or entertaining. I mean the embodied, relational and responsive work teachers do when they are physically and emotionally present with learners. Teaching is not simply the delivery of information. It is a live human event.
A teacher notices.
A teacher feels the energy in the room.
A teacher senses when learners are confused, anxious, playful, resistant, tired or ready.
A teacher adjusts timing, voice, space, gesture, silence and pace.
A teacher creates trust.
A teacher invites participation.
A teacher holds attention.
A teacher repairs moments of uncertainty.
A teacher responds to what is happening between people.
These things are easy to overlook because they are often not written down in lesson plans. They are not always assessed explicitly on teacher-training courses. They do not fit neatly into categories such as aims, procedures, interaction patterns or anticipated problems. Yet they often determine whether a lesson feels alive or flat, safe or tense, mechanical or meaningful.
When we remember teachers who had an impact on us, we do not usually remember their worksheets. We remember how they made us feel. We remember their presence, their humour, their attention, their patience, their confidence, their way of inviting us into the learning. We remember moments when they saw us, challenged us, encouraged us or created a classroom atmosphere in which something became possible.
This is where the AI question becomes useful. AI may be able to produce impressive educational content, but it cannot fully enter the shared embodied space of a classroom. It cannot feel the hesitation before a learner speaks. It cannot sense the fragile moment when a group begins to trust each other. It cannot use silence, eye contact, proximity, humour or vulnerability in the way a human teacher can. It cannot participate in the emotional life of the room.
Of course, this does not mean AI has no place in education. It may become a powerful tool for planning, materials design, language support, feedback and reflection. But the rise of AI should make us more interested, not less interested, in the human dimensions of teaching.
The danger is that we respond to AI by becoming more mechanical ourselves: more efficient, more content-driven, more output-focused. The opportunity is different. We can use this moment to ask what teaching really is when it is not reduced to information transfer.
This is where I think performative pedagogy has something important to offer teacher education.
It gives us a language for talking about the teacher as an embodied presence. It helps us notice the role of voice, body, timing, rhythm, space, gesture, attention, imagination, emotional attunement and relationship. It reminds us that learning is not only cognitive; it is social, affective, physical and aesthetic.
Most importantly, it suggests that these human skills are not simply personal qualities. They are not mysterious gifts possessed only by naturally charismatic teachers. They can be identified. They can be practised. They can be developed.
If AI is forcing us to ask what human teachers are for, then one possible answer is this:
Human teachers create the conditions in which learning becomes a shared, embodied and meaningful experience.
That is not a small thing. It may be the heart of the work.
What does the ITI Train the Trainer course involve?
It is an eight-week, part-time online course for experienced English language teachers who want to begin supporting the development of other teachers.
Participants:
• complete practical weekly tasks; • attend two live Zoom sessions; • develop skills in training-session design, observation and feedback; • have opportunities to deliver live training workshops; • receive constructive feedback on their training practice.
There is no formal examination or lengthy final written assignment. Participants who complete the compulsory requirements receive an ITI Certificate of Completion.
The course begins on 24 August, and applications close on 21 August.
More than 240 people registered for ITI’s recent From Teacher to Trainer webinar, with over 70 teachers joining us live. The level of interest suggested that many experienced teachers are thinking about how they might begin supporting the development of their colleagues.
Moving into teacher training can seem like a natural progression. Experienced teachers possess classroom knowledge, practical ideas and a considerable repertoire of teaching techniques. However, being an effective teacher does not automatically make someone an effective teacher trainer. Training requires a shift in our role, our relationships and, perhaps most importantly, the way we use our experience.
Teaching and training are different
When we teach learners, we usually work within a structure created by a curriculum, syllabus or coursebook. We make many decisions on the learners’ behalf: what they need to learn, which activities they will complete and how their progress will be assessed.
When we work with teachers, our role is less directive. Teacher development cannot simply be delivered to someone. Teachers bring their own experience, beliefs, knowledge, personalities and professional identities to the process. The trainer’s role is to create the conditions in which they can examine their teaching, identify their needs and make informed decisions about their development.
This means moving from giving answers to facilitating thinking.
Some people prefer the term teacher educator, while others describe themselves as trainers, mentors, coaches, academic managers or Directors of Studies. These roles are not identical, but they share an important purpose: helping teachers understand and develop their practice.
What do teacher trainers do?
Teacher trainers generally work in three interconnected areas.
1. Designing and facilitating workshops
Training workshops provide structured opportunities for teachers to encounter new ideas, examine their existing beliefs and share their experiences.
An effective workshop is not simply a lecture about teaching. It should model good learning by involving participants actively, drawing on their knowledge and giving them opportunities to apply ideas to their own contexts.
2. Observing teaching
Observation helps trainers and teachers gather evidence about what happens in the classroom. It can reveal patterns that may be difficult for a teacher to notice while managing a lesson.
Observation should not be treated simply as inspection or evaluation. Used developmentally, it provides a focus for reflection and a starting point for professional dialogue.
3. Facilitating feedback
Feedback is not merely a trainer telling a teacher what was good or bad about a lesson. Its purpose is to help the teacher understand what happened, consider the effect on learning and decide what to do next.
Unless feedback leads to reflection and purposeful action, it is unlikely to produce lasting development.
Four temptations facing new trainers
When experienced teachers become trainers, their knowledge can sometimes become an obstacle. We naturally want to be helpful, but being helpful does not always mean providing an immediate solution.
There are four common temptations.
1. Giving the answer too quickly
A teacher describes a problem and we immediately explain what they should do. The advice may be sensible, but the teacher has not necessarily understood the problem or developed a solution they believe in.
Advice is more likely to be remembered and applied when the teacher has participated in creating it.
This does not mean that trainers should never offer ideas. It means that we should not give an answer before allowing the teacher to think.
2. Demonstrating our own solution
Experienced trainers often have a large collection of successful activities and techniques. It is tempting to say, “This is what I did with my class last week.”
Sharing experience can be useful, but our solution was developed for our learners, personality and teaching context. It may not transfer successfully to another teacher’s classroom.
Instead of presenting our approach as the answer, we can offer it as one possibility and invite the teacher to evaluate or adapt it.
3. Beginning with an evaluation
Imagine beginning a feedback meeting by saying:
“Your teacher talking time was too high.”
Even if the observation is accurate, the statement invites the teacher either to agree or disagree. If the teacher responds, “I don’t think it was,” the conversation can quickly become an argument between two opinions.
A more productive starting point is to explore what happened:
What were the learners doing during that stage?
What opportunities did they have to speak?
How long did the explanation take?
What effect did this have on their participation?
These questions establish a shared account of the lesson before either person evaluates it.
4. Prescribing a technique
Telling a teacher to use group work, change an activity or adopt a particular technique may appear practical. However, teaching decisions are influenced by deeply held beliefs.
A teacher may believe that group work is unsuitable because learners use their first language. Simply instructing the teacher to use group work is unlikely to change that belief. The trainer needs to understand it, explore the evidence behind it and help the teacher identify a manageable experiment.
Professional development involves more than collecting techniques. It often requires us to examine the beliefs that shape our decisions.
A three-stage framework for developmental feedback
A useful feedback conversation can move through three stages: evidence, analysis and action.
Stage 1: Evidence—what happened?
Begin by establishing a description of the lesson.
Questions might include:
What instructions did you give?
How did you organise the groups?
What did the learners do next?
What evidence suggested that they understood the task?
Who participated and who did not?
This stage keeps the discussion grounded in observable events rather than judgments.
For example, imagine that a role play did not work successfully. Some groups were uneven, learners read their role cards aloud and much of the discussion took place in their first language.
Beginning with “Your instructions were unclear” is an evaluation. Asking “What instructions did you give?” allows the teacher to reconstruct the lesson and begin noticing possible causes.
Stage 2: Analysis—why did it happen?
Once trainer and teacher have established what happened, they can explore why it happened and what effect it had on learning.
Questions might include:
Which parts of the activity worked as you expected?
Where did the learners experience difficulty?
Why do you think that happened?
What effect did the groupings have?
What helped or prevented learners from completing the task?
What would you change if you taught the lesson again?
The trainer’s job is not to lead the teacher towards a predetermined answer. It is to remain genuinely curious. Our initial interpretation may be incomplete or wrong.
Stage 3: Action—what could happen next?
Reflection becomes developmental when it results in action.
The final stage helps the teacher identify alternatives and decide what to try:
How could you set up the activity differently?
What could you do to check that the instructions are understood?
Which alternative would be realistic with this class?
What will you try in your next lesson?
What evidence will show you whether it worked?
The teacher remains the decision-maker. The trainer can contribute ideas, but these are possibilities to consider rather than instructions to follow.
A simple way to remember the framework is:
What happened? → Why did it happen? → What will you try next?
Relationships come before techniques
Questioning frameworks are useful, but teacher development is not a mechanical process. The success of a feedback conversation depends heavily on the relationship between the trainer and the teacher.
Effective trainers need presence, empathy, active listening and genuine curiosity. They also need the courage to raise difficult issues when necessary.
Different teachers require different kinds of support. A new teacher may need encouragement and greater structure. A highly experienced teacher may expect a more equal, exploratory conversation. A teacher who appears resistant may have had previous experiences of observation that felt judgmental or threatening.
There is no single feedback formula that will work with everyone. Trainers need to respond to the person in front of them.
Trust does not mean avoiding difficult feedback. It creates the conditions in which difficult issues can be explored productively.
Development requires experimentation
Teaching is complex, and it is rarely useful to ask a teacher to reflect on an entire lesson at once. Reflection becomes more productive when it has a clear focus.
The teacher might examine instructions, learner participation, questioning, group organisation or responses to learner errors. They can then:
identify what happened;
consider its effect on learning;
explore possible alternatives;
try something different;
gather evidence and reflect again.
Professional learning therefore involves experimentation. Not every new approach will work immediately, but an unsuccessful experiment can still provide valuable information.
The aim is not to produce teachers who depend on trainers for answers. It is to help teachers become increasingly able to analyse their own classrooms, make informed decisions and take responsibility for their continuing development.
Are you ready to move from teacher to trainer?
ITI’s Train the Trainer course is an eight-week, part-time online professional-development programme for experienced English language teachers who want to support less experienced colleagues.
Participants learn how to identify teachers’ development needs, plan and facilitate training sessions, observe lessons and conduct developmental feedback. The course includes guided online study, compulsory practical tasks, two live Zoom sessions and opportunities to deliver live workshops and receive feedback on their training.
There is no formal examination or final written assessment. Participants who complete the compulsory tasks receive an ITI Certificate of Completion and are qualified to train teachers on selected ITI courses, subject to the requirements of the particular course.
The next course begins on 24 August 2026.
Duration: Eight weeks
Study commitment: Approximately four to six hours per week
Course fee: £385
Application deadline: 21 August 2026
If you are ready to move beyond developing learners and begin developing teachers, the Train the Trainer course will help you build the practical skills, confidence and reflective approach you need.
Wake Up the Room, Wake Up Your Voice: Breathing Activities for Teachers
Teaching needs energy. Energy comes through breathing.
There are moments when a class needs lifting: the point after lunch, the final hour of the day, a difficult transition between tasks, or that familiar moment when attention begins to drift and the room seems to lose momentum.
There are also moments when we need lifting.
Teachers use their voices continuously. Our voice is our most useful tool. Yet we rarely give our voices the same preparation that we give our materials.
This Teaching Artistry Tip introduces three simple breath-based activities. The first can be used as a short energiser with learners. The other two are primarily for teachers who want to develop greater awareness of airflow, vocal control and projection.
1. Dragon’s Breath: an energiser for the classroom
Dragon’s Breath is a quick, physical activity for raising energy and bringing attention back into the room.
Stand with your feet comfortably apart. As you breathe in through your nose, shoot both arms upwards. As you breathe out, bring your arms down again. Repeat with a lively rhythm.
The movement is deliberately larger than everyday movement. It gives learners permission to wake up physically, breathe more fully and reconnect with the group.
Try ten to twenty repetitions, depending on the age, energy and needs of the group. Keep the breaths light and comfortable rather than forced. The aim is not to take the biggest possible breath. It is to create movement, rhythm and renewed alertness.
This can work particularly well:
after a long period of seated work;
at the beginning of an early-morning or late-afternoon lesson;
after a break;
before a speaking activity;
when learners seem tired, distracted or low in energy.
You might frame it simply:
“Let’s wake up our bodies and our attention before we begin.”
The activity is also a useful reminder that classroom energy is not only created through entertaining materials or increasingly busy tasks. Sometimes learners need a brief physical reset.
A note of care
Because Dragon’s Breath involves quicker breathing, it should remain short, light and optional. Encourage learners to work at a comfortable pace and return to normal breathing afterwards. Anyone who feels dizzy, uncomfortable or self-conscious can simply use slower movements or observe.
2. The Balloon: practising slow, controlled airflow
The Balloon activity is designed to help teachers notice and practise a long, steady out-breath.
Begin by breathing in gently through your nose. Then breathe out slowly through your mouth, as though you are allowing a balloon to deflate gradually.
Repeat the exercise. This time, make a long, gentle “ssssss” sound as you breathe out.
Try to keep the sound even. Do not push or strain. Notice whether the hiss begins strongly and then collapses, whether your shoulders lift, or whether tension appears in your throat, jaw or neck.
The purpose is not to produce the longest possible sound. It is to explore steady airflow.
Teachers often lose vocal clarity or begin to sound strained when they try to say too much on one breath, push their voice across a noisy room or speak at speed for a long period. This activity can help develop awareness of how breath supports the voice.
3. The Pump: varying the release of breath
The Pump develops the Balloon activity further.
Breathe in gently through your nose. On the out-breath, make four short “ss, ss, ss, ss” sounds, followed by one longer “ssssss.”
Repeat the pattern a few times:
Short, short, short, short, long.
Keep the sound easy and controlled. Think of it as practising different ways of releasing air, rather than forcing it out.
From breath to classroom presence
These activities are not about becoming a different kind of teacher or performing a polished version of yourself.
They are about choice.
When you are aware of your breath, you are more able to notice when your voice is becoming rushed, flat, tight or overly loud. You can pause before repeating an instruction. You can slow down when learners look uncertain. You can use silence rather than filling every moment with talk.
Breath supports voice, but it also supports presence.
A teacher who is physically alert and vocally available is more able to respond to the room: to notice learner energy, to listen, to adapt, and to guide the class without relying only on louder speech or more explanation.
Reflect after your next lesson
After trying one of these activities, ask yourself:
When did the energy of the room need lifting?
How did I respond: through my voice, my movement, my instructions or my presence?
Did I speak with steady breath and clear phrasing?
When did I push my voice unnecessarily?
What changed when I paused before speaking?
Small physical practices can have a surprising effect on the atmosphere of a lesson.
Before your next class, try Dragon’s Breath to wake up the room. Before a demanding teaching day, try the Balloon and the Pump to reconnect with your voice.
Teaching Artistry begins by noticing that the teacher’s body, breath and voice are not separate from the lesson. They are part of how learning feels.
When you enter a classroom breathless, tense or rushed, that appears in your voice. You may speak too quickly, over-explain, raise your volume unnecessarily, or sound less available to learners.
Most teachers know the feeling. You have moved quickly between lessons, dealt with an unexpected problem, answered messages, prepared materials, and then suddenly it is time to teach. Your body may have arrived in the classroom, but your attention has not quite caught up.
Before teaching, take a few minutes to settle your breathing and warm up your voice.
This is a small practice, but it can change the way you begin a lesson.
Try this breathing pattern
Breathe in through your nose for a count of four.
Hold the breath for a count of four.
Breathe out through your mouth for a count of four, making a gentle sound.
Hold for a count of four.
Repeat several times.
The gentle sound on the out-breath helps connect breath and voice. It also gives you a chance to notice what is happening physically.
Does your voice feel tight or forced? Does the sound come easily? Are your shoulders raised? Is your jaw tense? Are you rushing the out-breath?
The aim is not to produce a perfect sound. The aim is simply to arrive more fully in your body before you begin teaching.
As well as warming the voice and making you more calm, grounded and present, but it is also a classroom-management exercise.
A teacher who breathes well is more likely to pause, listen and respond calmly. They are more able to use their voice deliberately rather than reactively.
When we are tense, our teaching can become faster and louder. We may repeat instructions because learners have not understood them, but without noticing that we are speaking too quickly. We may fill every silence because pauses feel uncomfortable. We may use volume to gain attention when a calmer pause, a look or a change in physical position would be more effective.
Breath creates space.
That space can help you choose how to respond when learners look confused, when a task is not working, when someone gives an unexpected answer, or when the energy in the room changes.
Develop awareness of your own voice
Try recording yourself during a lesson. Choose a short moment when you are giving instructions, explaining a task or responding to learners’ questions.
Listen to the recording twice.
The first time, listen for clarity.
Was I speaking too fast?
Did I pause between steps?
Did I emphasise the key words?
Did I give learners time to process?
The second time, listen for emotional tone.
Did I sound calm?
Did I sound impatient?
Did my voice invite learners into the task?
Did I sound rushed or grounded?
Did my tone suggest that learners could ask for help?
Teachers are often trained to focus on what they say: the language point, the instruction, the question, the feedback. Teaching Artistry also asks us to notice how we say it.
This is an exercise in noticing.
Our breath, pace, volume, pauses, facial expression and physical presence all communicate something to learners.
Choose one small vocal habit
After listening to yourself, choose one small habit to work on for a week.
It might be:
pausing before giving instructions;
lowering your volume when you want attention;
breathing before responding;
slowing down when learners look uncertain;
allowing a few seconds of silence after asking a question;
finishing an instruction before moving on to the next one.
Do not try to change everything at once. Small, repeated adjustments are more likely to become part of your teaching presence.
A learner’s perspective
Learners may not remember every word a teacher says, but they often remember how the teacher’s voice made them feel.
A calm, patient voice can communicate safety and confidence. A flat, hurried or irritated voice may create distance, even when the teacher’s words are supportive.
Learners are constantly interpreting tone. They may hear whether the teacher sounds interested, disappointed, bored, angry, rushed or available. They may also decide whether it feels safe to take a risk, ask a question or admit that they have not understood.
Reflect after your next lesson
After teaching, ask yourself:
When did my voice help learners feel calm, focused or interested?
When might my voice have added pressure?
Did I use volume, pause, pace and breath deliberately?
Did I speak from intention, or from tension?
Teaching Artistry begins with small moments of awareness.
Before your next class, take one minute to breathe. Notice your voice. Then enter the room with a little more space, choice and presence.
What AI Can Replace: The Human Encounter at the Heart of Teaching
A glowing cybernetic hand with intricate digital circuits illuminated in a dark setting
One of the buzz questions in education today is whether generative AI will replace human teachers.
For me, the answer is obvious.
AI will transform teaching. It will generate lesson plans, explanations, worksheets, quizzes, reading texts, feedback and assessment materials at remarkable speed. It may take over many of the technical and administrative tasks that currently consume teachers’ time.
But teaching is not, at its core, a technical process.
It is a human encounter.
The theatre director Peter Brook in his book The Empty Space wanted to identify what theatre was at its core. He stripped away the scripts, stages, costumes, lights, theatre buildings and all the usual paraphernalia until he was left with the core: an encounter between actor and spectator.
Everything else could change or disappear. But without that encounter, there was no theatre.
We can carry out the same experiment with education.
Remove the curriculum documents, assessment tools, lesson plans, coursebooks, interactive whiteboards, worksheets and digital platforms. Remove, even, the AI-generated materials that are now becoming part of everyday teaching.
What remains?
A teacher and learners in relationship.
Of course, resources, planning and technology can support learning but they are support mechanisms. They are not the essence of education itself.
At its core, education is an encounter between people.
Think back to a teacher who changed the direction of your life.
Perhaps they changed how you saw a subject, sparked an interest you did not know you had, challenged you at the right moment, or gave you confidence when you doubted yourself.
What do you remember?
Not a worksheet.
Not a lesson plan.
Not an assessment rubric.
What endures is the quality of the encounter: being noticed, being given time, being challenged with care, being protected from humiliation, or being helped to imagine a wider possibility for yourself.
And the opposite is true too.
Many people remember classrooms in which they felt invisible, controlled, dismissed or unable to speak. These memories are not about content. They are about how it felt to be in the room.
That is why the question of AI and teaching cannot be answered simply by comparing what AI can produce with what teachers can produce.
AI can generate content.
But education is not only content.
A simple game, and a crucial difference
Take a very simple activity called “1, 2, 3”.
Two people count to three together, taking turns:
“One.” “Two.” “Three.” “One.” “Two.” “Three.”
It sounds easy.
But when people first try it, someone almost always says “four” instead of returning to “one”. Counting onwards is so deeply built into our habits that it is difficult to override.
This usually produces laughter.
The game feels deceptively simple, but it requires attention, concentration and coordination. Then the numbers can be replaced with sounds, gestures or actions, making the task more challenging and playful.
Now imagine teaching the same game to two AI bots.
They would make no mistakes.
They would play rapidly, accurately and perfectly.
But what would be missing?
There would be no surprised laughter when someone says “four”.
No moment of eye contact when one person realises they have made an error.
No smile of encouragement.
No shared frustration.
No praise.
No sense of achievement.
No emotional charge at all.
The AI bots might complete the task perfectly, but they would not experience the learning.
Human learning is not simply the successful processing of information. It is embodied, social, emotional and relational. It involves risk, uncertainty, attention, confidence, embarrassment, play, trust and recognition.
This is where human teachers remain irreplaceable.
The performative skills of teaching
I refer to these distinctly human capacities as performative skills.
Teaching is inherently performative because it is enacted in real time, in relationship with other people.
Teachers’ voices, timing, attention, use of space, body language, responses and relationships all shape how learning is experienced.
The same correction technique can communicate confidence in a learner’s potential — or public judgement.
The same question can invite thought — or create exposure.
The same task can stimulate curiosity — or feel coercive.
The same silence can create thinking space — or anxiety.
None of these things are determined by the activity itself. They depend on how the teacher brings the activity to life.
This is why technical competence is not enough.
Teacher education has emphasised the importance of well-designed tasks, clear explanations, accurate language analysis and carefully staged activities. Increasingly, AI can support — and outperform — teachers in producing these things efficiently.
But pedagogy is never received in a vacuum.
A lesson is not simply a sequence of procedures.
It is experienced through the teacher’s presence.
The teacher is not merely the person who delivers the material.
The teacher is part of how the material is felt, interpreted and remembered.
What AI cannot fully do
AI may be able to explain grammar and produce better worksheets.
Learners are not simply information processors. They are speaking with incomplete resources. They are risking mistakes, accents, identities and social judgement. They are trying to express themselves in a language they do not yet fully control.
That makes the language classroom a vulnerable space.
And vulnerable spaces need human presence.
The future of teaching is more human, not less
The future of teaching is not a competition between teachers and AI.
AI can become a powerful partner. It can free teachers from repetitive work, generate resources, offer ideas and create more time for the parts of teaching that matter most.
But the more AI can do technically, the more important the human dimension of teaching becomes.
The future of education is not simply better content.
AI will give us more content than we could ever use.
The future of education is creating classrooms where learners feel safe enough to try, recognised enough to contribute and agentive enough to grow.
A computer screen displaying AI data analysis beside a teacher reading to children in a classroom.
AI can already do many things that used to sit at the centre of teaching.
It can explain grammar.
It can generate reading texts.
It can create discussion questions.
It can design worksheets.
It can correct writing.
It can give examples.
It can suggest lesson plans.
It can produce quizzes, summaries, dialogues, feedback and practice tasks in seconds.
For teachers, this can feel exciting.
It can also feel unsettling.
If AI can explain, correct, generate and personalise, what is left for the teacher?
My answer is this:
Presence.
Not presence as charisma.
Not presence as performance.
Not presence as being loud, entertaining or impressive.
I mean teaching presence as the human capacity to notice, respond, connect, reassure, challenge, include and create the emotional conditions in which learning becomes possible.
In the age of AI, this matters more, not less.
AI can generate content. It cannot fully read the room.
A digital tool can produce a beautifully staged grammar explanation.
But it cannot always know when a learner feels embarrassed.
It cannot always sense when the class has gone quiet because they are thinking, or because they are afraid to be wrong.
It cannot fully recognise the difference between productive struggle and emotional shutdown.
It cannot see the learner who almost speaks, then withdraws.
It cannot notice the small shift in posture after public correction.
It cannot always tell when a joke has reduced tension, or when it has made one learner feel exposed.
Teachers do this work constantly.
Often without naming it.
We read faces.
We notice hesitation.
We hear changes in voice.
We feel when the energy of the room changes.
We know when to pause.
When to move closer.
When to step back.
When to soften.
When to challenge.
When to let silence work.
When to rescue.
When not to rescue.
This is not decoration around the “real” teaching.
This is teaching.
Language learning is deeply human
The need for presence is especially strong in language classrooms.
Language learners are not simply processing information.
They are using a developing linguistic repertoire to express themselves in front of others.
They are speaking with incomplete resources.
They are risking error.
They are risking accent.
They are risking identity.
They may feel less intelligent than they are.
Less fluent than they want to be.
Less adult.
Less funny.
Less precise.
Less themselves.
This makes the language classroom a vulnerable space.
And in vulnerable spaces, the teacher’s presence matters enormously.
A learner does not only need an explanation of the present perfect.
They need to feel safe enough to try using it.
They do not only need vocabulary.
They need to feel that their voice matters.
They do not only need correction.
They need correction that preserves dignity.
They do not only need speaking practice.
They need a room where speaking feels possible.
AI may support the technical side of learning.
But teachers shape the human conditions in which learners dare to participate.
The teacher’s behaviour sends signals
Every teacher action communicates something.
A correction can say:
“You are learning.”
Or:
“You are failing.”
A pause can say:
“You have time to think.”
Or:
“Everyone is watching you struggle.”
A question can say:
“Your thinking matters.”
Or:
“I am testing you publicly.”
A task can say:
“You have agency here.”
Or:
“Follow the instructions and comply.”
A teacher’s response to error can say:
“This is safe.”
Or:
“Be careful.”
These signals shape participation.
They shape confidence.
They shape risk-taking.
They shape how learners see themselves.
That is why teaching presence is not simply about being physically or digitally “there”.
It is about how we show up.
How we listen.
How we respond.
How we use silence.
How we handle error.
How we distribute attention.
How we make learners feel seen.
How we create space for agency.
What AI makes more visible
The rise of AI may force us to ask a question we should have been asking all along:
What is distinctively human about teaching?
If the answer is only “explaining content”, then teachers are in trouble.
If the answer is only “providing practice”, then teachers are in trouble.
If the answer is only “correcting language”, then teachers are in trouble.
But teaching has never only been those things.
Teaching is also relational.
Embodied.
Responsive.
Ethical.
Improvisational.
Emotional.
A teacher works with the unpredictable life of the room.
A teacher senses when learners need clarity and when they need courage.
A teacher knows that the same correction can help one learner and humiliate another.
A teacher understands that participation is not only a methodological aim, but an emotional risk.
A teacher can turn a moment of error into trust.
A teacher can make a learner feel capable before they fully are.
That is not easily automated.
Presence can be developed
The danger is that we talk about presence as if it is a gift.
Some teachers “have it”.
Others do not.
I do not believe that.
Presence is not magic.
It is not personality.
It is not extroversion.
It is a professional capacity.
Teachers can learn to become more aware of what their behaviour communicates.
They can learn to notice when the room is moving towards safety or threat.
They can learn to recognise who is being seen and who is disappearing.
They can learn to create space for learner agency.
They can learn to correct in ways that protect dignity.
They can learn to use silence more skilfully.
They can learn to adjust pace, tone, gaze, space and response.
They can rehearse difficult moments before they happen.
They can reflect not only on what they taught, but on how their teaching was experienced.
This is what I call meta-performative awareness:
the teacher’s ability to notice, interpret and adjust the signals their behaviour may be sending to learners.
In the age of AI, this may become one of the most important skills in teacher education.
The future is not less human
There is a lot of talk about how AI will change education.
It will.
It already is.
But perhaps the most important question is not:
What can AI do?
The more important question may be:
What must teachers now do more consciously?
If AI can help with explanation, materials, practice and feedback, then teachers may have more space to focus on what only humans can do well:
Build trust.
Read the room.
Notice vulnerability.
Invite participation.
Protect dignity.
Respond ethically.
Create belonging.
Support identity.
Make learning feel possible.
The future of teaching should not be less human.
It should be more human.
But that will not happen automatically.
Teacher education needs to take presence seriously.
Not as charisma.
Not as performance.
Not as vague “rapport”.
But as a developable professional skill.
Because learners may use AI for practice.
They may use AI for explanations.
They may use AI for correction.
But they will still need teachers who can create classrooms where they feel safe enough to speak, recognised enough to contribute, and agentive enough to become more than they thought they could be.
That is why teaching presence matters more in the age of AI.
If these questions interest you, I’d love to invite you to join the free Performative ELT community — a space for teachers, teacher educators and trainers interested in presence, rapport, embodied learning, drama, facilitation skills and the performative dimensions of teaching.
Most teacher education programmes help teachers think carefully about planning.
What are the aims?
What language is being taught?
What problems might learners have?
What instructions are needed?
What interaction patterns will be used?
What will the teacher do if the task fails?
All of this matters.
But there is another question we do not ask often enough:
What is my behaviour communicating to learners?
Not just:
What am I teaching?
But:
What am I signalling?
This is the starting point for what I call meta-performative awareness.
Meta-performative awareness is the teacher’s ability to notice, interpret and adjust the meanings their behaviour may be communicating to learners.
It is the ability to ask:
Did that correction communicate support or judgement?
Did that silence give learners time to think, or did it make someone feel exposed?
Did my instructions make the task feel manageable, or did they leave learners guessing?
Did my response to that learner’s idea communicate recognition, or did I move on too quickly?
Did I create space for agency, or did I control the lesson so tightly that learners had little room to think?
This is not about personality or charisma
It is not about performing a role in an artificial way.
It is about recognising that teaching is always enacted.
Through voice.
Through timing.
Through gaze.
Through posture.
Through silence.
Through movement.
Through response.
Through the way we handle uncertainty, error, hesitation, humour, confusion and participation.
Teaching is not only what we plan.
It is what learners experience.
Teachers send signals all the time
Every teacher knows the feeling of finishing a lesson and thinking:
That went well.
Or:
Something did not feel right.
But often we cannot say exactly why.
The plan may have been logical.
The materials may have been appropriate.
The instructions may have been clear.
The language focus may have been useful.
And still, something in the room may have felt flat, tense or cautious.
Why?
Because learners are not only responding to the lesson plan.
They are responding to the signals created by the teacher’s behaviour.
A teacher who waits calmly after a learner hesitates may communicate:
You have time.
A teacher who fills the silence too quickly may communicate:
I do not trust you to get there.
A teacher who builds on a learner’s idea may communicate:
Your contribution matters.
A teacher who says “good” and moves on may communicate:
I heard you, but I did not really like what you said.
A teacher who corrects gently may communicate:
This error is part of learning.
A teacher who corrects abruptly may communicate:
Be careful. You are being judged.
These meanings may not be intended.
But they may still be felt.
The three questions teachers should ask
Meta-performative awareness can begin with three simple questions.
1. Am I creating safety or threat?
Language learning involves risk.
Learners speak before they feel ready.
They make errors publicly.
They search for words.
They reveal gaps.
They may sound less fluent, less intelligent, or less themselves than they want to sound.
So teachers need to ask:
Does my behaviour make participation feel safer or riskier?
This does not mean avoiding challenge.
It means making challenge survivable.
Safety is created when teachers normalise error, give thinking time, respond calmly, frame difficulty as part of learning, and protect learner dignity.
Threat is created when teachers use sarcasm, impatience, public exposure, abrupt correction or hidden expectations.
The difference may be small.
But learners feel it.
2. Am I communicating recognition or dismissal?
Learners notice whether their contributions matter.
Recognition is not just praise.
It is the quality of teacher attention.
A learner feels recognised when the teacher listens carefully, remembers what they said, asks a follow-up question, uses their example, acknowledges effort, or takes their thinking seriously.
Dismissal is not always harsh.
Sometimes it is simply moving on too quickly.
Ignoring a contribution.
Giving formulaic praise.
Always nominating the confident learners.
Failing to notice the quiet learner who is trying to enter the conversation.
The question is:
Who feels seen, heard and valued?
And who may be disappearing?
3. Am I supporting agency or controlling the experience?
Teachers need structure.
A lesson without structure can feel confusing, unsafe or inefficient.
But structure is not the same as control.
Agency means learners have some real space to think, choose, question, contribute, explore and repair.
The teacher still guides.
But the learners are not simply following instructions.
They are participating in meaning-making.
Teachers can ask:
Where did learners make decisions?
Where did they test ideas?
Where did they shape the lesson?
Where did I supply the answer too quickly?
Where did I rescue learners before they had time to think?
Agency does not mean doing less teaching.
It means teaching in a way that makes learner thinking visible.
Why this is missing from teacher education
Teacher education often gives teachers useful language for method.
We can talk about task design.
Staging.
Interaction patterns.
Teacher talking time.
Instruction checking.
Language analysis.
Feedback.
Assessment.
But when it comes to presence, rapport and classroom atmosphere, the language often becomes vague.
“She has good rapport.”
“He needs to be more engaging.”
“The class felt a bit flat.”
“The teacher created a nice atmosphere.”
These comments may be true.
But they do not always help teachers develop.
Meta-performative awareness gives us a more practical language.
Instead of saying:
“You need better rapport.”
We can ask:
What did your response to hesitation communicate?
Instead of saying:
“The class was passive.”
We can ask:
Where did learners have genuine agency?
Instead of saying:
“You were supportive.”
We can ask:
What specific behaviours made participation feel safe?
Instead of saying:
“You dominated the lesson.”
We can ask:
When did your clarity become control?
This is the shift.
From vague impressions to observable behaviour.
From personality to practice.
From “good rapport” to “what did the teacher do that created trust, recognition and participation?”
A simple way to develop it
After your next lesson, do not try to analyse everything.
Choose one moment.
A correction.
A silence.
A learner question.
A moment of confusion.
A time when someone laughed.
A time when learners hesitated.
A moment when you moved on.
Then ask:
What did I intend?
What might learners have interpreted?
What evidence did I notice?
Did this moment communicate safety or threat?
Recognition or dismissal?
Agency or control?
What could I try differently next time?
This is not about blaming yourself.
It is not about overthinking every gesture.
It is about becoming more curious about the human meanings of teaching.
Why it matters now
In an age of digital learning and AI, this matters more than ever.
AI can generate explanations.
AI can produce lesson materials.
AI can suggest activities.
AI can correct language.
AI can provide practice.
But AI cannot fully replace the human presence of a teacher who notices the emotional meaning of a classroom moment.
A teacher who senses when a learner feels exposed.
A teacher who knows when to wait.
A teacher who recognises the quiet contribution.
A teacher who turns an error into a shared learning moment.
A teacher who creates safety without lowering expectations.
A teacher who makes learners feel that participation is possible.
This may become one of the most important roles of the teacher in the years ahead.
Not simply delivering content.
But shaping the human conditions in which learning can happen.
The missing skill
Meta-performative awareness is not an extra.
It is not a luxury.
It is not only for drama teachers, extroverts or charismatic performers.
It is a core teaching skill.
Because every lesson communicates.
Every correction communicates.
Every silence communicates.
Every response communicates.
The question is whether we are aware of what our teaching may be saying.
If these questions interest you, I’d love to invite you to join the free Performative ELT community — a space for teachers, teacher educators and trainers interested in presence, rapport, embodied learning, drama, facilitation skills and the performative dimensions of teaching.
In the next post, I’ll explore why teaching presence matters even more in the age of AI — and why the future of teaching may depend not only on what teachers know, but on how they show up.
Error correction is one of the most powerful performative moments in teaching
In language teaching, we often talk about errors as if they are purely linguistic events.
A learner uses the wrong tense.
A word is mispronounced.
A sentence is incomplete.
An article is missing.
A preposition is wrong.
So we correct it. Either through self correction, peer correction or teacher correction.
But in the classroom, an error is never just an error.
It is a moment.
And that moment communicates something.
It may communicate:
“You are learning.”
Or:
“You are failing.”
It may communicate:
“This is safe to try again.”
Or:
“Be careful. You have just been exposed.”
It may communicate:
“Your contribution is worth working with.”
Or:
“Your answer has been rejected.”
This is why error correction is one of the most powerful performative moments in teaching.
Not because correction is bad. It is not.
Learners need feedback. They need support. They need help noticing the gap between what they want to say and what they are able to say. In language classrooms, correction is part of learning.
The question is not whether we correct.
The question is:
What does our correction communicate?
Error and exposure
Language learning is vulnerable because language is personal.
When learners speak, they are not simply displaying knowledge. They are using their voice, accent, identity, intelligence, humour, personality and social self through a language they may not fully control.
This is very different from completing a worksheet silently.
Speaking in another language can feel exposing.
A learner may worry about sounding childish.
They may worry about being laughed at.
They may worry about appearing slow.
They may worry that a mistake will make them look less capable than they really are.
This is why the teacher’s response to error matters so much.
A tiny moment can change the emotional climate of the room.
A raised eyebrow.
A laugh.
An impatient interruption.
A quick “No.”
A correction delivered too publicly.
A teacher moving on before the learner has recovered.
None of these may seem dramatic to the teacher.
But to the learner, the signal may be clear:
Mistakes are dangerous here.
The correction that closes participation
Imagine this moment.
A learner is trying to explain something during feedback. They hesitate, search for a word, and produce an incorrect form.
The teacher immediately says:
“No. We say…”
Then turns to the class and repeats the correct form.
Technically, the correction may be accurate.
But what else has happened?
The learner’s contribution has been interrupted.
The error has become more visible than the idea.
The teacher has taken control of the repair.
The learner has not been given time to self-correct, rethink or try again.
Other learners have received a message too:
Only speak if you are sure.
The danger here is not only shame.
The danger is reduced risk-taking.
Learners may become quieter, safer, more minimal in their responses. They may avoid experimenting with new language. They may wait for the teacher to supply the answer. They may participate only when they feel certain.
The class may still look orderly.
The teacher may still feel efficient.
But the room has changed.
Participation has become more risky.
The correction that keeps dignity intact
Now imagine a different response.
The learner makes the same mistake.
The teacher pauses and says:
“That’s interesting. Let’s work with it.”
Or:
“I understand your idea. Let’s just correct the form.”
Or:
“Nearly. Can you try that again?”
Or:
“Good — the meaning is clear. Now let’s make the sentence more natural.”
In these responses, correction still happens.
Accuracy is still valued.
The teacher is not pretending the error does not matter.
But the signal is different.
The learner’s idea is recognised before the form is corrected.
The mistake becomes material for learning rather than evidence of failure.
The learner is invited into the repair rather than replaced by the teacher.
The moment says:
You are safe.
Your contribution matters.
This error is workable.
You can stay in the conversation.
That is a very different performative message.
Correction as a signal of belief
One of the most important things correction can communicate is belief.
When a teacher corrects with patience, they may be saying:
“I believe you can improve.”
When a teacher gives the learner time to self-repair, they may be saying:
“I trust your thinking.”
When a teacher reformulates without humiliation, they may be saying:
“You belong in this conversation even when your language is incomplete.”
This is not softness.
It is not avoiding standards.
It is not lowering expectations.
In fact, good correction communicates high expectations.
But it does so without making the learner feel smaller.
There is a difference between challenge and threat.
Challenge says:
“You can reach further.”
Threat says:
“You are not safe unless you get it right.”
Language teachers need to know the difference.
The hidden danger of public correction
Public correction is not always wrong.
Sometimes it is useful. Sometimes it is efficient. Sometimes the whole class benefits from noticing a shared issue.
But public correction always needs care because it changes the audience.
The learner is no longer only interacting with the teacher.
They are being seen by the group.
That makes dignity important.
A useful question is:
Am I correcting the language, or exposing the learner?
Another is:
Can the class learn from this without making one learner carry the embarrassment?
There are many ways to protect dignity:
Use the error anonymously.
Collect examples and discuss them later.
Praise the message before working on the form.
Invite peer rehearsal before public feedback.
Give the learner a chance to self-correct.
Correct the whole class when the issue is common.
Use humour only if it reduces tension, never if it makes the learner the joke.
Correction should open learning, not close participation.
Error-normalising is a skill
Some teachers are naturally calm around mistakes.
Others feel pressure.
They worry about time.
They worry that if they do not correct immediately, learners will fossilise errors.
They worry that the lesson will lose focus.
They worry about being judged as insufficiently rigorous.
So they correct quickly.
Sometimes too quickly.
This is why error-normalising should be treated as a professional skill.
Teachers can practise it.
They can rehearse phrases such as:
“Good attempt — let’s correct it.”
“Can you try again with this word?”
“Talk to your partner for ten seconds and repair it together.”
They can practise pausing before correction.
They can practise giving learners time.
They can practise correcting without taking over.
They can practise using errors as shared learning moments rather than individual failures.
This is what I mean by meta-performative awareness.
It is the teacher’s ability to notice not only the error, but the meaning of the correction.
A simple reflection task
After your next lesson, think about one correction moment.
Choose one.
Then ask yourself:
What did I correct?
How did I correct it?
Did I preserve the learner’s dignity?
Did I recognise the learner’s meaning before focusing on form?
Did I give the learner any agency in the repair?
Did the correction make future participation more or less likely?
What signal did I send about errors?
And perhaps most importantly:
Would I want to be corrected that way in a language I was learning?
That final question can be powerful.
Because most teachers know, from their own learning histories, that correction can stay with us.
We remember the teacher who made mistakes feel normal.
We also remember the teacher who made us feel stupid.
Errors are moments of possibility
Every error creates a choice.
We can use it to control.
We can use it to expose.
We can use it to move on quickly.
Or we can use it to build safety, recognition and agency.
A mistake can become a moment of shame.
But it can also become a moment of trust.
It can show learners that the classroom is a place where imperfect language is welcomed, worked with and developed.
That is what language learning needs.
Not a classroom where mistakes disappear.
A classroom where mistakes are safe enough to learn from.
If these questions interest you, I’d love to invite you to join the free Performative ELT community — a space for teachers, teacher educators and trainers interested in presence, rapport, embodied learning, drama, facilitation skills and the performative dimensions of teaching.
In the next post, I’ll explore meta-performative awareness as the missing skill in teacher education: how teachers can learn to notice, interpret and adjust the signals they send.
In the previous post, I argued that “good rapport” is not enough as a way of talking about teaching.
Not because rapport is unimportant.
It is extremely important.
But when we say a teacher has “good rapport”, we need to ask:
What exactly is the teacher doing?
What are learners noticing?
What is the teacher’s behaviour communicating?
This is the starting point for what I call meta-performative awareness: the teacher’s ability to notice what their behaviour may be communicating to learners and to adjust that behaviour in ways that support confidence, safety, agency and identity.
The key idea is simple:
Teachers do not only teach content. They send signals.
A teacher’s voice, pace, gaze, posture, silence, correction, questioning, use of space, response to error, and distribution of attention all communicate meaning.
Sometimes the signal is:
You are safe here.
Sometimes it is:
You are being judged.
Sometimes it is:
Your contribution matters.
Sometimes it is:
I have already moved on.
Sometimes it is:
You have space to think.
Sometimes it is:
Just give me the answer I want.
Of course, teachers cannot fully control how learners interpret them. Learners bring their own histories, cultures, expectations, anxieties, memories and identities into the classroom. The same action may be experienced differently by different learners.
But this does not mean teacher behaviour is neutral.
Far from it.
In language classrooms, small teacher actions can carry enormous meaning because learners are often performing with incomplete resources. They are trying to speak, write, read aloud, interact, pronounce, improvise and make meaning in a language they do not fully control.
That makes participation vulnerable.
And in vulnerable spaces, every teacher action sends a signal.
The safety signal
The first question teachers can ask is:
Does my behaviour make participation feel safer or riskier?
Language learning involves risk. Learners have to try out words and structures before they are fully secure. They may mispronounce something. They may forget a word. They may misunderstand a question. They may sound less fluent, less intelligent, or less adult than they want to sound.
This is why the teacher’s response to error matters so much.
Imagine a learner gives an incorrect answer during feedback.
The teacher says quickly:
“No, not that. Anyone else?”
The lesson continues. Nothing dramatic happens. The teacher may think they have simply corrected efficiently.
But what signal has been sent?
Possibly:
Your answer was not worth working with.
Mistakes interrupt the lesson.
It is safer not to try unless you are sure.
Now imagine a different response:
“Good, that’s a useful mistake. Let’s look at why.”
Or:
“Nearly. Can you try that again with your partner for ten seconds?”
Or:
“That word is tricky. Let’s practise it together.”
The correction still happens. Accuracy is still valued. But the signal changes.
Mistakes become workable.
Participation becomes survivable.
The learner is not exposed as the problem; the error becomes material for learning.
This is one of the most important performative skills in teaching: making error feel safe enough to learn from.
The recognition signal
The second question is:
Who feels seen, heard and taken seriously?
Recognition is not the same as praise.
Praise can be quick, automatic and even empty.
“Good.”
“Excellent.”
“Well done.”
These responses may be positive, but they do not always communicate real recognition.
Recognition happens when the teacher shows that the learner’s contribution has actually been received.
For example:
“That’s an interesting example.”
“Can you say more about that?”
“Let’s use Maria’s sentence on the board.”
“You’ve noticed something important there.”
“Ahmed’s point connects to what we were discussing earlier.”
These responses communicate:
Your thinking matters.
Your contribution has value.
You are not just filling a slot in my lesson plan.
The opposite of recognition is not always criticism. Often, it is simply being missed.
A learner answers, and the teacher moves on too quickly.
A quieter student offers an idea, but it is not taken up.
The same confident learners are nominated again and again.
A learner’s effort is acknowledged only superficially.
Over time, these small moments communicate something powerful:
Some voices matter more than others.
My contribution does not change anything.
I am present, but not really seen.
This is why rapport cannot be separated from attention. Learners notice where teacher attention goes. They notice whose answers are developed, whose ideas are remembered, and whose hesitation receives patience.
Recognition is performed through the quality of teacher attention.
The agency signal
The third question is:
Am I positioning learners as active participants or compliant recipients?
All teaching involves structure. Teachers need to manage time, frame tasks, give instructions, clarify language, support learners and make decisions.
Agency does not mean abandoning structure.
It means using structure to create space for learners to think, choose, contribute and take ownership.
For example, compare these two versions of a vocabulary task.
Version 1:
The teacher explains all the words, gives definitions, asks checking questions, confirms the answers, and moves on.
Version 2:
The teacher gives learners examples, asks them to infer meaning in pairs, invites them to justify their choices, responds to their hypotheses, and then clarifies where necessary.
Both lessons may cover the same vocabulary.
But they send different signals.
The first may communicate:
I have the knowledge. Your role is to receive it.
The second may communicate:
Your thinking is part of the learning process.
This matters because learners are not only learning language. They are also learning what kind of participant they are allowed to become.
Are they allowed to explore?
Are they allowed to question?
Are they allowed to shape examples?
Are they allowed to test ideas?
Are they allowed to contribute meaningfully?
Or are they mainly expected to comply?
Teacher talk, task design, nomination, feedback and classroom management all communicate something about agency.
A teacher may say they want learner-centred lessons, but if they answer every question themselves, fill every silence, control every response and rescue learners before they have time to think, the performative signal may still be:
I do not really trust you to do this.
The same technique can send different signals
This is why teaching is so complex.
No technique is automatically good or bad.
Correction can be supportive or humiliating.
Silence can be thinking time or public exposure.
Teacher talk can clarify or dominate.
Praise can recognise or patronise.
Pair work can create agency or hide confusion.
Instructions can support learners or control them.
The meaning lies not only in the technique itself, but in how it is enacted.
Tone matters.
Timing matters.
Body language matters.
Relationship matters.
Learner history matters.
Classroom culture matters.
This is why I prefer to think in terms of performative lenses rather than fixed rules.
The three lenses are:
Safety Does this moment make participation feel safer or riskier?
Recognition Who is being seen, heard and taken seriously?
Agency Are learners being positioned as compliant recipients or active participants?
These lenses help us look again at ordinary classroom moments.
They help us move from vague feedback to more useful questions.
Instead of saying:
“You had good rapport.”
We might say:
“You took up learners’ ideas and built them into the lesson.”
“You gave learners space to think before supplying the answer.”
Instead of saying:
“The atmosphere felt tense.”
We might ask:
“When did participation start to feel risky?”
“Who stopped contributing?”
“How did the response to error affect the room?”
“Where did learners lose agency?”
This makes teacher development more practical.
Because once we can see the signal, we can rehearse a different one.
A simple reflection task
After your next lesson, choose one moment.
Not the whole lesson.
Just one moment.
Perhaps a correction.
A silence.
A learner question.
A failed instruction.
A moment when learners laughed.
A moment when someone hesitated.
A moment when you moved on quickly.
Then ask yourself:
What did I intend?
What might learners have interpreted?
Did the moment communicate safety or threat?
Did it communicate recognition or dismissal?
Did it support agency or restrict it?
What could I try differently next time?
This is not about becoming self-conscious about every word or gesture.
Teaching is too alive for that.
It is about becoming more aware of the human meanings our teaching creates.
Because learners may forget the worksheet.
They may forget the grammar rule.
They may forget the exact activity.
But they often remember how participation felt.
Safe or risky.
Recognised or ignored.
Possible or impossible.
And very often, those feelings begin with the signals we send.
If these questions interest you, I’d love to invite you to join the free Performative ELT community — a space for teachers, teacher educators and trainers interested in presence, rapport, embodied learning, drama, facilitation skills and the performative dimensions of teaching.
In the next post, I’ll look more closely at error correction and why mistakes are not just linguistic events, but performative moments that can either protect or damage learner confidence.
