Training teachers in counselling skills: the effects of microcounselling

This paper examines the effects of a programme of microcounselling upon the training of in-service teachers in specific counselling skills. It is argued that differences exist between the patterns of teacher questions common in classrooms and those appropriate in counselling, and that similar differences can be found between the proportion of teacher- and pupil-talk in both settings. It was found that, following microcounselling, teachers significantly reduced the number of closed questions used, and also effected a significant increase in the total amount of pupil talk. In addition, teachers increased their use of open questions, and decreased their overall talk-times, although neither of these results reached the 0.05 level of significance. It is concluded that microcounselling is a promising, if still evolving, technique for training teachers in the skills of counselling.