The document discusses integrating social and emotional learning into teaching practices. It begins by introducing the topic of social awareness and its importance for building relationships. Social awareness allows students to understand others' perspectives and respect social norms. The document then provides examples of classroom strategies to develop social awareness skills, such as creating a supportive environment, fostering cooperation, and teaching social awareness skills explicitly. Key social awareness skills discussed include active listening, observing social cues, responding appropriately, cooperating, and respecting differences. The document emphasizes that cultivating social awareness has lifelong benefits for students' well-being and ability to engage in their communities.

1. Learning to Get Along
How to integrate social and emotional learning
into your teaching practice
Slide commentaries and stories
Created by Spectacle Learning Media
Content developed by Jean Bernard and Alysoun Johnston
Narration and sound design: Jean Bernard, Alysoun Johnston, Eliot Johnston, Michael Johnston
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
License. To view the terms of this license, please go to:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

2. 1
Slide 1 Introduction
Welcome to Module 4, which begins the second
half of the Learning to Get Along course. By now,
you should have collected some new activities for
your SEL toolkit based on the ideas presented in
Modules 1,2, and 3. Some of these may be
adaptations of the examples from around the
world, and perhaps others were inspired by what
the scientists say or perhaps others were locally
originated activities shared with you by your
colleagues. In this module, we transition from self
awareness to social awareness, which is the core
skill area that enables people to build strong and
healthy relationships at school, at work and
throughout their lives. As you now know, this is
not an isolated skill, but is closely intertwined
with emotional self awareness and is related to
the capacity to experience empathy, to be able to
know and feel the emotions of others, to walk in
their shoes.
Slide 2 Inspiration
Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is a neuroscientist,
psychologist and teacher. Her research focuses on
the science of social emotion and self-awareness.
“The emotions that we have about other people
shape the way we feel about ourselves…our brain is
embodied in an ocean of life that sustains and
bolsters us.
Slide 3 Objectives
Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
• Define social awareness and the skills it
encompasses.
• Explain the connections between social
awareness, emotional awareness and
empathy.
• Explain how social awareness skills enhance
personal wellbeing and academic
achievement.

3. 2
Slide 4 Chea’s story
Chea is a 15-year-old schoolboy with a big
heart and a winning smile. Because he was
born with one leg shorter than the other,
he cannot run as fast as the other boys,
but he loves sports just the same. Chea
has always been a good student, but a few
months ago he started to feel sad and
depressed, but no one knew…not even his
parents. Whenever anyone asked how he
was doing, he smiled and said ‘fine’, even
though he felt terrible inside. It would be
shameful, he thought, to let his emotions
show. One day, Chea suddenly told his
parents that wanted to quit school and sell
fish in the market. “What?” said his father, but Chea just hung his head and refused to explain.
The next day, Chea’s father marched to the school and asked to talk to the principal. The principal
greeted him politely. “What is going on with my son?” asked his father. “He was doing very well in
all his classes, but especially at science and math. His heart was set on becoming a pilot.” “Well,”
said the principal, “it’s not unusual for boys Chea’s age to become discouraged. Let me call his
teacher in to see if she can shed some light on what is troubling him. ”
“I’ve tried to talk to him, reported Mrs. Sampang, the science teacher, but he is too embarrassed to
tell me what’s wrong. He just looks away and says, ‘nothing’. But I’ve observed that the other boys
make fun of him outside of class. He is smaller than all of them, he walks with a limp and his voice
has not changed yet. They make fun of him and order him to bring them water at football practice,
but never allow him to join in. They say he is too small and too weak to play on the school team.”
“Well, that behavior is going to stop immediately,” said the principal firmly.
And so the principal marched out to the field where the boys were playing and sat them down in a
circle on the grass. “In our culture”, he began, “it is wrong to be hurtful to another person, even if it
is only with words. ” The boys hung their heads. “How would you like to be treated the way you
have been acting toward your classmate, Chea? Go home and think about it. Then come back to me
tomorrow with your plan for including him on your team.”
The next day, the boys had indeed cooked up a plan with the help of their coach, Mr. Sompong. He
was stern man, but he also had a kind heart. “The principal is right,” he told the boys. “If you
continue being unkind to Chea, you will suffer even worse unkindness from others sometime in your
life. It is very simple. Here’s an idea: Why don’t we make him my assistant? He can help with
equipment and organizing the matches, but not only that. He will learn the rules of the game so
well that over time, he can become qualified as an official referee.”
The boys nodded their heads in silent agreement with plan. Both the principal and Chea’s father
approved, and When the players on the team politely approached Chea to invite him to become the
coach’s assistant, he was overjoyed. He not only learned the rules very quickly, but also learned how
to take charge when there were violations and how to settle disputes. Even though he is still small,
all of the students in the school now look up to him and want to be his friends.

4. 3
Slide 5 What is a ‘social awareness’?
Social awareness is, very simply, the ability to
relate to others. This means being able to take
another person’s perspective, to understand and
respect social norms, for example being polite
and respectful in the way we communicate,
sharing the things we have and know with
others, and taking action to help others when
needed. Social norms are established within the
cultural contexts in which we are born and grow
up, and differ greatly from culture to culture.
That is why when people from different cultural
traditions and different languages come together
in a place of learning or any other context, they
have to work harder than usual to cultivate
positive connections–to listen, to observe, to
respect difference, in other words–to ‘learn to
get along’
Slide 6 Why is social intelligence important?
Cultivating social awareness in children and
young people is important for many reasons; not
only for the well-being of individuals but for the
well-being of whole societies. Cultivating social
awareness in learning spaces has lifelong
benefits. It enables us to have meaningful and
sustained relationships, know how to be a
productive team player, whether at sports, work,
or life. At school, social awareness enables us to
take a constructive role in problem solving,
engage in civil discourse as well as develop and
refine other SEL skills–for example by listening
carefully, respecting the viewpoints of others,
resolving differences and negotiating conflicts.
What could be more important?
Slide 7 What do the scientists say?
We humans are social animals. That is, our
predisposition to live and thrive in groups
reflects the influence of physical and
psychological predispositions that helped our
ancestors not only to survive and reproduce, but
to invent technologies that make instantaneous
communication and travel possible even to the
moon. In other words, we are ‘hardwired’ or
predisposed to behave in certain ways in order
to ensure our continued survival and
development.

5. 4
Slide 7 What do the scientists say? (continued)
What distinguishes human societies is that our brains are designed to: create and use language,
create and use symbols (such as pictures and writing systems to share knowledge and ideas), feel
and express empathy, and adapt to new circumstances (e.g. to learn new languages and
technologies, navigate among diverse social groups and expand our views of the world around us).
Slide 8 And don’t forget the philosophers
Throughout human history, religious leaders and
philosophers have been the main conveyers of
wisdom and ethical codes for how people should
behave toward each other. Most world religions
have a version of the ‘Golden Rule’ such as this
one expressed by the (Chinese philosopher
known in the West as Confucius, who lived and
taught some 2,500 years ago. (“Do not impose
upon others what you would not wish for
yourself”). Personal actions and social rules for
behavior grounded in the ability to feel empathy
is highly valued in most of the world’s diverse
cultures, especially from the perspectives of
philosophy and faith. In some African
philosophical traditions, the very concept of self
is determined by others, as in the Ubuntu
expression, “I am because we are.”
What is your culture or religion’s version of the Golden Rule?
Slide 9 Classroom strategies to help young
people build social awareness skills
So (now that we’ve heard from scientists and
philosophers), we educators know from
experience that in the process of developing
strong social awareness skills, children become
more engaged, happier and more confident
learners. SEL classroom strategies stress the
importance of cooperation and collaboration
at all levels. These strategies include, for
example:
• Create a supportive and welcoming
classroom environmnet.
• Foster cooperation and teamwork.
• Make social awareness skills being
taught explicit and purposeful
• Encourage students to take more than
one perspective on events and issues.
Learning to Get Along
How to Integrate Social and Emotional Learning into Your Teaching Practice
“Do not impose upon others
that which you would not
wish for yourselves.”
And don’t forget the philosophers
8

6. 5
Slide 10 What are the key social awareness
skills?
As discussed in Module 2, a positive school
social climate provides a space that is conducive
in developing certain key social awareness skills.
On this list among these are
• Active listening and observing
• Thinking calmly and carefully
• Responding appropriately
• Cooperating to reach common goals
o Respecting social and cultural norms
o Negotiating interpersonal conflicts
when they arise
Slide 11 Seven strategies for active listening
Of the key social awareness skills, perhaps
the most fundamental is that of listening. An
African proverb advises young people that
‘listening is the most difficult skill to learn
and the most important to have’.
Most classroom strategies for listening stress
that there is a difference between ‘active’ and
‘passive’ listening. Active face-to-face listening
requires giving full attention to the speaker and
trying to understand what the speaker is saying.
When introducing active listening strategies in
your classroom or learning space, explain that
this kind of listening requires concentration,
effort and practice. Over time, consider how you
can design activities that help students learn
these seven strategies:
1. Give full attention to the person who is speaking.
2. Show the speaker that you are listening. Be aware of the effect of your eyes, your facial
expression and your body posture. Look at the person with a kind, patient and welcoming
expression. Don’t fidget, look at your watch or give the impression that you are bored.
3. Try not to interrupt, even if there may be moments of silence that seem uncomfortably
long. Be aware that you do not have to fill the silent spaces. Instead, try to become attuned
to the natural rhythms of the person’s speech and take the person’s emotional state into
account as you decide how and when to respond. You may, for example, use nonverbal
signals or simple expressions like ‘I see,’ or ‘I understand’ to indicate that you are actively
listening.

7. 6
4. Use culturally and socially appropriate ways to show that speaker that you respect and care
about what he or she is saying.
5. Timing is important. When it is clear that the speaker has finished and is waiting for your
response, summarize what you heard and ask if your understanding is correct. This is also a
good time to ask for clarification or further details, but in a non-judgmental way.
6. Think. Actually, you have already been thinking for some time about how you might
respond. A lot depends on the purpose of your whole exchange. Has the person
approached you for help with a problem? Is the exchange part of a learning activity such as
a small group discussion or presentation? Whatever the purpose, it is only at this point that
the role of the listener begins to transition and you decide thoughtfully and with full
awareness what, if anything, you are going to say.
7. As you become experienced at active listening, you also become more thoughtful and
empathetic as a responder. Most people already have a reserve of favorite responses-–a
personal story, an alternate view of the same subject, a joke , a heartfelt consolation, and so
on. Sometimes, however, the best response may be simply to remain in quiet
contemplation, suggest a quiet walk, or show the person something he or she may not be
aware of--a way to do something, a news report, poem, or quotation that affirms what has
been said or offers a different point of view.
Slide 12 Tips for teaching social
awareness skills
Classrooms and learning spaces are places
where people gather to work toward a
common goal—to become educated. Being
educated, though, means more than being
able to read, write and acquire academic
knowledge, however. It means being able to
get along with others in both private and
public life. It means being able to
communicate and work with others to solve
problems. In this way, the classroom, lab or
athletic field all become a place where skills
for social awareness are practiced,
reinforced and learned. Some of the ways
teachers and schools can do this is through:
• Teacher modeling (demonstrating respectful speech and demeanor, never ridicule or ‘put
down’ even when showing disapproval).
• Building of classroom and school as a ‘community of learning’, where community
members are like family, willing and able to help and support one another
• Positive reinforcement of ‘pro-social’ behaviors– this means acknowledging members of
the classroom and school community, when they have done something, no matter how
small, to make the social environment of the school more inclusive, welcoming and
supportive
• Encourage social and emotional learning related to specific subjects, such as science,
math or language both in and out of the classroom. For example, a language teacher
might advise a school drama club to write and perform a play that illustrates how
problems of social exclusion, conflict or bullying can be confronted and resolved.
Learning to Get Along
How to Integrate Social and Emotional Learning into Your Teaching Practice
Tips for teaching social awareness
skills
§ Teacher modeling
§ Building of classroom and school
as a community of learning
§ Positive reinforcement of pro-
social behaviors
§ Subject related SEL activities
12

8. 7
Slide 13 Learning environments matter
A learning environment is more than walls,
windows, desks, and textbooks, although it
is those things, too. Classrooms are, some
theorists say, like living cells that must be
nourished and protected in order to grow
and thrive.
What makes a learning environment ‘good’?
The answer most often lies in the set of
psychosocial conditions as described in
Module 2, and those factors are created
largely by teachers and school staff---they
are alive. When students have strong,
mutually supportive relationships with their
teachers and peers, they are more likely to
become well adjusted, curious and
successful lifelong learners.
Slide 14 Examples of social skill building strategies from around the world
Many school systems as well as local communities and schools have recognized the need to build
children’s social skills. These examples show a wide range of strategies and programs designed to
respond to both local and more broadly to problematic issues such as school violence, exclusion and
individual trauma.
.

9. 8
Slide 15 The takeaway
Slides 16, 17, 18 Self-checkout*
*Make a note of your choices and discuss with colleagues. You can check answers on p. 11 (slide 21)

10. 9

11. 10
Slide 19 Think like a teacher*
*Copy the chart into your journal or display on a board or screen. If possible, discuss with colleagues before
you share or present to others.
Slide 20 What’s next?*

12. 11
Slide 21 Self-checkout answers
Thank you for participating in Module 4. We hope that the ideas and information presented in this
self-learning program are useful to you and your students. We invite you to send your feedback
directly to us at spectaclelearningmedia@gmail.com. We also encourage you to send your own
stories and ideas for classroom strategies or activities related to the themes of Modules 1-6 (listed
below) to the same address. We are planning to set up a platform for sharing these with educators
around the world.
To request a PowerPoint version of Module 4 or for information on how to adapt this course for
your school, district or system, please visit:
https://spectaclelearningmedia.net
Learning to Get Along
How to integrate social and emotional learning into your teaching
practice
1. Understanding SEL – What and why?
2. Implementing SEL – Where, when and how often
3. Emotional awareness – What it is and how it can help
students to take charge of their lives
4. Social awareness – How to help students build strong
social relationships
5. Learning is for everyone – How to make your classroom
and school more inclusive
6. Peace from within – Finding a treatment for bullying that
works in your school