Developing Tutoring Skills for Interpersonal Skills Trainers Available to Purchase

One factor which may limit the growth of interpersonal skills training is a shortage of skilled tutors to provide the feedback and guidance which trainees require to improve their performance. Effective tutoring requires both the diagnostic skills to establish what trainees should be doing differently to improve their performance and the interactive skills to put this over in such a way that trainees will accept and act on it. This article describes a model of the processes involved in interactions between people, which is designed to help tutors to identify the key “intervention points” where action can most effectively be taken to improve trainees' skills. This model is then used to show how, by means of role‐played tutoring practice, tutors' interactive skills can be improved in such areas as selection of an appropriate approach, structuring analysis and feedback sessions, verbal and non‐verbal behaviour and achievement of objectives.