Developing Emotionally Intelligent Teachers: A Panacea for Quality Teacher Education

Abstract

Psychologist and Researchers have established that emotional intelligence influence students’ academic achievement, self-efficacy, emotional regulation and motivation. However, in most teachers training institutions in Nigeria there are no facilities and program put in place to teach emotional intelligence skill. A classroom comprise of students from various socio-economic background with different personalities, these students express positive and negative emotions such as happiness, anger, distress and excitement which could influence learning. In the light of this situation, it becomes imperative for teacher educators and administrators of teachers’ training collages to develop emotionally intelligent teachers who have the capacity to regulate their emotions accurately and understand the emotions of students in their various classrooms. This is necessary to assist students become emotionally stable and facilitates the teaching-learning process. Consequently, the paper seeks to examine the concept of emotional intelligence, concept of quality education, concept of teacher education, theories of emotional intelligence and the relevance of training emotionally intelligent teachers for quality teacher education. Finally, the paper recommend amongst others, the inclusion of emotional intelligence skill in the curriculum of teachers training institutions.