Building Rapport with Pupils to Enhance Teaching: Implications from Observing Three Primary Excellent Teachers

Teaching is a social cultural activity. Studies show that good rapport between teachers and pupils may enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning process. A study has been carried out to identify the characteristics of effective mathematics lessons as valued by teachers and pupils in three different types of primary schools in Malaysia. The study involved six primary teachers who were awarded as “Excellent Mathematics Teacher” and their thirty six primary pupils. While analysing the data, we observed building good rapport with pupils emerged to be a significant characteristic of effective teaching. Out of the six participating teachers, three were observed to have built good rapport with their pupils. Therefore, this paper focuses on discussing the strategies and skills of building rapport with pupils by these three teachers. Qualitative data were collected through video-recorded lesson observations, in-depth interviews with the teachers and photo-elicited focus group interview with the pupils. Analysis of the data indicates that various skills such as using non-verbal gestures, act as a playmate, show full concern, understand pupils’ background as well as showing patience and care were used to build up good rapport with pupils.