**5. Emotional intelligence skills training: intervention programs for teachers**

There are programs to reinvigorate and exercise teachers' EI skills, largely ignored in pre-service teacher training, about their practical application. Despite different studies demonstrating the meaning of emotional abilities in teaching [27, 29, 33, 50].

#### *Teachers in the 21st Century: Emotional Intelligence Skills Make the Difference DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103082*

However, despite all this evidence, most teachers do not receive tools in academic training to deal with emotional situations. As previously mentioned, to develop new and necessary skills in students, for the 21st century, a socio-emotional education is defended, for the construction of sustainable humanity [55]. Though to develop these skills, it is essential to have emotionally intelligent teachers, aware of themselves, their abilities, and emotional needs, capable of genuinely promoting and enhancing a safe, caring, and well-managed teaching and learning environment, managing to increase and stimulate the development of these same skills in the students and, mainly, constitute the model for these skills.

Therefore, the inclusion of EI training programs for teachers should be part of their "pedagogical baggage", for which it is necessary to constitute a relevant field of emotional knowledge in their training [29]. Teachers are aware of the need to work on emotional education in the classroom. However, they have neither training nor resources to develop it [56, 57]. In addition, several studies found that emotional abilities can be worked on and developed throughout life [58, 59]. So, EI skills must be learned by teachers, as classes are the emotional learning model with the greatest impact on students, and adequate levels of EI help to face more successfully the setbacks of everyday teachers working life that they are exposed to daily at school context.

To promote teachers' work productivity, Moghanlou and collaborators [60] recommend training EI to improve skills in the workplace and everyday life. Thus, training teachers in their emotional dimension is relevant, through validated training to develop emotional abilities. According to Hernández-Amorós and Urrea-Solano [56] study, teachers also indicate the need for training in EI skills, especially in their initial training and throughout their professional activity.

It is important to emphasize that studies shows that it is possible to improve emotional abilities (identification, understanding, use, expression, and regulation of emotions), with these improvements prevailing over time [58, 61]. This way, through the application of a scientifically validated training program in emotional abilities, the different benefits observed in the trainees were recorded (e.g., increased happiness and satisfaction with life, decreased stress, physical problems, and cortisol rate, increase in their employability and increase the quality of family relationships), compared to individuals in the control group [58, 61]. What is relevant is that these changes prevailed after the training had ended, with its beneficial effects remaining after six months [58] and one year after training [61]. These programs confirm the relevance of the application of Mayer and Salovey's [5] EI model in teacher training, demonstrating that it is possible to develop emotional skills in adulthood and that the learning made during training remains in the trainees' lives.

Considering the studies about the meaning of teachers' EI, several intervention programs for teachers were developed. Hen and Sharabi-Nov [3] through a study with 186 teachers, developed and studied a model, throughout a training course, to address the growing needs of teachers, to practice and implement emotionally intelligent learning environments. The results indicated an increase in teachers' EI and empathy. Both expression and regulation of emotions predicted the development of empathy at the end of the course. The teachers' reflective attributions indicated an increase in emotional awareness, emotional regulation, and understanding of the other.

The intervention program to promote teachers EI, developed by Vesely and collaborators [62] aimed to the reduction of teaching stress through the development of emotional abilities. The program includes modules of emotional self-awareness, expression, understanding, and management of one's own and others' emotions.

The results of this program shows that teachers improve their levels of EI after the intervention. Likewise, improvements have also been found in their levels of resilience and teaching effectiveness. The results even indicated lower levels of stress and greater life satisfaction after one month of the intervention.

Also, Corcoran and Tormey [63] intervention program focused on teachers' EI development through a series of activities that followed the EI approach applied to the workplace, based on the four basic emotional abilities: perception, assimilation, understanding, and regulation. The results show an increase in teachers' emotional regulation. In addition, teachers reported that, after the intervention, they realized the impact of their emotions and the emotional management of their students. Teachers also indicated that, since completing the EI training, they were more aware of their body language in the classroom, and how it influenced their students and used it to their advantage. They also concluded that they dealt more with an empathic approach to managing their students' problem behaviors after the EI intervention program. It should be noted that many teachers reported that the EI training helped them to improve their emotional management in the classroom. In this way, they modified the teaching method or changed the focus of attention depending on the students' emotions perceived by the teacher.

Another way to develop emotional skills in teachers is RULER (Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, Regulating), a systemic evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning. RULER is much about developing a growth mindset about emotions (e.g., emotions matter for learning and decision making) as it is a set of organized skills that can be learned [64]. These skills, based on Mayer and Salovey's [5] EI model: Recognize one's own and others' emotions; Understand the causes and consequences of emotions; Label emotions with varied and precise vocabulary; Express emotions constructively and correctly in different contexts; and Regulate one's own and others' emotions. The development of these five RULER skills relies on four core tools: Charter (builds and sustains positive emotional climates by creating agreed norms about how people want to feel and how they can help each other experience those feelings); Mood Meter (improves self-awareness and social awareness and supports the development of a nuanced vocabulary of emotions and a range of strategies for regulating emotion); Meta-Moment (provides a process for responding to emotional situations with strategies that align with one's best self and support healthy relationships and personal well-being); and Blueprint (supports the development of empathy and conflict resolution skills, serving as a guide for reflecting on conflict and restoring affected communities).

RULER also includes an array of practices and routines designed to enhance children's and adults' lives and positively influence classroom and school climate. For these reasons, RULER is characterized as an approach (i.e., a set of guidelines, principles, and practices to guide social and emotional learning implementation and behavior) rather than just a program (i.e., planned activities) although sequenced and structured programing is one key component [64]. So, RULER is more inclusive as it is focused on the development of EI skills in the school community (school leaders, teachers, staff, students, and families) and it is considered one of the most prestigious and effective programs [65].

RULER training in teachers shows that teachers report higher vigor, dedication, absorption in their work engagement, less burnout, and they also had higher EI scores after training [66]. It should be noted that results of more than 60 educational centers, where RULER was applied, showed that there are higher levels of cordiality, affection, and social connectivity between students and teachers, as well as higher

levels of autonomy and leadership among students. In addition, after the training, teachers also focused more on the interests and motivations of their students [67].

## **6. Conclusions**

The 21st century society is changing at a dizzying pace, and teachers' are facing increasing demands to prepare students for rapid economic, environmental, and social changes. Also, for jobs that have not yet been created, for technologies that have not yet been invented, and to solve social problems that have not yet been anticipated. This task represents a greater challenge in developing countries, where access to information and communication technologies is a privilege, and where inequalities have increased during the two last years. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic affected all those involved in the education process. Thus, if it was already necessary before 2020 to include emotional education in teacher training programs to develop emotional skills, it is now imperative that such training occurs. Therefore, the teaching system in higher education must be also oriented towards the integral development of pre-service teachers, in their emotional and behavioral aspects, to improve their professional performance in the classroom.

Knowing how to read the emotional information and think intelligently about them helps teachers to adapt properly to the events that live daily at school, both with students and with other teachers. Therefore, in recent years, studies have been developed that provide multiple evidence of how EI abilities influence teachers' personal and professional well-being. As seen, the results show that emotionally intelligent teachers have better levels of emotional well-being, professional performance, teacher-student relationships, and better student academic achievement. Thus, teachers need to have EI abilities developed, as these have an important role in the teaching process and in their own well-being. For that, different authors defend several reasons for implementing teachers' emotional education programs [26, 27, 29, 33], stating that emotional skills are essential to human progress. However, despite all this evidence, most teachers do not receive tools in academic training to deal with emotional situations, because in their professional training the academic aspect is prioritized instead of the human aspect. So, it is significant to emphasize the teachers' EI consequence in the teaching role.

For these reasons, throughout the chapter, evidence has been pointed out that allows us to observe the need to develop the teachers' EI as essential to their work. It is, therefore, necessary to have these skills as a complement to intellectual development, both being fundamental elements for the integral development of teachers. The development of emotional abilities enables teachers to better manage the challenges they face daily in their professional activities. In addition, they also increase well-being (e.g., with lower levels of stress and burnout). The importance of developing teachers' EI has been proven with the application of training programs. Therefore, teachers' training in emotional skills is central to the success of their pedagogical practice. Yet, although teachers' emotion is the pillar on which pedagogical practice is built, teachers' academic training has not adopted the emotional education construct as a central part of its assignment in most countries. Moreover, society is increasingly aware of the need for a specific curriculum in the field of emotional skills, mainly in the education area. In this sense, a new model of pre-service teacher education is needed that includes emotional education, as necessary training for future teachers'.

This review concludes with the need for restructuring pre-service teachers' programs since teachers' EI abilities must be considered and included in a compulsory subject of emotional education in the pre-service teachers training. Furthermore, also schools should provide EI training to teachers who face emotional difficulties. Therefore, teacher training policies should give priority to the inclusion of emotional education in the pre-service teacher training, for developing EI skills due to the significance they present in the teaching 21st century.
