Coaching People to Drive

 Coaching People to Drive

Here I continue my development from an instructor who instructs with some coaching skills to a coach who also uses instruction. It's taking time and practice to incorporate it in my lessons but things are going well. I am trying to make this all natural before I have another Standards Check so I just breeze through it on the day. Coaching has been used in other industries and particularly in sports for quite some time now and has crossed over into the driving instruction industry. The European HERMES (High Impact Approach for Enhancing Road Safety Through More Effective Communication Skills) Project established how coaching can be used when teaching people to drive. The findings of this project were then incorporated in to the driver training industry.

The GDE (Goals for Driver Education) matrix was used to look at driver education and see what the shortcomings were. Teaching someone how to control a car and recognise road signs didn't do enough to produce safe drivers for life. These were determined to be lower-level competencies which are essential but not sufficient to produce safe drivers. Higher level competencies such as route planning, handling distractions from passengers, paying attention to your own health including stress levels and how fatigue can affect your driving all play an important part in avoiding collisions as well as helping the pupil to evaluate their own driving skills throughout their entire driving career.

Coaching is centered on the learner and engages the body, mind and emotions. It develops inner and outer awareness and promotes a sense of responsibility in the learner. The whole thing is based on an equal relationship between the learner and the coach. Old-style instruction is said to use directive language and is purely instructor-led, simply telling the pupil what to do. A coaching approach uses non-directive language to help the pupil find things out for themselves. But how does this work during driving lessons?

Firstly the instructor needs to establish rapport with the pupil. This means getting to know them a bit and setting up a friendly learning environment where the pupil doesn't feel threatened or intimidated but see themselves as an equal partner with the instructor. Also, it means sussing out how the pupil learns best. Some people like to be shown a diagram whereas some people prefer to watch videos on their own time in between lessons finding that they learn better at their own pace. Holding back from giving pure instruction and using more questions to help the pupil discover their own answers is a big part of coaching. It's best to allow the pupil to set their own goals wherever possible but this can be difficult during the early stages where pupils need talk through to establish basic routines.

The instructor may need to help the pupil ensure that their learning goals are realistic and can be achieved without too much risk being involved. This would form the basis of a discussion between instructor and learner. Some pupils want to forge ahead whatever the risk whereas some tend to hold back too much through lack of confidence. A good instructor will help the pupil to evaluate their own performance rather than telling them how it is. This process of self-evaluation will hopefully continue after passing the driving test and produce safer and more aware drivers. Holding the pupil in positive regard is important. It is so easy for an instructor to take a dim view of a pupil who is rude or simply doesn't try owing to a complaining attitude. We must remember that the pupil is paying for a lesson and expects to be treated well no matter how they are on a particular day. If you don't like the pupil you won't teach them as well as a pupil you do like.

The instructor needs to believe that the pupil can succeed and has the resources to do so. People I believe will never be able to drive are so few and far between. I bet it's only a handful in the 21 years that I have been teaching driving. Sometimes I have to offer serious encouragement and help them think of the benefits of learning to drive. Things they will be able to do when they get their licence that they can't do now. If someone thinks they can't do something they are probably right. If they think they can do something they will. This goes hand in hand with raising the pupil's awareness of themselves and what they can achieve. If the learner feels responsible for the results they produce then it will spur them on to achieve even more goals and ultimately be successful in passing the driving test. Learners need awareness of the external environment like what's happening on the road and driving in sympathy with the vehicle but also inner awareness of how they feel or any health issues. This is something I have begun to focus on in my own lessons. With nervous pupils I get them to rank their confidence on a scale of 1 to 10 and see how this differs from lesson to lesson. As the number goes up over time their confidence increases even more and this has led to serious breakthroughs with some pupils which shows that coaching works.

I'm away to a lesson now to put the coaching principles into practice. Hopefully, I'll have some good stuff to write in my progress diary. I like to measure myself against the standards check criteria regularly to make my teaching the best it can be. Drive safe and watch out for people having local driving lessons Nottingham area.